WomenCorp Radio

Question From A Reader...

Greetings Roxanne: My BIGGEST personal challenge in home business (besides the challenge of walking through the kitchen several times a day without stopping to snack) is: I know well how to organize my business, then I get too busy to "put it where it belongs", then I am too busy to clean that up - hence, piles of papers! I have the FAST TRACK tape named: IF YOU HAVEN'T GOT TIME TO DO IT RIGHT THE FIRST TIME, WHERE ARE YOU GOING TO GET THE TIME TO DO IT AGAIN? - I have learned a few very good points from that tape which have helped, but not taking time to put the paper away is still my biggest issue. Funny how seeing it written here makes it seem so ridiculously simple: Don't put it down except where it belongs! Thanks again. Joy

Roxanne's Answer...

Ha! It seems you've discovered the answer all by yourself.

An alternative is to find a high school student or parent who wants part-time work a couple of days a week and pay them to organize for you which frees you up to find clients. If you hate doing something, it's almost assured it takes you twice as long as someone else who likes it. Therefore, you're draining your energy and resources to focus on things you don't like when you could focus on income producing activities that you do like where your professional skills are most valuable. To run a profitable business you have to think like a manager and delegate.

Another way to look at it is...
You only have so much time in a day. You can spend your time on the money making activity and be worth $50-$100 an hour, then pay someone $7-$10 an hour to do the lower level work. OR, you can split your time between money making and administrative work and reduce your per hour value in half. When looked at this way, you can see how paying someone else is actually saving your money OR enabling you to make more money.

Reader Question...

You speak of marketing and sales techniques. Isn't public speaking part of this? What can someone do to improve their public speaking or communication skills?

Roxanne's Answer...

The answer is YES! public speaking is definitely one of the great ways to capture prospects. I've known master marketers who got all their prospects that way.

You can only improve your public speaking abilities by practice. I know that’s scary but that’s why organizations like Toastmasters are excellent for people who want to do this because you’re in a room with a lot of other people who have the same fears and goals. So you are all practicing.

The first thing you need to know about public speaking is you have just a few seconds to capture someone’s interest. But many speakers start off with all the gory details of who they are, who their company is, blah,blah,blah. Who cares?! Your introduction doesn’t need to be blah,blah,blah and blah. It needs to be ATTENTION GRABBING. Make a bold statement, a headline if you will.

A bold statement for someone presenting an educational product or service might be “87% of students will fail one course in the next five years”.

For someone who is a financial advisor looking for more clients, they might start with…
“One in four of you in this room will no longer be working for the same company or working at all in the next three years and 70% are unprepared!”

For someone selling a management program it might be…
“The most successful people are those who are good at plan B !…..James Yorke said that and it’s true. The problem lies in that most people don’t have a plan “B” and are flying by the seat of their pants. It is said that those who fail to plan, plan to fail. Where are you in your business…failing to plan or planning to succeed?”

You can get headline ideas to grab attention by looking through magazines and books to see what short phrase, story or "headline" grabs your attention.

The point is...if you're going to use public speaking to get prospects and clients, make sure you are worth listening to!

Happy Prospecting!
Roxanne