Monday 24 January 2011

Rejected Catalogue Bags £33 Order

Yesterday, I blanket dropped my old catalogues one last time into a new area. It's a typical old-fashioned council estate, derogatively referred to as "Tin City" by residents who live in much nicer parts of my town. It's also the sort of area where you spend a lot of time getting your straggler catalogues back.

Whilst putting out around 230 catalogues, I had a couple of people hand them straight back, but no mention of an existing distributor. One passer-by asked if we'd deliver in their road soon - no surprises as to what my answer was. I also came across several catalogues that had been put out on the doorstep as soon as they'd been picked up off the doormat.

All told, my rejected catalogues allowed me to add a little close of 6 houses to my blanket drop and I am so glad they did.

This morning, a new customer phoned me, placed an order for £33 as she wasn't going to be around when I was due to collect the catalogues, and wanted to know if she could keep a permanent copy as a reference for future orders! She'll be getting a pack of the new catalogues with her order this weekend.

It just goes to show that it's worth doing a quick walk along your route immediately after you've done a blanket drop in an area - that 15 minutes extra earnt me £132 per hour pro rata, just by putting out the rejected catalogues straight away.

Every day that I spend retailing with Kleeneze, I am building up a group of dedicated customers who will, in time, refer their family and friends to me. Today, I added another customer to that group and I'm delighted.

Thursday 20 January 2011

The Break Free Route to Retail Success

Kleeneze has an excellent business model with established Business Builder variants that give new distributors rapid proof that we can build a strong customer base quickly and simply. There's plenty of resources available for new distributors, starting with the business manuals and the High Performance Retail Habits and Growing Your Business DVDs that come with the Kleeneze Business Builder kits. Sponsors also support their team with simple systems based on their own experiences, offering guidance, tracking sheets, etc. as appropriate.

The new Break Free option should be approached a little differently, in my opinion.

As you can see from the picture below, the Break Free kit is an opportunity for a new distributor to ensure that the Kleeneze business suits their needs and working style. It is not meant to be a substitute for starting as a Business Builder, although enthusiastic Break Free distributors can match or even excel the turnover of someone starting with a full Kleeneze business kit within their first few weeks.


The Break Free Kit contains all the basics a new distributor needs to get themselves up and running, including 5 sets of catalogues, catalogue bags, order forms, the HPRH DVD, and the starter guides and business manuals. A new Break Free distributor will start with a moderate credit limit.

If the first order placed by a Break Free distributor is £75/€90 or above, Kleeneze HQ will send them another 5 FREE catalogues.

Break Free Fast Start Bonus - Achieve £150/€180 in the first 21 days of sign-up and you’ll qualify for a further set of 25 Catalogues. Once a Break Free distributor has completed £150/€180 in retail sales (regardless on the length of time it takes them) and paid for the goods, they’ll have their credit limit increased and be given an EzeReach account and mykleeneze.com website.

So how do you achieve retail success with only 5 catalogues?

Simple. Follow this 10 step plan:
  1. Go through each of the catalogues in turn. For every item, think of somebody you know who might benefit from using the product. This will allow you to recommend with confidence, even though you may not have personal experience of a particular item. If in doubt, talk to your sponsor and ask what products they recommend. I've had great retail results with the Antiquax lavender polish, the vacuum deodorisers, the tea/coffee stain remover, adjustable oven shelves, colour changing cooker hood filters and the Oven Mate, for example.
  2. Write down the names, addresses and phone numbers of everybody you can think of in these four categories - Friends and family, Recreational activities, Occupation (including previous jobs) and Groups (e.g. Neighbourhood Watch, faith-based, charities, etc.). Make sure you have a list of at least 5 in each category. FROGs help you leap to success.
  3. Contact each person in turn. Say something like, "I've just started up as a Kleeneze distributor - you may have seen the adverts on TV. Would you like to take a look at the catalogues?" If they say no, that is no reflection on you; they may change their mind in the future, especially when they see how successful you are. If they say yes, arrange to collect the catalogue at an appropriate time. Two days is usually about right, so if you hand out a catalogue on the Monday, arrange to collect it on Wednesday. Make a note of where you are leaving the catalogues. Take phone numbers where possible.
  4. Whether they take a catalogue or not, ask for referrals. Say something like, "Thank you. Do you know of anybody who might be interested in taking a look? I'm really keen to do well." Make a note of any referrals and who suggested them.
  5. Contact the referrals. Say something like, "Mike mentioned you would be interested in looking at the latest Kleeneze catalogues. I'm one of the local distributors; when would be a good time to drop them off?" If they say no, ask for referrals.
  6. Collect the catalogues in, checking for orders before you leave. Make sure the name and address of the customer are on the order form - it's very difficult to find them afterwards, otherwise. If you have the phone number, call first to remind the person to leave the catalogue out or have it ready to hand back.
  7. Contact your sponsor and ask them to guide you as you place your first order, if necessary. Try to place an order for at least £75 as this helps maximise your profits. If that means you put catalogues out several times before you have enough orders, that's OK.
  8. Let your customers know when their orders will be delivered. As a rough guide, if you order goods before 13:15 on Wednesday, you should receive a delivery on Friday. You need to make sure somebody is available to sign for your first delivery.
  9. Deliver the goods to your customers, collect the money and then pay it in to the Kleeneze HQ account using one of the banking slips supplied. Keep your retail profit.
  10. Repeat from step 1.
Remember, it's up to you to take responsibility for your own success. Your sponsor can coach, mentor and advise, but they cannot build your customer base for you.

