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In a Nutshell
Information and Tips for your Image Consulting Business
9/05/03 Issue
#17
Linda Gerloff, Editor, linda@blueflute.com
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IN THIS ISSUE
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=> Inventory Updates for September
=> Feature Article
A Dozen Good Reasons To Keep in
Touch With Your
Hostess
=> In my business,
how do I…
Use Give it
up Girl lip colors correctly?
=> NutShell Tip –
Easily grow
your business using your Prospect List
=> Game –
Alphabet
Game
=> Recognition Corner
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Inventory Updates for September
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Blue Flute News
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
September NutShell Price - Consultants
can get NutShell
for $89.99! This
price includes 30 days of tech support
and an online User’s
Guide (Adobe format).
An even better deal is the
NutShell Combo, which provides
the software, a year of updates
and lifetime support –
all at a discount - only $144.99!
New consultants who sign
up for NutShell within 30 days of
their training date will
receive an additional $30
off.
For all the details, you can view the order page here:
http://www.blueflute.com/orderpage.htm
Learn more about the software here:
http://www.blueflute.com/btynut.htm
Download NutShell here:
http://www.blueflute.com/ordrform2.htm
When you refer a consultant to NutShell, you win, too!
Not only will your
consultant will have more time for
selling and recruiting, but
you will receive 3 months of
free inventory updates, as well!
Entire Newsletter -
To read this month’s newsletter in
it’s entirety, go to this
page:
http://www.blueflute.com/Newsletters.htm
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‘In a NutShell’ archives
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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
–
A Dozen Good Reasons To Keep in
Touch With Your Hostess
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by Kathy Towne
1. To announce any new specials that will increase her
credit.
2. To let her know the invitation list arrived.
3. To tell her that her invitations have been mailed
to her
guests. (Send one to her,
too, so she'll know what her
guests have received.)
4. To see if there are any special items she wants you
to bring to
her party or Spa.
5. To see how her outside orders are coming along.
6. To remind her to place "reminder calls"
to her guests. Have
her remind them to bring
along a friend, neighbor or
relative; and to get an
estimate on attendance so she will
be sure to have enough cookies and coffee.
7. To remind her to keep her refreshments simple.
8. (As in "eight will make you great") To
keep her excited,
excited, excited.
9. To let her know that you have a special gift for
her for
getting a dated booking before
her show.
10. To ask her if she has ever thought of doing this
and to
remind her that this
could be the start of her own
business!
11. To let her know that you only have a couple more
openings
on your calendar for
the current specials, and that you
don't want her
friends (who might be potential bookings)
to miss out.
12. So she won't forget about her party/spa and cancel
at
the last minute. (See
number 8)
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Fun Trivia
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A Club Med survey found that couples who
dieted while on
vacation argued three times more often than those who
didn't, and that those who didn't diet had three times as
many romantic interludes.
http://www.absolutetrivia.com
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In my business, how do I…
Use Give it up Girl lip colors correctly?
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In September, certain of the lip
colors are being sold as
Sales Aid items. If you place your
order in the first 3
weeks of the month, you can get
them for $2 each. This is
equivalent to $4 retail! What a
price!
As you know, the purpose of this
promotion is to encourage
clients to try BeautiControl
products, and the lip colors
are meant to be given away, thus they
are Sales Aids.
It may turn out though, that you don’t
give away all of
the lip colors that you purchase as
Sales Aids. What else
could you do with them? One thing we
talk about often is
using products that we get at discount
as prizes or
hostess gifts. Once the Give it up Girl
promotion is over,
you may want to use your left over lip
colors in this way.
Another option is that you can sell
these lip colors. If
you end up selling the Sales Aid lip
colors (they are
identical to the Retail lip colors),
don’t be stumped
by the record-keeping aspect. If you buy
them as Sales
Aids, go ahead and carry them in your
inventory as Sales
Aids. When you sell them, invoice them
from the Sales Aid
item number. This actually isn’t any
different than selling
any other Sales Aid, as we sometimes do.
The thing that
can make it confusing is that we don’t
usually have Sales
Aid items that are also Retail items.
So, the bottom line is – don’t make this
hard! If you buy
a lip color as a Sales Aid, carry it in
your inventory as
a Sales Aid. If you sell it, sell it
from the Sales Aid
item number. There is no need to do any
fancy footwork,
like moving your inventory from the
Sales Aid item number
into the Retail item number. Happily,
you do nothing, and
your accounting will work out just fine!
*-----------Quote of the
Month-------------*
'In our daily lives, we
must see that it is
not
happiness that makes us grateful, but
the
gratefulness that makes us happy.'
-- Albert Clarke
*------------------------------------------*
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NutShell Tip –
Easily grow your
business using your Prospect List
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This NutShell tip is suggested by
Lois Ann Royer, Director
Ragley,
Louisian
NutShell can help you manage your
prospect lists. One of
the fundamental facts of our
business is that without
follow-up, nothing will happen. By
repeatedly contacting
your prospects and clients, you
build a relationship with
them. They see that you are
knowledgeable in your field,
you run a professional, sound
business and that you can be
trusted to meet their needs. All
these things can only
happen with frequent, repeated
follow-ups.
To provide this kind of care, you
need a system to manage
these names/phone numbers and
follow-up schedules. The
NutShell reminder system can help.
There are two approaches
you can take:
1. Enter each prospect into
NutShell on the Client screen.
