The Social Selling Sisterhood Podcast Episode 94- Simplify your business

This blog was transcribed using AI.

Yeah. Hi friend. Welcome to the social selling sisterhood podcast. I am Lindsay Dellinger and I have many titles. High school spanish teacher, dog mom, world traveler and direct seller. I empower women to run your direct sales business is the right way. So you can earn the money. You deserve to live the life of your dreams and travel the world. Now we got that out of the way. Let's get started. Hello? Hello. Hi guys, my name is Lindsay darling er and I am here to do a fund training with you guys all about simplifying your business. Um and some tips to make it simple, not only for you but also for your customers because that's so important. Um Okay, sorry, I'm trying not to I'm trying to do all the tech things. Okay, if this tells you anything about how I am, so I don't know if you want to take advice and we're not. Um I just realised, so I have a Mac and I got a Mac for the first time, I don't know uh I've had this computer for a couple years anyway, I just realized I didn't have to actually unplug the power cord to put my ring light in. Like I just realized there's two holes, there, not just one. So anyway, that's a life changing moment for me. Um so hey guys, I'm Lindsay darling, I'm a high school spanish teacher. I live in the country outside of columbus Ohio, so hopefully my internet stays good. Um sometimes it's not good, sometimes it is good. Um I am, I have earned over 60 years in my network marketing business and I also have a podcast, the social selling sisterhood. So I'm here to share. Um Beth invited me to chat and I am streaming us in multiple places because that's part of my simplify your business. So you don't know what I'm talking about with who invited me, my mentor Beth Graves, I am streaming live right now in Camp Elevate which is her free group from her podcast, which is no boss talk um, but anyway, so I want to talk to you a little bit about keeping it simple and sometimes saving tips and tricks because um honestly, that's the only way that I have been able to have this business because like I mentioned in my high school spanish teacher, usually during the summers, I am traveling not only just traveling but traveling internationally, which can mean um, you know, no wifi, no internet, um, not being able or having the time to connect with people, like literally not being able because I, I usually take students abroad. Um, so next year for 2022 2022 already, um I already have my, like I will be in the United States less than a week um for the entire summer and I will be with groups of people that I'm in charge of the majority of the time. So anyway, what I'm getting at is um I have been able to build this business and really fit it really, really well in my life By making it simple and um it has taken some trial and error. I don't want you to think that it hasn't, I started in the industry in 2015, I've been in a variety of different companies. I started with um nutrition products, I am back in nutrition products, it's kind of just really been um what I love, but along the way, I have done fashion, I have done um all sorts of things, so I have dabbled in, I know how companies work, I've taken little bits and pieces from my learning experience and I'm excited to share that with you guys. So um the first thing I talked about was simplifying is your time and I feel like sometimes this can be like really beaten into us about time management, but I also feel like no matter how many times we hear it, something, you know something new will click in. Um So for a time, one of the very first things that I encourage people to do, if you're like I don't have time to work my business uh is to really take and this can you can do this with a lot of in your business but really take a good honest look at at what you're doing and maybe you need to ask someone else, maybe it's someone that you live with or a friend or a family member or whatever. Um But really be able to, oh my gosh what's the word I want to say, audit. But um audit your time. So you can do this by literally tracking it on a piece of paper. You can pull up your phone and look at screen time. I know every week when my iphone something my screen time for the week and it's like hours a day and I'm like oh my gosh I did not work my business all those hours in the day and you don't have to work your business every time your online either. Um That goes along with giving yourself some grace. But um really getting honest with yourself about where you are wasting your time and where you're really using your time wisely uh and adjusting your schedule as needed. And there is definitely a season and your business where and this will come up several times and it will come up for different reasons where you're going to be uncomfortable and that might be when you're adding in the habit of getting up a little bit earlier or when you are using 10 minutes of your 30 minute lunch break. This is me, this is what I do as a teacher to respond to messages, to check in to make a story so that people are seeing my journey as I go along through and as you start to incorporate those little chunks of time um into your day, you kind of forget about about even doing it. Just kind of comes becomes a second nature. Like my stories, like I share what I take with my nutrition supplements in the morning and it's become such a routine at this point that I don't I almost don't even consider it working my business I'm just sharing. Right? So look at your, you know, look at your time, where are you? So I'll share um away that I have been able to save a little bit of time and this is more personal lifetime, but I um I have a peloton, I love it, right it several times a week. So they came out with um stacking your classes, which just essentially means that you can go into um the app or stand at