Interested in learning more about the Kleeneze business options? Contact me via my website to ask for more details or to join my team - I'll support you every step of the way.

Tuesday 18 January 2011

How Important is Good Customer Service?

Today, I got an object lesson in how not to promote customer satisfaction.

My day job is in the IT department of a large fashion retailer in the UK. I work at the headquarters in the Midlands, with a 90 minute round-trip commute each day. One of the benefits we head office staff get is the opportunity to order products sold by our company via the company website, so that they can be delivered to our office instead of our home address. As all deliveries have to be signed for, this is a useful perk and most of the head office staff make good use of this facility.

12 days ago, I ordered a digital camera from the company website, as it was on sale and therefore cheaper than buying it from Amazon (Panasonic Lumix FP1 Digital Camera - Pink (12.1MP, 4x Optical Zoom) 2.7 inch LCD) or Argos. I'd ordered a number of items from our ecommerce website before and had always received the goods within 2 working days. I was not expecting any problems this time either.

I was wrong.

As always, I was notified the following morning that my order was on its way and due to be delivered that day. Wonderful? Not quite. Clicking on the tracking link gave the message "Item misrouted to wrong depot". That was where my journey through a 21st Century purgatory began.

I tried to contact customer services. It took 45 minutes of being rerouted from one department to another before I was told to email my query to an anonymous internal mailbox where I was assured that they looked at those emails "at least a couple of times a day"!

The email was duly sent and I waited. For 2 days. At that point I got an email telling me that "it appears that your item has been misrouted to another depot". You really could not make this up - the best solution they could offer was for me to reorder the item "if you need it urgently" and then return the original item whenever it arrived! They advised me to wait 7 working days before I contacted the department again regarding my missing order.

I waited for a week before reordering the camera. This time, I got a tracking message saying "Order generated." For 2 days. At that point, I gave up and emailed the anonymous internal mailbox and waited. For another 2 days.

Yet again, I got told "There seems to be a delay at the warehouse with your order." You think? Yet again, I they advised me to wait a further 7 working days before contacting them again.

This time, I answered the email straight away, telling them to cancel my order and arrange a credit to my account. No doubt it will take another 2 working days before I get a response to that as well.

All of this is a timely lesson on the importance of good customer service. Just as I now won't recommend shopping for electrical items via this retailer's website, my customers won't recommend me unless I deliver when I say I will, explain clearly and politely what the situation is regarding out of stock or delayed items, etc.

I know that I am being recommended to their neighbours by some of my repeat customers. That's very important to me as it means I'm building a long-term relationship with my customers that will help me build my business on solid foundations. Just as importantly, I can teach others how to retail using the same philosophy. Poor customer service would destroy that relationship and demolish my business. It's a pity I can't get that message across to a FTSE-listed fashion retailer.

Monday 17 January 2011

The 3 Rs of Kleeneze - Update

Last night, I collected in 80% of the catalogues I'd placed in two 'new' (to me) streets and got my usual £1 per catalogue order value. I know that another distributor has customers on one of the roads, as two of their regulars told me so.

Just proof that Kleeneze retail works, wherever you are. Yet again, I qualify for my bonus with 3 weeks of effort. Next target - get my 13% volume bonus on personal sales.

All I need now is to organise my life a little better so I have more time to call my prospects. There are times I'd like to pack in the day job - it's clear that I could put out enough catalogues to generate sufficient retail profits to match my regular salary - but I want to prove that anybody can do well in their spare time with Kleeneze.