Set their Client Type
to ‘Recruiting Prospect’ if you
are wanting to
recruit them as a new consultant. Set
the Client Type to
‘Client Priority 3’ if you want to
recruit them as a new
client.
Then, tell NutShell
that you want it to help you with
your follow-up. Click
the Notes button and type a note
to yourself about
this prospect – her concerns and needs.
Be sure to include
information about her problems that
you will be able to
solve for her as her consultant or
recruiter. Enter a
‘Reminder Date’ for the next time
you want to call this
client. Then click the red Reminder
alarm to turn the
reminder on. This will put a reminder
on your Datebook with
all her contact information, plus
the notes that you
made.
Check your Datebook often
to see what NutShell reminds
you to do each day.
When you call the client, you can
make additional notes
about your conversation and then
set the date of the
reminder to the next time you want
to call her. This
will keep you on the ball and
up-to-date with your
follow-ups.
2. You can put a slight twist on
this if you don’t want to
enter every prospect
into your system. Instead, on the
Client screen, bring
up the entry that you have put in
for your business.
This is the ‘client’ that you use
to invoice demo
products and give-aways.
Click the Notes
button and enter your prospect list.
These are the people
that you want to stay in contact
with, but don’t want
to enter into NutShell individually.
Include their name,
phone number and a brief note.
Then, use the
NutShell reminder system to help you stay
on top of these
follow-ups. For example, if you want
to call your
prospects weekly, go ahead and set the
reminder date for
this note to the following Monday.
When Monday gets
here, you will check your Datebook
and see that you have
a reminder to work your prospect
list. To be reminded
to work this prospect list
regularly, bring the
reminder up on your screen and
set the Frequency
fields. You can set this reminder
to show up ‘Every
Monday’, ‘Every Other Wednesday’,
‘Every Month’, etc.
Stay on top of your follow-ups and
you will see your
business grow and grow. When you
have hard times, all
the relationships you have built
will help you through.
The relationships you build with
your clients will bring
you a strong reorder business. The
relationships you build
with your consultants will bring
you an active, vibrant
unit!
*---------------A Good Laugh--------------*
From an actual newspaper
contest where
entrants ages 4 to 15 were asked to imitate
"Deep Thoughts by Jack Handey."
-For centuries, people thought the moon
was made of green
cheese. Then the
astronauts found that the
moon is really
a big hard rock.
That's what happens
to cheese when you
leave it out. --Age 6
http://www.womentodaymagazine.com
*-----------------------------------------*
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Game – Alphabet Game
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Before your party, prepare index
cards. Put one letter of
the alphabet on each card. If you
don’t want to take the
time to do all 26 letters, just
pick a few.
Ask your guests to think of
someone they love (or that makes
them laugh, or they haven’t seen
in a long time, etc). Hold
up one of the index cards and tell
them to yell out an
adjective describing the person
they are thinking about.
The adjective should start with
the letter on the card you
are holding. For example, you show
the ‘S’ card and they
would say ‘Smart’, ‘Silly’,
‘Sexy’, ‘Stupid’, etc.
The guest
who says her adjective first and loudest gets
the card. Your guests can get
really funny at times. After
you have handed out all the cards,
give a prize to the
guest with the most cards.
(Don’t forget to use discontinued
or hard-to-move products
for the gifts in your games!)
-------------------
Do you play a game that is a big hit? We would love to
hear about it: mailto: Games@BlueFlute.com
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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!
~ $20,000 Director ~
Rita Kay Isaacs
~ $10,000 Director ~
Cheryl Ashworth
Tawnya Feldman
Jo Ann Goodman
Jeana Jacob
Saralyn Ostwinkle
Laura Pantzlaff
Sara Pruisner
~ $5,000 Director ~
Christy Sarosdy
Mary Wozniak
~ Mustang Director! ~
Carolyn Barlowe
Linda Guthrie
Mary Hamala
Nancy Johnson
Karen Mosteller
Denise Newsome
Barbara Sloan
Jean Thompson
Kelly Wofford
~ Senior Director ~
Christy Sarosdy
Theresa Toohey
~ Director ~
Valerie Altman
Linda Croft
Carissa Evans
Norma Holland
Deborah Hunt
Debra McComb
Sandra Mozey
Diana Perez
Melanie Peterson
Linda Williams
Mary Wozniak
~ New DIQ ~
Diane Baker
June Beazley
Sherri Cassidy
Tanya Caudle
Myrna Cotton
Davonnia Cox
Patricia Crowley
Michelle Duffy
Christine Engelbrecht
Pam Fowler
Patsy Franklin
Susan Furrow
Connie Glenn
Barbara Gordon
Alice Gray
Valerie Green
Deborah Harrell
Marilyn Hillman
Tracie Jones
Tania Kinzinger
Donna Kistler
Roseann Lange
Wendi Lawson
Leann Mezzacapo
Karen Murphy
Janet Okray
Jeanne Saxon
Mary Ann
Smith
~ Unit Manager ~
Tonya Caudle
Holly Smelcer
~ DIQ ~
Leslie Boyd
Faye Bullock
Cathie Crate
Gillian Greer
Sue Light
Barbara Matich
Chimene Ross
Anna Sessoms
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Copyright 2003 Blue Flute Software Creations, Inc.
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avid hater of email spam as much as you are, I have
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Linda Gerloff
Blue Flute Software Creations
linda@blueflute.com
P.O. Box 77882
Fort Worth, TX 76177
817-439-1081