your bike and you can actually pick ahead of time which classes you're going to take, have them all in a row, so that when you're done with one, the next one just kind of pops up and you can start it if you're doing multiple ones. Um and I don't even think, I think you can just go ahead and just like stack one so that when you're ready to do your workout, you can literally just jump on the bike or you can grab your weights, you can do whatever and go. And I never realized how much time I was actually spending at the peloton, not actually writing the Palestine because I'll get to the screen and I'm like, I think I want to do a 30 minute workout, so I'll click 30 minute workout and I'll start scrolling and I'll keep going and I'm like, I'm I like that one, let me see if I can find a better one And it's like 10, 15 minutes and I'm going down through and I, you know, that's time that I can be using on something else. Good morning, good morning. Hello. It just says Facebook user who said good morning. Um so I can't see who you are, but good morning. So that's just one example of where I have been wasting time that um when I'm using the systems that like peloton came out with and I'm using it wisely and doing a little bit of planning ahead of time, I'm able to save that amount of time and it adds up. Um You know those chunks add up a lot. So time audit, like I said write down some stuff that you're doing um oh hi Camille um write down some stuff that you are doing and well I should get off track. But anyway, another thing that I love to do and I have it right here is my time block. Um This for me works, it might not work for you because everyone does their time management a little bit different. So I time block I have a daily plan, it says what time I'm getting up? This was on a weekend, so I don't like if it's blank, that means it's like my free time to do whatever I want to do or sleep in or do the things. Um, but I had like a mastermind call I put in here lunch. Um I put in here when I'm going to kohl's and target that I'm driving and recording my podcast at the same time. That's one of the ways that I get some stuff in is I um multitask, which a lot of people I know cannot do that and I don't even know that I can do that all the time, but there are some things that I'm able to do. So um another example of my palate on this is just because it's fresh in my mind. Um I'm in a challenge right now called the Power zone challenge and the rides are a little bit more um like the music is not that great to be honest, but they're like difficult and like its endurance rights if that makes sense. So anyway, I'm able, like yesterday I put my phone next to my bike and I listened to a training and just turn the music down on the peloton and I was able to absorb some of the stuff from the training because it was a training that it was like on instagram reels where I'm familiar with reels, but I was just kind of listening to see if they had something new um pop up. But then I was also getting my workout in. I also listen to podcast while I am doing dishes or folding laundry, um cleaning my bathtub. I have a bluetooth speaker, I should have grabbed it that I stick on the wall in my um it's in the wall in my shower and I will pick a podcast in the morning and I listened to it and it really gets, gets me in the right mode. And it also then reminds me, hey, just listen to my podcast. I need to post in my stories about my day, blah, blah, blah. Um, another really cool thing to do with that. Then guys is just screenshot your podcast, the podcast, you're listening to share it in your instagram and facebook stories and tag the host so that then hopefully they'll either interact with you or they'll re share it out every time they re share it out like you want that because then their audience is seeing that as well. So you can get new followers and new eyes on your account. So don't forget to share and give love to your podcast hosts and putting a little plug in there for myself and that's podcast. But I do that with podcast all the time and even people who are big name people, um who's podcasts are really huge. We'll still share myself out. So don't forget to give love and that gratitude toward the people who are helping you train. Um, so anyway, time blocking is a way that I simplify my business. Um okay, let me move on and give you some more actionable text. So I have in the past my business use Tremolo. I like cello a lot because cello was easy for me to share with my virtual assistant, which we'll talk about delegating in just a second, but was easy for me to share with other people um, on my team as well, like I had a team won and it worked. Now I have shifted things. This is how it works in business, right? Um, and I actually just started using air table and I'm obsessed. So I I don't know if I can I can share. Hang on, I'll show you, I'll show you super quick. Just green. Uh Okay. I'm using stream yard right now, which I love stream there. Okay, so this is what air table looks like. This is for my social selling sister had account so I can create my images in Canberra. So here my camera, I made templates for the different types of images that I'm doing and I download them. I pull them up in here and then I can mark done when I've completed them. Um I can put type of post, I can put copy in here what date I put them on there. Which channel. So like I could change this to um you know any of my, you know my social media accounts and it really works nicely because this also has a super user friendly app. Um So I have the app on my phone so I can pull it up, download which picture I want, download the copy if I already had the copy there. Um and just post it. So for me this is simplifying my business because guys, I literally made all of these graphics and did all of this in less than an hour um this past saturday or sunday whenever I I sat down to start