When my Kleeneze income has matched my regular income for 13 four-week periods in a row, then I will hand in my notice. Until then, I'll work on my personal development to be better organised and learn to manage what time I have more effectively. Leaders set personal examples to their team; if I want my team to duplicate successful patterns of behaviour, I have to demonstrate those patterns in my own business.

Wednesday 12 January 2011

Reflect, Revise, Refocus - The 3 Rs of Kleeneze

Last night was not a good night, orders-wise. My normal per-catalogue order value is around £1; in other words, if I collect 184 catalogues in, I usually get between £180 and £200 of orders.

Last night, my per-catalogue order value was £0.10. That's right. 10p. I got a grand total of £11 of orders, despite collecting in over 100 catalogues in just over an hour.

So what happened?

As I've said before, I'm currently competing with several full-time distributors who cover my local area. The books I put out over the weekend appear to have clashed with a blanket drop from one of them. It's quite possible I will get a low volume of orders tonight as well.

By now, you won't be surprised to find that I'm not in the least bit disheartened by this.

I now have the opportunity to practice the 3 Rs of Kleeneze Retail.

Reflect

Is what I'm doing effective? Could I be doing it better, or differently? What are my options?

Yes, what I am doing is effective.The two orders I got were from customers that were new last time, so I can deduce that they were sufficiently satisfied with my service to order from me again. I have a number of options to avoid clashing with another distributor's delivery timetable, including noting these clashes and delivering the next set of catalogues when I deliver my orders to this area.

Revise

What do I need to change to improve my results? How will I implement the changes? Over what timescale?

I need to determine areas which are not currently served by a Kleeneze distributor. I already have some success here; I can widen my delivery area until I discover sufficient regular customers to satisfy my retail targets. I will target a new set of roads with my next delivery of catalogues. I can also rejig my delivery schedule so that I target a new street every week as part of my regular routine. I will monitor and track results for this activity for the next 90 days.

Refocus

Why am I doing this? What are my goals? What are my targets?

I'm a Kleeneze distributor because it gives me the opportunity to be financially secure both now and for the rest of my life. I have both short-term and long-term personal and professional goals, from new cars to becoming a Premier distributor in 5 years time. My targets include moving up the volume bonus levels through my own personal sales, growing a team of active distributors who are retailing £1000 per 4 week period and achieving 1000 regular customers.

That's all it takes. If you use the 3 Rs, you get out of the pity-me mindset and into the mastery mindset. I know which one I'm more comfortable with.

If you want a better life, let alone a better lifestyle, let me know. I'll support and coach you every step of the way.

Sunday 9 January 2011

Have a Kleeneze New Year!

Yesterday's Kleeneze New Year Conference was packed full of surprises, emotion and humour and proved conclusively to me that I made the right decision when I joined.

I was honoured to be given a chance to sit at Gavin Scott's VIP table with my upline, Amanda Battye and Dave Reeves. What a way to ensure that I double my efforts on retail and sponsoring, so that I can be entitled to sit in the VIP area in my own right.

There were so many highlights it's difficult to just list a few of my favourite moments.

Administration highlights - The rebranding of the starter kits, the simplification of the signup process, the news about the development of our individual online presences with DSA compliant basic contact pages (you can see mine at iwanttochangemylifestyle.com/annaellis), the future of online ordering via a distributor's mykleeneze website. And of course, the new Break Free promotion.

Team highlights - Gavin's new book, Follow Up Your Way to Fortune: New Ways to Make Your Business 'click' Using New Technology for Freewas launched. I read it last night and enjoyed every page - any author that uses the acronym K.I.S.S gets my vote immediately! It's available in my Amazon store. If you're in Kleeneze and you haven't got this book, you are damaging your chances of online success. Buy it, and give yourself the leading edge. Building your own brand is so important today and Gavin's book will help you succeed.

Gavin was also recognised for achieving a key Kleeneze target of having 10 (or more!) active distributors in his immediate downline. Known as the 10 wide achievement, it's one of my goals to get that recognition myself.

Kleeneze distributor highlights - the excitement and emotion from the teams of those who won trophies and achieved recognition was so palpable, it was almost a physical presence at times. Well done to all of you; you've inspired me to work harder and smarter at my Kleeneze business.

