Blue Flute Software- 'In a NutShell' Newsletter

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                    In a Nutshell
   Information and Tips for your Image Consulting Business

7/04/04                                          Issue #27
Linda Gerloff, Editor, linda@blueflute.com
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     By subscription only! Welcome to your next issue of
                   "In a NutShell".
You are receiving this newsletter because you have
subscribed to either the monthly Automated Inventory
Updates or this newsletter.
Unsubscribe instructions are at the end of this newsletter.

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   IN THIS ISSUE
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    => Inventory Updates for July
    => Blue Flute News
    => Feature Article
         Negative Nellies – What to do with them?
    => In my Business, how do I…
         Keep good records for taxes?
    => NutShell Tip
         Email your entire client list
    => Game
         Pocketbook Game
    => Consultant Success Story
    => Recognition Corner

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Inventory Updates for July
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Your inventory updates for July are ready. The updates will
bring your NutShell inventory list in synch with the
current BeautiControl order form. If you purchased the
NutShell Combo, Career Builder Packager or have subscribed
to the update service, you can get your updates here:
http://www.blueflute.com/btyupdt1.htm

If you would like to sign up for one of these options, they
are available here: www.blueflute.com/orderpage.htm.

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Blue Flute News
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NutShell Class at Celebration – If you haven’t signed up
for the NutShell Class at Celebration, do it soon. The
reduced price is good through 7/10/04, about one more week!
Go to this page to register:
www.blueflute.com/NutShellClass.htm

Your consultants who are growing their businesses need
NutShell! The Newbie class will give them a head start
at setting up the program. They’ll know exactly what to
do when they get home! By attending the Newbie class, not
only will they get special startup training, they will also
get a discount on their NutShell program just for attending
the class!

Everyone who attends a class will need to sign up ahead of
time, so encourage your consultants to go to the signup
page: www.blueflute.com/NutShellClass.htm. Tell them to
list your name as a referral. You will get free updates
for referring them to the class!

Class Info
Date: Thursday July 29, 2004
Time: 5:00 PM (both classes)
Place: Gaylord Texan
Duration: 1 – 1.5 hours, followed by plenty of time for Q&A
Cost: $35

Beauti-U Trainers – Do you know a Trainer? Please tell her
that I will be having a special NutShell class just for
Trainers at Celebration. This class will be held:

Wednesday, July 28 at 5PM in the Gaylord

The purpose of this class is to introduce NutShell to
trainers. So, if you know a trainer who doesn’t use
NutShell, please tell her about this class! She will
be so glad you did!

I will need to know who is coming, so ask your Trainer
friend to email me at linda@blueflute.com. Or, if you
send me her email address, I will contact her.

You will get referral credits for Trainers who attend
this class at your recommendation!

NutShell Brochures and New Consultant Flyers – Are you
looking forward to sharing information about NutShell with
other consultants at Celebration? Do you have a recruit who
is ready to get her business organized? You can download
NutShell Brochures and New Consultant Flyers here:
www.blueflute.com/Flyers.htm
Please feel free to hand them out liberally!

Find out more - If you are not familiar with NutShell, you
can find out more here:
http://www.blueflute.com/btynut.htmm
Download NutShell here:
http://www.blueflute.com/ordrform2.htm

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Current ‘In a NutShell’ Newsletter and Archives
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To read this month’s newsletter in its entirety, go to
this page: http://www.blueflute.com/Newsletters.htm

Did you miss a prior ‘In a NutShell’ newsletter, or would
you like to review one of the articles? You can view it
here: http://www.blueflute.com/Newsletters.htm

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Feature Article –
Negative Nellies – What to do with them?
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How do you address negativity in your downline? Your team
is most likely made up of 95% positive thinking, energetic,
creative people. But, you might have a consultant or two
who complains that nothing works and swears she has tried
everything. Your every suggestion is met with "did that,
it didn't work" or "that won't work in my area because..."
or "I can't do that because...". Her bad attitude, despite
you being her biggest cheerleader, can be a big drain on
the energy and focus of the entire team.

