Happy New Year! In honor of New Year’s resolutions, clean slates, and fresh, positive energy, we’re talking about new business habits on the podcast this week. We’re sharing the January done-for-you training from inside the Modern Direct Seller Academy, which is all around simple new strategies that you might want to consider adopting in your day-to-day business, as well as ways to do so effectively—from reminders to rewards to regularity—in order to see growth across the board in 2024.

Time based notes:

• 0:37 Intro to 2024
• 4:14 Direct sales resolutions
• 5:11 Consistently, not constantly
• 6:37 Intentional work time
• 9:06 Proactive selling conversations
• 11:12 Fill the customer pipeline
• 13:45 Consistent marketing strategies
• 15:06 Commit to new habits
• 17:09 Happy New Year!

Simple New Strategies for Your 2024 Business

Happy New Year! I don’t know about you, but something about 2024 is feeling great to me. Maybe it’s because January 1 was on a Monday, which really make it feel like a brand-new, fresh start to the year. There’s so much hope and excitement for what’s in front of us. So, I decided that it would be fun to share our Modern Direct Seller Academy done-for-you training for the month of January, which is all around the new year and new you.

After working in this industry for years now, there’s a few typical New Year’s resolutions thrown around by direct sellers. We’ve consolidated them into one discussion about the business habits that you might consider adopting in the new year when you’re thinking about how to build a business into that lifestyle that you’re dreaming to create.

First, one of the things I hear a lot as we kick off the new year is that feeling of not wanting to work a business constantly, but the importance of showing up consistently. When I polled a lot of our leaders and asked them what they’re looking for training on this year, many said, “I’m looking for training on how to have a business and also a personal life.” And, that’s really where this New Year’s resolution comes into play. When we’re thinking about working our business consistently, we are carving out a dedicated amount of time and focusing on those things that matter most.

Now, I’m a strong believer that active selling, building relationships, and creating content are the three things—ABCs—that you need to be focused on every single day in your business. What you don’t need is to be constantly on, responding to every text and every incoming message right away. Things can wait. It’s okay to let things simmer for a minute before you get back to people and help somebody complete that sale, or that order, or help that teammate. So, in the new year, my challenge to you is to work your business consistently, but not constantly.

The next one, which really goes hand-in-hand, is having intentional, focused work time. Now, this is a big one. Because, when we’re struggling with working our business constantly, not consistently, it’s often because we have not identified the working business hours that we are sitting down and getting things done. So, that’s the first step, is knowing when you’re working and when you are not working. And, when you are working, it’s really important to turn off all the distractions.

Now, I get it; I get a million notifications on all the platforms all the time. So, I love the Chrome extension for Facebook called the News Feed Eradicator. Essentially, what it does is turn off your news feed. If you want to go check up on someone or find a Group, you can type it in and get there, but you’re not going to see the algorithm curating a feed of what it thinks you might want to look at. That News Feed Eradicator is huge in avoiding the scroll hole—where we start scrolling, scrolling, scrolling, and before we know it, several hours have gone by, and all we’ve done is watched a whole lot of Reels.

For me, I know when I’m sitting down at my laptop, that’s when I’m really focused on my business work and I switch into that no-distraction, no-scroll-hole kind of mode. And, I think it’s important to communicate this with others, right? We all have loved ones around. So, it’s important to say, “Hey, I am working my business every night from seven o’clock to eight o’clock, so if I can just have that dedicated time without distractions and interruptions, that’s going to help me be more productive and get more done more efficiently.” Don’t be shy about communicating those boundaries or those designated work times with the people around you, so they can help hold you accountable, but also give you the space that you need to actually get that work done.

The next New Year’s revolution we hear a lot is proactive selling. I really describe active selling as actually asking for a sale, right? Actually asking, one to one, “Hey, can I get that ordered for you? Hey, can I help you check out? Hey, did you want to place a reorder?” Any of those conversations are proactively selling. We’re not waiting for people to come to us. We’re actually asking.

Now, this feels a little bit more feasible when we have parties or events happening, because we have people standing in front of us, waiting for us to ask them to make a purchase. Where this gets a little bit more challenging is when we’re practicing daily selling. So, that’s a really great habit to get into when we’re thinking about working our business consistently and focusing on the most important things. Ask people, “Hey, are you ready for a reorder?” You can do that in between the big events that you might have going on in your business.