Speaker highlights - too many to list, all the Kleeneze speakers were excellent. The day started brilliantly with Gavin's talk and ended with two extremely humorous sections which helped push home the speakers' messages. You really have to be there in September. The guest speakers were wonderful, with Richard Berry (ex-managing director of Kleeneze) showing us how the future of Kleeneze has always been about embracing change. The authors of Go For No and Mastering Go For No!, Richard Fenton and Andrea Waltz, were excellent and very good at getting the audience to join in and respond.

Here's to a happy and prosperous Kleeneze New Year

Wednesday 5 January 2011

What I Learnt from Kleeneze in 2010

It's the start of a new year, and I'm finally back to my normal levels of energy after the bug-ridden weeks of December 2010. I'm fired with enthusiasm, I have a couple of dozen leads to follow up and I have already put out 400 books since Sunday afternoon.

And of course, there's the Kleeneze conference to look forward to on Saturday 8 January, 2011.

It seems a perfect time to look back at 2010, work out what I've learnt so far in my first five months as a Kleeneze apprentice and put in place my targets for 2011.

Personal discoveries:
  1.  I can go the extra mile when I push myself to; I've done that on several occasions, including last night, when I walked non-stop in the dark and cold night for three hours, despite having painful feet, to collect and deliver catalogues.
  2. I really enjoy walking for hours, even dragging an overloaded catapuller trolley, regardless of the weather.
  3. I'm happy and comfortable talking to strangers whilst out delivering catalogues.
  4. I love meeting dogs and their owners.
  5. Dogs love meeting me. I've made friends with collies, staffies, labradors, alsatians, boxers, various terriers and a completely mental saluki crossbreed. Most think my catapuller is a toy for them to play with.
  6. I'm not so good at phoning leads. There always seems to be a reason to put this off. Now, this isn't just procrastination (I'm good at that, too, when I want to be), this is more like psychological resistance on a massive scale. I'm pretty sure it harks back to when my ex walked out, leaving me with £20000 of debt, maxed-out credit cards, no way of paying the mortgage and loads of unsympathetic collection agencies threatening legal action. That's no excuse from now on.
  7. I find it easy to be enthusiastic about Kleeneze - this has more to do with how easy it is to make a retail income than my reasonably upbeat personality.
  8. I'm getting fitter.
  9. I am nowhere near as organised as I should be. That has to change in 2011.
  10. I am capable of earning £50 per week extra with minimal effort, poor organisation and sporadic tracking.
  11. I should be earning a heck of a lot more, and I will be in 2011.
Business Discoveries - Retail:
  1. Hitting the 10% volume profit level is extremely easy once you put in sufficient effort.
  2. Sufficient effort is around 200 - 300 books delivered each week regularly over a 4 to 6 week cycle. Note, I don't have the time to do catalogue presenting and many of my customers will not open the door after dark, when I deliver my catalogues. I firmly believe that the personal approach is best and am aware there is a higher per-catalogue income when the catalogue is presented.
  3. Even at Christmas time, the majority of my orders were for regular Kleeneze products.
  4. It's extremely easy not to notice when a customer forgets to put their address on their order.
  5. It is not so easy to find the customer afterwards.
  6. It takes up to 4 visits to get 95% of your catalogues back. Leaving a note stating when you will return to collect the stragglers is vital.
  7. It can take a couple of visits before you can hand over their goods to the customer. It's essential to let them know in advance by phone or thank you slip when you will deliver their order.
  8. It is perfectly possible to destroy a catapuller through regular use over a five month period, especially when you're delivering and collecting 400 catalogues a week.
Business Discoveries - Team Building:
  1. No matter what you do, some prospects will agree with you right up to where you ask them to sign the distributor agreement. Then they'll avoid your calls as though you're a debt collector/their ex/Satan and all his little imps.
  2. Some prospects lie. Some don't understand what they've seen, what they've read and what they've been told. It's up to you how you deal with it. Taking this personally is not the right way to deal with it.
  3. A steady flow of leads is no use if you're too scared to call them. If you've got the collywobbles over talking to prospects, then treat this like going out in the rain to deliver catalogues - get prepared (learn or use a script until you can fly solo), get equipped (phone, pen, paper, contact details, etc.) and get on with it. In 2011, I intend to take my own advice on that one...
  4. Always ask for referrals. If the person you're talking to doesn't want to join your team, see if they can suggest someone who might. If they do want to join your team, see if they can suggest someone to join with them. Always remember points 1 and 2. 
  5. I should take every opportunity to ask people to join my team via my Kleeneze website.