playing with this um we stop sharing. So I have invited my virtual assistant to that board and because she was helping me with cello but and I preached cello for a really long time and I still think um for keeping track of my customers, I am going to still use Tremolo but for my content it was bulky to try to use cello. So for me simplifying my business is batch Ng. Which patching is another thing that you can do instead of hourly time blocks, you can batch, which I'll talk about what that means in a second. Um so I batch my content stuck it in there and air table and then um yeah, check out air table for sure and let me know I have um Actually I think I have a referral link. It's free, but you can get credits to use first, like some other like kind of like a cello, like the, like gold gold up or whatever they called it power ups. Um So my, my virtual assistant can get on there now and I'm able to type the copy. So like the words that I want in the capture of my post. And so she's going to be able to help me when I go back to school with making sure I'm staying consistent with posting my content, which is really important to me for growing that um, that site. So that's another way that you can start simplifying is to find something that works for you. Some people really like using google drive and all the features on google drive. I have a google drive, I use it a lot. Um, but right now I'm really loving air table. So that's what I'm doing because if you don't find something that feels really good and fun and aligned for you, like that's bright pink and I put my brand colors, you know, like that feels really good for me and I'm excited to go in there and use it and I love the ease of it, especially with that app. So I'm going to use it. I found myself just naturally pulling away from using my trail aboard because I was like, no, like I just really wasn't feeling it. So then it wasn't starving me anymore. So trust your instincts when you feel that something is like feeling a then then we get to stop, right, we get to stop, we get to shift and we get to pivot bashing since I mentioned that. So, um, some people really love matching other people, really hate matching. This is where. So for your customers for example, I like to and I just made it, I don't have it close enough to grab. Last night I sat here while I was listening to our team huddle and I matched samples because I knew I was going to be getting sample request and I already had something I needed to send out, but I knew I was going to be getting sample requests because our company has a promo going on right now and I'm posting a lot about it in my stories. So I wanted to go ahead and get my samples together. So I had my box out with all of my product, I had my envelopes ready to go. I've got my marker to like go ahead and write on the envelopes, all the people. So I sent them all out at once. And for me, this really makes sense because especially when I'm back working full time and I get a sample, um, you know, on a monday afternoon, a sample request and then I get another one on Tuesday and I get another one on Wednesday and I feel like I'm constantly trying to pull stuff together and then like, oh, I forgot about the Tuesday person. So if I pick one day a week and I make samples on that day, Yes, people aren't going to get it in 24 hours, but I'm not Amazon prime and neither are you, but you know, they're going to get it in a timely fashion and it helps me with my mind to keep everything organized if that doesn't work for you and you're like, and I'm like this with a lot of things, like with an email, I'm like, I need to respond to it right away and like check things off. But for me, like samples getting product out. Um, my content, especially like the, all those graphics users saw, even with my reels saturday, I was feeling very creative and it was beautiful weather outside. So I knew the sun was out and I was going to get good lighting. So I literally guys took a bag, I put several of my different products in it. I put my mickey ears because I make rails with my mickey ears because I'm a Disney lover. Um, I put like three different shirts in it. I live in the country, so no one can see me change on my board. I don't think. Uh, you know, like, I just put like random stuff, I put my tripod and in this bag and I went out to my porch and I made eight reels in an hour. And so now they're all saved as drafts in my phone. So every morning, this week when I wake up, I just clicked the draft and I already have the captions and everything ready to go, and I just click post. It makes my business so simple Now. It does take a little bit of prep work and I do it and this does kind of counterintuitive to my, um, my time blocking, but I do it when I feel that energy where I'm like I should make somewhere else today. Um And I don't mean should in a place of coming from like guilt like I have to do it, I mean it's beautiful outside, I'm feeling excited about my business, I feel like I have good energy right now so I'm gonna go make some stuff for my business. I don't ever work my business if I'm coming from a place of bad energy, like if I'm having an off day, if I'm having a day where um you know it's nasty outside, my energy is low, I'm not going to do, I'm not going to do things in my business that are directly um interacting with people or that are going to draw people to me because I'm going to attract the wrong kind of energy. So that might be a day where I send out samples, write thank you notes, you know, whatever. Okay, I have way too much on this list to talk about for the amount of time we have in this training. So I'm gonna like skip around just a little bit. Already mentioned, some templates, um, utilised things and systems and um videos or whatever you already have in place for you. So if you have an amazing team group and last, there's some real reason that you need