Top 5 Things To Do Every Day To Move Your Business Forward- While In The Queue

Advance warning: This Is A Long Post!

The home office, your entire up-line and your sponsor- they will all tell you that you need to do something every day to move your business forward. It doesn’t have to be a big something – it could be a single social media post! It could even be a big thing, like a supply order (knowing you’re taking a step forward for your business can help ease the sticker shock!). But no matter what, you need to do something EVERY. SINGLE. DAY.

I am trying to make the most of my time in the queue- it’s helping me cope with the waiting (I am not a patient person!) because everything I do is helping build my business. Here is the list of 5 things I did every day to build my business up. (And yes, I know I’m not an expert- still sitting in the queue over here! And what you find important may be different- please know these are suggestions, given with the knowledge that it’s working for me)

Note: There are some prerequisites for some of these suggestions!

• Be in your team Queue page. If you aren’t already in this, ask your sponsor- they will need to add you. Here you can ask any questions and have hundreds of people answering, typically within 10 minutes.
• Find your month Queue page- for whatever month you joined the queue. I joined the queue in September 2016, so I am a member of the September Newbies & Quebies group.
• Depending on your team’s policies, you may be able to join your direct team page. This would be your sponsor’s team page. Some teams have a policy that you can’t join that page until you’re officially on-boarded, so check with your sponsor.

So, stop reading here right now and go join those pages! Get sucked in, read through the amazing information available there and then come back J

Now that you’re a member of those pages, I can continue with my list of suggestions for you.

1. Read Every New Post On Your Team Queue Page, Your Month Queue Page And Your Team Page. Every. Single. One. AND all the comments! Follow the posts you find the most interesting or important to help you keep up. A lot of people are going to have the same questions as you- or even questions you haven’t thought about yet. Reading their post and the comments can save you from having to ask if you’re hesitant to ask yourself. Many people will repeat questions too- still read all the comments, since different people may be answering and have something new to add to the conversation. This is also an opportunity for you to cement some of the knowledge in your own brain- if you remember seeing a similar question, try to remember what the answer was on the previous post and help answer! I have been haunting these three Facebook groups and have seen a LOT of duplicate questions, so I’ve started responding to some. In fact, that’s what gave me the inspiration to blog about LuLaRoe- I saw things that so many people are asking about but with Google searches wasn’t finding any videos or blogs with the answers!
2. Watch/Listen To At Least One Training Video A Day. This could be training videos from your team or queue page, YouTube videos (so many consultants on YouTube!) or from LuLaRoe (lularoefashionfun.com- I won’t give you the password here, get that from your sponsor). Just be sure to watch at least one a day. What’s really nice about YouTube is that it will automatically play another similar video after one finishes and it’s usually from another LuLaRoe consultant. I found a bunch of really good consultant channels to follow with a ton of fantastic information. I take notes whenever I hear a really good idea or piece of advice- these consultants are further ahead in the queue than me or already on-boarded, they have more experience and I want to benefit from that!
3. Post to Social Media Once A Day. You should have multiple social media accounts- your personal Facebook account, your VIP group, a business page, Instagram business account, twitter (if you use it, I personally hate the character limit!), etc. Use these to your advantage! For Instagram, you should be posting a minimum of every other day- you want to keep the interest going on this account. You can also link your Instagram account to your business page, so that will take care of posting to that page for you. I caution against sharing a lot on your personal page, because you don’t want to bombard your friends with all things LuLaRoe and have them lose interest before you even launch! Share every once in a while, because you want your friends to know you’re going to be a consultant, but be wary of posting too often. I will likely do a separate post about social media, some do’s and don’ts, at a later time so I won’t go too in depth here. It’s just important to get in the habit of using each account to your business advantage instead of just personal use.
4. Work On Your Budget. I’m a bargain hunter- I firmly believe that when you’re making big purchases like all your Christmas gifts or your LuLaRoe supplies you need to make the list first and then shop around to make sure you’re getting a good price. DO NOT ASSUME AMAZON HAS THE BEST PRICE. More often than not they will be, especially with Prime benefits, but don’t let that keep you from shopping elsewhere. When you’ve made your supply list (again, this will likely be a separate post down the road) and tallied the number (please use excel for this, huge timesaver!) it will likely be more than you expected. My total blew me away! I knew immediately I needed to narrow down my selections and minimize costs- I also wanted to be ordering more inventory right away and I was going to need room in the budget for that! Each day I’ve scoured the internet for alternative options and lower prices. Just yesterday I was able to eliminate $40 in excess costs, which let me add in a leg mannequin and IKEA FRAKTA bags- I call that a win!
5. Get to know the clothing. If you’ve read my “How I Found LuLaRoe” post, you know that I only had 2 pairs of leggings before joining the queue. I knew nothing about the other styles! I have a lot of homework to do to get up to speed and be the fashion consultant my customers will expect me to be. I spend at least 30 minutes a day looking at various consultant sales to see what patterns are current, how they’re styling their “Outfit of the Day” and test myself on naming the styles.

How do I keep up with this? Admittedly, I’m spending too much time on Facebook but I’m learning a lot so it’s okay for now- I know I won’t keep up with that to the same level once I’ve on-boarded. I’ll have enough to do keeping up with my business pages! One thing that has helped a lot was downloading the Facebook Groups app- this means that I can turn off notifications to groups on my Facebook profile and when I want to see the group posts I just open that app instead. I look at this every morning with breakfast, lunch hour and right before bed (See? Told you I was spending too much time!). Because I have a smartphone, all of the notifications were pretty much constant and 100% distracting from anything else I was doing- the Groups app changed that. I have a full time job where I work on the computer all day and have access to work wi-fi. This lets me have my phone to the side with YouTube videos playing and I have a word document open behind the rest of my work files- if I hear anything I find important for my business I simply switch to that, type it up and go back to my work. I email myself these notes and spend 10 minutes each night after dinner incorporating them into my organized note document (again, another future post). Then I spend at least an hour searching for deals on my supply list. This hour isn’t always super productive and sometimes stretches out longer because I’m binging some Netflix with the hubby. But it does let me eliminate some options one night, which makes a decision easier to make another night.

Full disclosure, there are days that even having done all of the things on this list I still don’t feel like I got anything done. Then the next day I listen to an awesome training session on YouTube or team page and the ideas start firing off again. In the long run, I know that I’m putting my time in the queue to good use and know (ok, hope) the last month in the queue will be productive and MOVE QUICKLY.
*Please don't be afraid to take a day off! I did yesterday and spent it with my hubby and we had a wonderful day. I didn't even feel a little guilty for not doing ANYTHING LuLaRoe yesterday- I know that once I have inventory it will be very unlikely I'll be able to do that again so I'm going to enjoy the opportunity while it lasts!*

Bonus Daily Task: Get Used To Social Media And All Of It’s Quirks. I’m a millennial- I have no problems picking up new technologies or working social media. (Please- I mean no offense to any other generation with this suggestion!) If social media is not your strong suit, this is the time to figure it all out. You need some form of online presence. Want to do only in-home parties? That’s totally fine, and if it works for you that’s fantastic! But what about when there are several consultants in your area and someone moves into town that loves LuLaRoe but only likes to shop in person- they are going to look online first to find a consultant. That’s natural in this day and age. So make sure you at least have a business page that you keep updated with current contact information, styles you carry, business hours and regular, relevant posts. You could encourage your customers to leave you a review there too, to help you stand out if someone is comparing consultants.