When we are setting our goals and prioritizing those income-producing activities, it’s also important to make sure that our goals match the activities that we have planned for the month. I can’t tell you how many times we’ve heard that people have goals of $10,000 in sales, and then, when we’re asking, “What are you doing to get those sales?” They have an empty calendar. So, it’s really, really important that, if you’re going to set a big sales goal, you have the active selling strategies in place—whether those are events, or fundraisers, or personal shopping appointments, or daily selling—to back that.

In fact, I’m going to take it a step further and really challenge you in the new year to work on getting one sale each day. That consistency, that daily habit of having sales coming in on the regular, not only fuels our paycheck, but it makes us feel really, really good and competent in our business, as well. So, think about what your sales goal is, and think about those active selling strategies that you are going to fit into your calendar to make sure that those goals are not only realistic, but become a reality.

Another new habit for you this year should be to really focus on filling your customer pipeline. In the past, we really loved on our existing customers, right? We have people that shop with us on the regular. They love us. They love seeing us show up in our Facebook Groups. They love that we spoil them. But, the reality is, to grow your business and hit those big goals that you’ve set for the new year, it’s going to be incredibly important to focus on the new. How do you bring in new leads? How do you bring in new customers? The answer is: by building relationships.

So, you all know my 3 + 3 + 3 = 3000 equation. It leads to nine conversations each and every day in our business, and it’s completely doable. It is so much easier to ask for a sale after you’ve built a relationship on some level with that customer, and when you have those relationship-building conversations on the regular, that is going to fuel your pipeline for new customers.

Also, rather than only serving those existing customers, or going back to the same people over and over and over, or feeling stuck in that friend circle, we really want to step out beyond that. And, to do that, you’re probably going to need to create some content outside of your closed Facebook Group. And, this might be a change this year for some. It’s easy for us to hide behind that safe wall of our Facebook Group, where we’re allowed to promote our business, and people expect that from us. But, my challenge to you in the new year is to put yourself out there a little bit more. If you want to bring in new, and new leads, and see who’s interested in your business, you’re going to have to do that in a bit more of a public space, which will either be your personal Facebook wall, or your business page, or a public Instagram account, or other social media accounts where you have the potential of reaching people that you don’t yet know, or that might be new to your business, that have not yet shopped with you.

The last New Year’s resolution that we hear a lot is around regularly marketing your business. And, this goes hand in hand with being consistent, right? When we want to show up online, particularly on social media, it’s important that we’re showing up consistently. And, in order to consistently show up, my challenge to you is to really batch out your social media content. I love CinchShare; that’s a great tool to get ahead on social content. But, you could even schedule natively within the Facebook or Instagram app to make sure that you’re consistently showing up, and marketing your business, and creating content that’s going to draw people into your business.

Your goal from every piece of content you create should be to have a clear call to action, so your followers know what to do next, and you can move it into a one-to-one conversation. Because, the magic happens in those one-on-one conversations. That’s where you can build a relationship. That’s where you can ask for the sale. You can create content that’s really going to draw people in, and bring in those new customers and new leads that you’re working to have in the new year in order to grow your business and hit those big goals that you’ve set.

So, let’s get to it! Today is a great day to pick one or two of these that you can commit to and practice in your business. Set reminders for yourself. I do this all the time. I put Post-its up. I remind myself, “Hey, prioritize this. Focus on that. Don’t let those distractions get to you. Dedicated work hours.” Use those reminders.

Track your progress—which can be hard to do day to day. Sometimes, we feel like we’re in it, nothing really changes, but then, when we take a step back and look back a couple months, we realize how far we’ve come.

Reward yourself for sticking to those new habits. Maybe it’s a little bit of a spa day. Maybe it’s treating yourself to that chocolate brownie. You don’t have to wait for your company to come up with incentives for you; you can create your own incentives and milestones. “Hey, when I’ve been consistently posting on social for 30 days, I’m going to reward myself.” Or, “When I get consistent about asking for a sale and getting a sale for seven days in a row, I’m going to reward myself.” You can motivate and keep yourself on track.

The other thing I would say is to find an accountability partner. Find someone that you can do this with. When we’re working with others, they can check in on us; we can check in on them. There’s a level of accountability that makes sure that we’re actually doing the things that we say that we’re going to do. A pacing partner, accountability partner, is a fantastic way to do that.

So, with that said, I am so excited for you to get out there and rock your New Year’s resolutions and adopt these new habits in your business! I am cheering you on all year long. Let’s get out there go make it a great year!

Get access to direct sales training, invites to exclusive virtual events, real time support and coaching, and more by joining the Academy at ⁠⁠ModernDirectSellerAcademy.com⁠⁠!