Out from Under

(c) Microsoft

2013 was the Year of the Snake. For me and mine, it was more the Year of the Emotional Rollercoaster.

I was dragged back into the world of 9 to 5 at the end of 2012, which in my career is more like the world of 7 to midnight. In the first 12 months, I had barely enough time outside work to take care of my mum's trips to hospital and my family.

My mum's health still seesaws between OK and the threat of emergency dialysis - her latest diagnosis is that she has diabetes, to add to the kidney failure, renal cardiovascular disease, etc. We're convinced we could use her as a maraca in a mariachi band. We still soldier on, one day at a time; I'm in awe of her resilience.

The household went from a family unit of 3 to a family unit of 5 adults, which is seriously overcrowded in a small 3 bedroomed semi. Mind you, I was delighted to have both elder lads back, although I'm now looking for an elastic walled house.... or a Tardis....

But the ultimate low was the loss of my partner's beloved daughter; we are still mourning and her father will never be the same again.

It goes without saying that there's been a lack of time and energy to spend on my Kleeneze business.

Until now.

I'm back - we're on track for making the 10% bonus this month, the first month of rebuilding my business.

I promised myself I wouldn't blog until that happened. Next stop, building a team, starting with 10 active distributors.

If anybody fancies an all-expenses paid holiday this autumn, get in touch. I intend to be on it and I want as many of my team to be on it as possible.

Time Management, Kleeneze Lady Style

As anybody involved in the early phases of their network marketing business will tell you, there comes a time when building your business assumes a greater mental priority than working on furthering your 9 to 5 job prospects.

My problem is, I get paid too much in my 9 to 5 job to just quit - I would need to have a turnover of around £10,000 per 4 week period to come close to my current salary. That means I need to build a good team.

However, as I've discovered over the past few months, making the transition from being a disorganised retailer to an organised team builder isn't easy. I've make two serious attempts at building a team after day job hours and all I've achieved so far is missing out on my Volume bonus.

It's time to get serious about working with spare moments within my day job.

I've now blocked out short periods of 15 to 30 minutes during my working day, during which time I will focus on my Kleeneze business activities. These blocks of time could correspond to company lunch breaks, tea breaks, etc. I'll be inputting orders, contacting prospective team members and catching up on paperwork.

The rest of my day will be used to ensure that I am ahead of my workload, which in turn could free up extra short blocks of time in which to contact more people.

I've revised my 90 day plan accordingly. I'll let you know how I get on.

Back On The Retail Track

After a poor month last month, caused by my spending too much time on recruitment activities, paperwork and Life, I'm happy to confirm that my retail is back on track.

My Kleeneze Group Sales Analysis report (all my own work, at the moment) shows that I've got my 10% Volume bonus this period.

As in previous months, I managed to do that with 3 weeks worth of retail.

My next SMART goals are:

• To write up my new 90 day plan for the next 3 periods no later than 10pm on Thursday 12 May 2011.
• To achieve 13% Volume bonus by the end of the next 3 periods, based on personal retail.
• To add another 200 regular customers by the end of the 90 days.
• To contact every person on my current active warm list by the end of the 90 days.
• To add 1 team member per week over the next 90 days.

Now, to do all of that, and juggle being a single mum, working full time and supporting my fiance, who's working overseas again after 2 weeks in this country - that's going to be fun!

Stress, what stress? This is what I do best - setting goals and sticking to them.

Failing Your Way To Success

Well, I've screwed up big time this month.

I decided to increase my sponsoring efforts and as a result I'm not getting my retail bonus for the first time in 6 months.

I need to find a way to do both with the limited hours at my disposal. Looks like it's back to Review, Revise and Refocus.

Still, I've learnt that I can either put out catalogues (this time, with recruitment flyers in), or I can put out recruitment flyers. I don't have the time for both. I'm having problems finding the time to fit everything in as it is.

My typical week goes something like this (with the exception of trips to Heathrow; that only happens once every 3 months):