If she debunks every suggestion you make to help her, she
is either not cut out for the business or it is just not
the right time in her life for her to be doing it. Be very
direct in telling her that you can give her all sorts of
ideas, but ultimately it is she who is responsible for
putting them to work... you can't work her business for her.
If, after a few attempts to help her, you continue to find
nothing but negativity, she probably isn't willing to step
outside of her comfort zone, so the business probably isn't
going to work for her.

You can drive yourself crazy trying to turn a negative
personality into a positive one. Some people are just
miserable in their own lives, scared to try something
uncomfortable, or truly just not cut out for direct sales.
You do the best you can, and if nothing works, let them go!
As the saying goes,
"Some will; some won't; who cares; who's next!"
Save your energy for those who really want to learn and are
willing to do what it takes to be a success!

         *-----------Quote of the Month-------------*
          "Every day do something that will inch
           you closer to a better tomorrow."
             -- Doug Firebaugh
         *------------------------------------------*

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In my Business, how do I…
Keep good records for taxes?
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If you have never had your own home-based business before,
you may be quite intimidated at the idea of keeping
accurate records for taxes. There is a very simple strategy
that will help you keep good records without stressing
yourself about it.

The strategy is this: Don’t worry about the tax aspect
of your records throughout the year. Just keep your
records. If your records are orderly, at tax time it will
be very easy for your tax preparer to do his/her work. You
don’t have to worry about whether an item is deductible, or
how to categorize it. The important thing is to get it
recorded.

For example, if you don’t know whether your telephone
expense can be deducted, don’t worry about it. Just
record it. The same is true for meal expenses or
anything else that you think might be a deduction. If you
spend money on something, record it on the Income and
Expense Log in NutShell. Include the date, dollar
amount, category and description. Don’t even worry about
getting the expense categorized correctly. Just record it!

Concerning product purchases, you don’t even have to
record the cost of your products if you are using NutShell.
These expenses will get recorded automatically by the
program when you enter and close your purchases orders.

When you are ready to do your taxes, you will print a
report in NutShell that will list all of the expenses that
you recorded throughout the year. It will be very easy for
your tax preparer to go through this list and mark off
anything that can’t be deducted, or move items from one
category to another. He would much prefer to do this, than
sort through a bunch of receipts in a box. And you will
prefer this too, because it will cost you so much less!

Worry can be paralyzing. When you worry about whether you
are doing your bookkeeping right, you may procrastinate
on doing your bookkeeping at all. So, don’t worry so much
about doing it exactly right. Just get your expenses
entered!

Some of the expenses you will want to enter include:

^Advertising – business cards, Client Connection, car signs
^Car expenses – log your mileage whenever you use your
           car for business. Also include parking fees
           (at Celebration, for example) and tolls
^Office expense – anything you use in your office, like
           paper, toner and other office supplies.
^Health Insurance – self employed health insurance
           may be deductible. Record this expense so your
         tax person can decide.
^taxes – state income and self-employment tax may be
           deductible
^sales tax – include sales tax you pay as part of the
           cost of the product you purchase. For example,
           if you buy paper clips for $1.00 and the tax is
           $0.05, then you can say that the cost of the
           paper clips is $1.05.
^travel, meals and entertainment – the IRS has put
           so many ‘ifs, ands & buts’ in this category,
           just record every penny you spend in these
           areas and let the ‘tax guy’ decide what to
           do with it. Include: taxi, meals, hotel,
           airfare, mileage, dry cleaning (while on the
           trip), business phone calls, tips and
           entertainment
^donations – record the cash value of any donations to
           business organizations
^education – if you take a class or seminar, record it
^utilites – phone, electricity, gas, cell phone,
           internet service provider
^interest – credit card or bank loan interest
^big ticket items – if you purchase something that you
           will use longer than one year, it will need
           to be depreciated. This includes computers as
           well as other products you may use for booths
           and other displays. Don’t worry about the
           depreciation, just record the expense!