to create your own, don't, don't recreate the wheel, use the resources that have been made for you or tweak them a little bit. But My big, my big rule for, for me and my team is, you know, at least 80% of the time that you're working on your business needs to be something that is directly going to bring you money. That's what we call an income producing activity. Things that don't bring you money, are recreating your new consultant onboarding list, you know, like there's all kinds of things that are not directly bringing you in front of new people um it could be, gosh, I can't even think of all the things that are bringing, but you know, I mean, you know, so that 20% of time I um that is not my income producing activities, I am reading a book, I'm listening to a training, I am checking in my team groups, those aren't necessarily bringing the money, right, but I'm very deliberate and intentional about that time because you can spend all of your time on scrolling or are making cute little graphics or you know, stuff like that um but then you're going to notice that your business is not moving forward the way you wanted to move forward and there was something that just came to me when I said that it went away. But simplify. Simplify, simplify what can you cut out? So going along with your income producing activities, what can you cut out? That, that doesn't need to happen. So if you um, especially if you kind of have your basics down of social selling, you know, you need to connect with people, you know, you need to show up on social media, you know, you need to get products in people's hands. That's pretty much what we do on repeat, right? Um so what can you cut out? Do you need to be on On a 4th social media site? Is it actually bringing people to you? Do you need to be Whatever, do you need to be listening to a second training today or do you need to spend that 20 minutes of time on connecting with your customers and Oh I know what else um with not recreating the wheel. Does your company have a sample site? So like the company that I'm with does have a sample site. So yes, I spent some time last night making samples because I want to add some extra stuff in it. But I'll tell you what guys, the first, my very first part of my business and what will probably happen when I go back to school and I'm not so on top of matching those samples to mail out myself, I'm going to send people a link to my sample site and let the company send it for me. Um It's actually cheaper that way after I did the math. It's cheaper that way and it saves me so much time and then I can spend that time connecting with people through in boxes right? So where can you kind of cut those corners out and utilize what is already given to you instead of recreating the wheel? Let's see. Um some other ways, I'm just going to list these that you can simplify things a little bit if you were doing vendor events or you have catalogs or you're doing mail outs, I love Q. R. Code stickers. Um you can also create the QR code and like have it printed on a postcard or something like that. I love QR codes because people just take their phone scan it and it goes right to wherever you want to send them, whether that is a customer group, whether that is your website wherever you want them to go, it could be to your link tree which is another, the thing that I love link tree or milkshake. Link tree is a little bit more um simplified for lack of a better word, it's one page, it's got all your links that you want anyone to see. And then a milkshake is usually three, I think it's three pages when you swipe, it's a little bit more of a website, feel does the same sort of thing, has your links, you can customize it. Link trees, Lanktree, Milkshake are both free. Um Milkshake has more Features for the free version. Then link tree is like, it was a little limited, you can still have an amazing link tree without paying, I used to pay for it and I canceled the, it was like $5 a month. Um and that's the other thing is you're starting to simplify, I just went through and cancelled a bunch of subscriptions for things that I didn't actually need. Like did I need like um one thing that I get to cancel actually that I need to write down is to cancel, I pay extra for cal inlay Caroline lee is like a scheduling service. Um So if you're doing a lot of calls, if you're watching this, you're coaching industry or service industry or maybe you set up calls for your prospects. Um I think the only reason I paid was because I wanted to different types of calls, I don't really need to different types of calls. So that's something that I get to simplify and then I'm saving money as well. Uh Okay I'm just gonna do a couple more because like I said, I have been talking forever notifications off on your phone, this has been huge. You have to have boundaries in your business or you're gonna hate your business. It just and I have gotten to that point guys and that's how I know. So my notifications are off for every app except my texting my calendar and obviously like my my phone rings when people call. Unless I have it on silent. So um and even my texting notifications, I don't get a sound notification, it just like pops up on my screen and I really had to do this, hey beth I really had to do this for interacting not only with my team but also my customers because you know I would be at work or I would be on a trip or this or that and there's no such thing as an emergency in your business. There just isn't like there, it's not gonna happen. Like nothing is going to go down where you have to respond to it right that second. So one of the ways that I have streamlines that process is I know that I'm going to check my phone in the morning, not first thing in the morning, I'm not responding to anybody's messages while I'm laying in bed. You know, I'm going about my morning routine and then I will get to my business