	Saturday	Sunday	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
05:00					Get up, breakfast	Get up, breakfast
06:00	Get up, wake son	Get up, wake son	Get up, wake son	Get up, wake son	Leave for Heathrow, wake son	Leave for Leicestershire, wake son by phone	Get up, wake son
07:00	Son's paperround, breakfast	Son's paperround, breakfast	Son's paperround, breakfast	Son's paperround, breakfast	Son's paperround, breakfast, Travel to Heathrow	Son's paperround, breakfast, travel to Leicestershire	Son's paperround, breakfast
08:00	Travel to Chichester	Rebag catalogues	Drop son at school, car share, travel to work	Drop son at school, car share, travel to work	Arrive at Heathrow	Car share, travel to work	Car share, travel to work
09:00	Travel to Chichester	Rebag catalogues	Arrive at day job	Arrive at day job	Collect fiance	Arrive at day job	Arrive at day job
10:00	Travel to Chichester	Gardening	Work	Work	Travel to Oxfordshire	Work	Work
11:00	Arrive at Chichester	Gardening	Work	Work	Arrive at Oxfordshire	Work	Work
12:00	Family day out	Lunch	Work	Work	Lunch with fiance	Work	Work
13:00	Family day out	Shopping	Lunchtime phone calls to prospects	Lunchtime phone calls to prospects	Rest of day with fiance (just back from overseas contract)	Lunchtime phone calls to prospects	Lunchtime phone calls to prospects
14:00	Family day out	Housework	Work	Work	With fiance	Work	Work
15:00	Family day out	Decorating	Work	Work	With fiance	Work	Work
16:00	Travel home	Weekly talk to fiance in Kazakhstan	Work	Work	With fiance	Work	Work
17:00	Travel home	Weekly talk to fiance in Kazakhstan	Work	Work	With fiance	Work	Work
18:00	Travel home	Evening meal	Arrive home, get changed, start Kleeneze recruitment	Arrive home, get changed, start Kleeneze retail	With fiance	Arrive home, get changed, start Kleeneze retail	Arrive home, get changed, start Kleeneze retail
19:00	Shopping	Housework	Blanket drop flyers	Blanket drop catalogues	With fiance	Collect catalogues	Blanket drop catalogues
20:00	Evening meal	Review weekly activity	Blanket drop flyers	Blanket drop catalogues	With fiance	Collect catalogues	Blanket drop catalogues
21:00	Housework	Plan weekly activity	Arrive home, evening meal	Arrive home, evening meal	With fiance	Arrive home,  rebag catalogues	Arrive home, evening meal
22:00	Decorating	Bed	Housework	Housework	Bed	Input customer orders, eat	Housework
23:00	Bed		Bed	Bed		Housework	Bed
00:00						Bed

I have virtually no social life and consequently a very small warm market. That's due to being a single mum, who works full time. All I've done is swap surfing and TV time for Kleeneze time. My fiance lives 55 miles away, so we only see each other at weekends when he's not working overseas.

I know I need to work smarter; I know I'm still a Kleeneze apprentice and I'm learning all I can. I just haven't worked out how to improve my organisation and time management skills.

But I will, and when I do, I'll be on my way to achieving my goals.

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.

Well Done, Karen and Pete Flitton

This deserves a wider audience: Generosity helps Poorly Children. A true example of the Christmas spirit.

Kleeneze Works, Even When You're Ill

For the past 3 weeks, I've struggled to keep going. I admit it. No matter how buoyant a distributor's personality, there are times when you have to run as fast as you can just to stay still.

In my case, as with many others at this time of the year, my family got knobbled by the seasonal flu that's doing the rounds. So I spent 2 weeks trying to cope with a full time job, a 90 minute round-trip commute and my Kleeneze retail targets, as well as ensuring that my sons were being looked after to the best of my abilities. Building a team was not on my list of priorities. Surviving each day was.

Just as they started getting better (this year's flu seems to hit people with a week of the usual symptoms followed by two weeks of bronchial problems), I got the darned bug myself. For four days, I struggled in to the day job, dreading every minute of that 45 minute each way trip. On the first day, my youngest son got clipped by a car on his bike ride back from school. He was extremely lucky and got away with scrapes and bruises; he walked his bike home before the shock set in. I took a day's holiday to keep an eye on him; I'm not sure who ached the most. By day 5, I'd got to the point where I crawled out of bed, phoned in sick and crawled right back again. It's now day 13 and although I no longer feel like death warmed up, the bronchial phase has led to my office manager suggesting I go home sick again.

So what has this to do with Kleeneze working for you?

Simply this: both I and my youngest son followed the same basic principles - to only commit to what we knew we could deliver, to do what we said we'd do when we said we'd do it, and to revise our planned activity to suit the new circumstances.

I delivered ordered goods, put out far fewer catalogues than normal, but ensured I got my 10% bonus volume by week 3 of the period, as per my goals.

My youngest son, despite the flu and his injuries, turned up to do his paper round every morning, regardless of how ill he felt, because he knew the newsagent was short-staffed. I'm so very, very proud of him.

The great thing about a good network marketing company is that, if you are diligent and consistent, results happen when you least expect it. I currently have a dozen people to contact with more information about building their own Kleeneze business, many of whom came in directly via my Kleeneze website, all due to the effort I put in before the seasonal flu took hold. I'll be talking to them over the next few days, sending further information and discussing their joining my team. 2010 was good - 2011 is going to be even better.

Originally posted on It's Not An Attitude.