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Ok.  So you have picked a goal you want to achieve with Alison’s Pantry.  Let’s say your goal is to sell $3000 every month.  What are you going to do to get there?  First of all you need to know where you are now.

Take your last month’s total sales (or average the last 3 months if you want to be really accurate).  Count how many customers you had order.  Divide the sales by the amount of customers.

So let’s say your order was $2,250.00 and you had 28 customers ordering.

2,250.00 ÷28= 80.  This means your average customer orders $80 per month.

Do one more math problem: 3,000 ÷80=37.5

If you want a $3,000 order you will need to get 37.5 customers to order every month (increasing your customers ordering by 10) or you need to get your customers to spend more money each month.

Let’s make a plan for both.  How can you get your customers to spend more money each month?  Here are some ideas.  Pick a few you like:

1. Tell your customers about special offers. In catalog #1 if a customer ordered $75 they received popcorn chicken for $4.99. If your customer’s order is $65 or $125, tell them about the special offer.  “We are offering our yummy popcorn chicken for $4.99 and  I see you almost qualify.  Would you like to bump up your order so I can add a bag (or another bag) to your order?”
2. Hot deals. Post on Facebook.  Send an email.  Offer to reserve them for your customers.
3. If your customer orders a cookies sheet, tell them about our awesome parchment paper.  If they buy spices, they will need the spice jars to store them in.  Upselling is Not about being a pushy salesman.  It’s about giving your customer a better experience with their products.
4. Have a contest, a drawing, or give a free gift to someone who orders $75 or more. Or $100 or more.  Get creative.
5. Point out sales and new products in the catalogs.
6. Do what Jamie Ashcraft from Sugar City, Idaho does: tell all your customers what you are ordering this month and why. They will want what you want.

There are a million and one ways to get new customers. Here are just a few ideas. Pick one.  Or two.  Plan to do them this month.

1. Make a new list of people to give a catalog to and tell them about AP.
2. Post on a Facebook classifieds group.
3. Ask current customers for a referral with an incentive. It looks like this, “Cindy.  You are such a great customer and I am really trying to grow my AP business.  Do you know anyone who might want to buy Alison’s Pantry?  Will you share this catalog at work?  Or will you share this catalog with your mom?  For every order you give me over ___ amount I will give you free shipping, or a gift, or a discount.” Then FOLLLOW UP is key.   After a week or so say, “Cindy.  Did you have a chance to take the catalog to work?  Did anyone want to buy?  Or did you give the catalog to your mom?  What did she think?”

1. Carry extra catalogs in your car and give them to people who you can contact again for an order.
2. DO NOT place a pile of catalogs in a store or office randomly. People want to order but if you have no way to call them or text them you won’t get an order and you have wasted a catalog.
3. DO take samples into your doctor’s office at lunch time when everyone is hungry. Do tell them about AP.  Do tell them you will call back in a few days or come in and ask for their orders.   Then do it.

As RSMs our job is to help you grow your sales.  Please call your RSM for more help and more ideas to reach your AP goals.

Julie

This is Isaac after he reached the top of the mountain on our family hike.  Success feels so good!

Everybody knows how to set goals. I think the problem comes when you have set a goal and then it doesn’t happen right away or you run into a snag and you give up, telling yourself you can’t accomplish it so why try?  And then you stop setting  goals.

I come from a very goal oriented family and every year growing up we would make New Year’s Resolutions.  Several years ago I was discussing my New Year’s Resolutions with my dad and he was asking me how they were coming.  I told him I was discouraged because I had set so many goals and only a few of them I had accomplished.  He said something profound to me that I never forgot – “But look at the 3 goals you accomplished!”  Of the many goals I had set, 3 had been accomplished.  I was different, I had changed and I had been successful at 3 things!  What if I had never set the goals in the first place?  Changing my perspective changed everything.  Instead of concentrating on what didn’t happen, I focused on what I did do.  Now I always have several goals I am working on at a time and even if I only accomplish a little bit; or even if I am only successful for a short while; I am better than I was – and that is exciting!