messages, which most of my facebook messages or business messages. Um I check in at lunchtime and I'll check it again at dinner. Now. I might check it a few more times in between there, but that's more like my pleasure checking it, you know, um And I don't feel the need to check in on all of the group chats that I meant and all of the business chats I'm in. Um because I also found that that creates people being um you know dependent upon you. And it's really stopping, especially if you have a team, those people from being leaders and it's scaring your customers off a little bit from wanting to join you in this business because they're going to see that you're responding to them immediately all the time. And when you approach them about the business there will be like, oh I don't have time, I don't have time for that, right? Because it's looking like you're available to people all the time. So it's good for your business. It's good for your mental health. Turn off those notifications, I promise you it will make a world of difference. Like my life is, my life has never been better. Um I usually get to my business things by noon. Is that too late? No, not at all. And you know what? Especially if you have a team um or if someone messages you in the morning and then you have a responding and they message you again. Like they're kind of annoyed. I just say, hey thanks so much. I'm just now getting back to you because I work my business from going to blank. I respond to messages from 12 to 1 or I respond to messages while I'm eating lunch or after my lunch break. I mean people don't need to know all the things right. But especially if you do have a bigger team or something like that, then it helps for you to let them know. I respond to my messages once a day and I checked them in the evening. That's fine. Right? Like I said earlier, we're not amazon prime, you're not a huge organization. Like you're not a huge corporation and we do this business for time freedom and for financial freedom and because we enjoy it and we really love it. Those sorts of restrictions are really going to um stop you from loving all of those things. Yes, mute them. I mean like my phone is always so nice and clean. I I do not do notifications like facebook no more notifications at all. Nothing pops up. Like I have to be intentional and that helps with my time blocking. I know I'm going to do instagram for 10 minutes in the morning, 10 minutes in the evening. Done okay. Um And that also really helps. I feel like with the comparison to but that's that could be a whole other trading. Um I think guys oh the very last thing that I wanna talk about about simplifying things is um I use keyboard shortcuts in my phone. I think I know you can do it on a map to. I'm not sure about I appreciate you. Not on windows too but I don't know how so basically what I do is um it's in your settings. Yeah and I hope by picking up my phone I didn't mess up my volume. I do that sometimes with my computer. But um if I pull up my keyboard, pull it up so I can share with some of the things that I have in here and I need to add a lot more actually. Well I don't need to tell them exactly if I know some of them. So I have my my link tree, my website, my sample site. Those are all a keyboard shortcut. My hashtags that I frequently use um have different shortcuts so I can set it up where I put all of them in the text replacement. It's called keyboard shortcut. Text replacement. So I can put it all in the text replacement and put like when I type in three hashtags then um all of my hashtag pop up. So that is a huge time saver. It simplifies things so much. So you know, if after you send a sample for example, you normally say, hey beth I just got your sample in the mail today. Please let me know when you get it. So I can give you day one instructions. If that's what you send every time you send a sample, make that a text shortcut. So you can stick it in and write like sample sense and whenever you type sample sent in your messages or on your phone or whatever that message is going to pop up and you can, you know, you can modify it if you want, whatever all the things but that has been huge. So I have one for example and I'm just going to share. I have one that says like Team Love and it's all one word. So if I type in Team Love a message pops up that I send my PMS, two people on my team and it just says, hey spot for name. Um, I hope you're having a fabulous day. I haven't talked to in a while. How are things going? And that's something that I sent to members of my team. So that um, it makes it really simple for me to do a bunch of check ins at once and then when they respond then of course they don't get a, you know, a copy pasting message. But it's my words, it's my energy and there. But it's just those things that I find myself saying over and over again that can really simplify and help you get more done in your working time. All right guys, I hope you found this helpful. I know I was a little bit all over the place. I apologize. Um I'm like simplifying your business. I have all these tips, I have to share all the things. My biggest thing like um Beth had said in her podcast is not recreating the wheel she shared about creating a loom video. So any time you get a question, create a loom video so that you can, you know, just send a quick video and show people how it's done. Same thing with text replacement. If you find yourself saying the same thing over and over again, make a text replacement coach so that you don't have to type it all the time and um you know, just all the other sorts of things that I mentioned that you can do with really managing your time really well and getting your system's down can really move your business forward. So so much so I hope this was helpful. I hope you will find me um on social. I'd love to connect with you guys and um have a great rest of your day. Bye guys.