Slow and Steady

Photos from a booth that fellow ambassador, Tricia Santos, and I set up at a yearly holiday craft fair. We both started small, building our inventory in order to attend larger events.

My Mac just returned from the computer hospital and I'm officially back on-line. Now, where were we...

Most of the emails I receive have to do with getting started and building an inventory. Since there are so many new team members, I want to direct you to an oldie, but hopefully a goodie, post entitled Inventory and Money.

It has also just come to my attention that Barefoot's "Getting Started" training calls are not taking place for the time being, so this is your official invitation to schedule a call with your leader or up-line leader for a personal call. I'm happy to work around your schedule. If you would like to set up a call with Barefoot's Group Training & Development Manager you can do that as well by writing: help@barefootbooks.com

Either way, via the website, email campaigns, calls and blogs, we want you to get the information you need.

Team-members, you have until the 9th for a chance to win that book give-away below!

Get SMART - Setting Goals

This is our home office. I set up partner tables (IKEA) so I can stay engaged with my children and they don't have to look at mommy's back during my Barefoot time.

Wow, your comments have given us enough to talk about for the next few weeks as we get to know eachother! So far, what we'll be looking at is:

Gaining Confidence.
Inventory and $ for start-up.
Finding out about events.
Tips on making an event successful.
Finding more hours in the day. Hmm, though 24 is all we can get, lets have a look at organizing your home and business in order to make those hours more effective.

So, where should we begin? At the end, of course! Begin at the end to determine what it is you want to achieve. This means setting goals. You'll find in the training section of My Barefoot a document called "Setting Goals." I've also included it in the "Goodies for Your Business" section at the top of the blog for your downloading pleasure.

Strategic planners in the business world have coined a mnemonic known as SMART - goals that are Specific, Measurable, Action-based, Realistic, and Time-frame or Trackable. Our friend jokingly refers to SMART as "Saving Marriages and Reducing Tears" - I like to make it SMARTER by adding Evaluate and Re-evaluate.

Now that you've downloaded and printed this file...you've done that, right...good. Please read over the document carefully. Consider, pray, think through and discuss with your sponsor, husband, or team leader (if you like) and then write your goals down. Once this is done, find someone to be accountable to and set up an appointment -- I like doing this every two months -- to discuss where you are and where you are going.

Setting goals was instrumental in helping me achieve the success that I wanted in my business. When I began as an Ambassador (we were romantically called Stallholders back then) the earning structure was much different. My goals were to replace the income from a part-time job I had, gain enough inventory to do large events (while not using any family finances but money earned from small events), and build a team. I then had to turn these goals into SMART goals and sort-of work backward to figure out what specific steps I would need to take to reach these goals.

Having a good understanding of the Barefoot compensation plan will help you during this process. If you haven't yet, please view this video put together by Laurie M., my sponsor and your up-line, as it will give you a good, do-able starting point.

If you have questions during the goal-making process, be sure to get in touch. If it is general, leave a comment and I'll address it here. If needed, we can set up a time to discuss this in more depth via phone or email.

Everyone have a Happy Independence Day!