Can I say a few words about starting over?  Changing anything about your life is hard work regardless of if it’s eating healthy or to stop yelling at your family.  The secret to success is starting over.  Every day.  If you have a slip up beating yourself up over it doesn’t make you better, but starting over does.  I used to feel so guilty when I didn’t accomplish what I set out to do until I changed my mind set.  We will always make mistakes.  Success is a back and forth dance; two steps forward, one step back.  When you take the step back, you don’t give up, you move forward!  There is a Japanese proverb that states “Fall seven times, stand up eight.”

My dear friend Jolene painted this picture and it hangs in my office. 

So how does this all apply to Alison’s Pantry?  Do you have a goal for your AP business or are you so busy and stressed out you just do the next thing on your list?  Set goals!  You would never get in the car and just randomly drive for days.  If you were going somewhere, wouldn’t you want to know where you are going?  Set big goals like how much you want to sell by the end of the year.  And set small goals to get there like how many new customers you need to get this month.

There are so many things to know about setting goals, but here are 3 important ones:

1. Reward yourself – each goal needs a reward for when it’s reached.
2. Set long –term goals, but break it down into manageable parts; today, tomorrow, this week, this month.
3. Schedule it on your calendar. When is it going to happen?

So if my goal is to get 5 new customers this month this is what I would do:

1. Make a list of people I have not yet given a catalog to and set a time to give it to them and tell them about how awesome AP is.
2. Choose 5 of my best customers, set a time to give them an extra catalog and ask them for referrals, offering an incentive.
3. FOLLOW UP with those new people who got a catalog and those customers I asked for referrals.

Simple.  Easy.  Straight forward.  Putting it on the calendar takes the stress out of it because I know when it’s going to happen and I don’t need to worry about it.  And the reward at the end of the month is the incentive I need to make it happen.

Good luck with your goal setting!

Julie

I was a bit skeptical when my friend Maggie told me about vision boards and how they had helped her.  I thought about the idea for a long time before I finally made one.  Can I tell you, making a vision board CHANGED MY LIFE!  I made my first one last January when I was facing a lot of challenges.  And I dreamed big!  Some of the things I put on there I knew there was no possible way they could happen but I did it anyway.  I posted it in my office where I would see it every day.  In about October I was looking at my board (again) and I started to notice all of the things that had come true from my board.   I was amazed!  By December it was unbelievable!  Not everything I put on my vision board last year happened – yet.  And I worked really hard to reach my goals.  But making a vision board brought the possibilities to life and created opportunities for my dreams to become a reality.

Do you want a great way to change your life?  Make a vision board!   “A vision board is a tool used to help clarify, concentrate and maintain focus on a specific life goal. Literally, a vision board is any sort of board on which you display images that represent whatever you want to be, do or have in your life.”

Why should you make a vision board? “Creating a sacred space that displays what you want actually does bring it to life. What we focus on expands. When you create a vision board and place it in a space where you see it often, you essentially end up doing short visualization exercises throughout the day.

Visualization is one of the most powerful mind exercises you can do. According to the popular book The Secret, “The law of attraction is forming your entire life experience and it is doing that through your thoughts. When you are visualizing, you are emitting a powerful frequency out into the Universe.”    Elizabeth Rider

I put a picture of a van on my vision board in January.  Here is a picture of my new van I bought the day after Thanksgiving.

This is me and my Dad.  One thing on my vision board was biking.  In 2015 I biked over 1500 miles (my dad age 67 rode double that).

Steps to make a vision board:

1. What do you want? Make a list of things you want to accomplish, things you want to have, relationships, who you want to be, and what goals you have for your Alison’s Pantry business. The possibilities are endless.
2. Go to Google Images and do a search of pictures that represent your goals then save them and print them. Or cut out pictures from magazines and add family photos or other pictures of important places, things and people.
3. Cut them out and post them on a cork board, a poster board, the wall. Just make a display that you can hang somewhere that you will see it every day.
4. Look at your vision board every day and watch amazing things happen!

You can get more great information about vision boards here and here and one more here.

Julie

New Alison’s Pantry Representatives now view these helpful updated training videos when they start their AP business.  Even experienced Reps can sometimes use a review, so we’ve added links to the videos here for your future reference.

Introduction to your new Alison’s Pantry Business

Portals Training