The bottom line is this: At tax time, it is much easier
to fine tune a printout of expenses than to go through a
bunch of receipts in a shoe box. When you spend money in
your business, record it. Let your tax person worry about
all the details. Your only job is to provide him with the
information. Recording your expense in NutShell is all
you have to do!

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NutShell Tip –
Email your entire client list
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Did you know that with NutShell, you can email your entire
client list? You can even email certain clients, like those
who are having a birthday. It’s a handy feature that is
based on your client reports. For many of the client
reports, you can print a list of clients, or instead of
getting a list, you can email the clients that would normally
be selected for printing on the list. This is how it works:

Go to the Client/Colleague screen and click the Print button.
You may be familiar with the client reports. You can get a
list of clients based on several different criteria. If you
have classified your clients by Client Priority, you can
select one or more Priorities to list. You can select
clients having a birthday in a certain month. You can even
hand-pick clients by checking the ‘Print Label’ box next
to their last name, and then select the report called
‘Clients Selected for Labels’.

Once you decide which report you want to run, fill in the
appropriate options and then, for the ‘Create’ option,
select ‘Email’ and then click ‘OK’. Instead of creating
an actual report, the Email option will create a list of
email addresses in your computer’s memory, and open up your
email program. Click on the ‘To:’ or ‘BCC:’ field in the
email and then click Paste on the Edit menu. The email
addresses of all the selected clients will be pasted into
the email!

I'm proud of Lisette Monroe! She is so willing to help us
get our business started. She goes the extra mile not only
to encourage us but to help pull us out and to train us to
do things correctly. She's doing a great job as our DIQ.
She's been using BeautiControl products for many years, but
she's just been a consultant for a year now. She's working
hard not only for herself but for us too.

Donna Hafer, Sr. Consultant
Battle Ground, WA

___________________________________________
Who are you proud of?

Please help with this part of the newsletter. It can be
motivating to those of us who are working hard, but
sometimes get discouraged.

Who are you proud of? (It can be yourself!) Sing their
praises and inspire others:
mailto:SuccessStory@blueflute.com

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Game – Pocketbook Game
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by Ellan Fielding, Broadway, VA

I use a "pocketbook" game thru my Spa escapes using the
letters M-R-P-O.

Throughout my spa I will call out the letters in order and
guests will dig thru their pocketbooks to find the first
item that starts with that letter. I, of course,
explain the meaning of each part of our product line.

For example, M stands for Maintenance. I call out “M!”
and explain the Skinlogics line. The first person who
finds an ‘M’ item in her purse will and hold it up and
call it out. She gets 1 point.

M = Maintenance Products
R = for Repair Products
P = Preventative Products
O = The Opportunity to join BeautiControl.

Each lettered item receives a point and the person with
the most points at the end of the game wins a small
prize. I used this for the first time at a spa of 6
people and had one of the smoothest and highest earning
spas I've done thus far!

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Recognition Corner
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Congratulations to the following NutShell users who have
worked hard and achieved success in advancing their careers!

~ $25,000 Acheiver! ~
Bobbi Hood

~ $5,000 Acheiver ~
Dana Foster
Susan Lewis
Robi Rogers

~ New Executive Director ~
Karen Echele
Bobbi Hood

~ New Senior Director ~
Dana Foster
Regina Hazel
Mary Laughlin
Susan Lewis
Robi Rogers

~ New DIQ ~
Catherine Blomeke
Sue Crochet
Jennifer Dudley
Deborah Harrell
Marilyn Hillman
Anna Olivier
Denise Pekel
Judy Sather
Shelly Snyder
Tina Stock

~ New Unit Manager ~
Maryann Mellor
Anna Olivier

Blue FluteSoftware Creations, Inc.