Tuesday, April 5, 2011

Goals Drive

Highly demanded by businesses are goals-setting. Without goals, we are just lost souls with no direction. Don't know if to look left or right, up or down. One must also be organized, but this is a whole other post.

The first step is to decide what it is that needs to be achieved. Is it building your customer base, increasing your sales, lowering your costs, or maybe all of these? Essentially, becoming conscious of what is necessary to reach these objectives leads to recognizing the risks, as well as the benefits involved. Generally, one should only take on tasks in which the benefits exceed the costs all around. However, at times, it may not be that way.

Lets use building your customer base as an example. Multiple goals can be set. However, it all comes down to how specific and ambitious you can be. Say we decide to set a goal of reaching out to 7 customers a week. Keeping record is necessary. This is just keeping simple statistical data. For those who don't like numbers, all it takes is just a piece of paper (a journal would be great), pencil and calculator.

You should not only keep information about your current customers, but of any prospect. Each and every individual you interacted with should be accounted for. Specify important information such as location, date met, gender, and any pertinent information necessary for future follow up (this includes name and contact information). Every so often, you should update your records and then look to see if you reached your 7 a week goal. While you are at it, see what percentage of those were successful follow ups. Once you gather and review all the information, you will need to identify any strengths and weaknesses. Based on that discovery, you must modify your current plan to something more effective. Now you know a lot more about your business than you did before when you did not set any goals!

Sunday, April 3, 2011

Welcome!

Welcome to my blog! My name is Michelle and I look forward to interacting with as many wonderful small business individuals as possible.

So this blog is essentially going to be about how my Avon-Mark business started and how I will continue to grow it. I would like to be able to apply all my business education and experience to maximize my success in it, as well as help other business aspiring individuals to grow. Before anything, I am not only just an Avon-Mark representative, but a 7-year experienced accountant with a masters, and future CPA. I am a wife of a wonderful man who is currently pursuing his law degree. Currently no children, but definitely in the picture in the near future.

Anyhow, a brief history about my venture with Avon in the present, and in the past. I have worked with Avon twice! The first time was in my college years, and let me tell you, those were good business times. I worked at a mall with women galore! All I had to do was take a brochure to work and I came out with at least 2-4 orders a campaign. I had to stop because once I started working in an office setting, school and work just began to take most of my time. The second time I started working with Avon was just recently, this February, along with Mark. The reason I decided to do this again was because I don't only want to be known as a "bean counter" lol, but mostly a business woman. I also want to finish what I started a couple of years back. What I mean by this is that many new Avon representatives give up way too soon before they can see results, or should I say profits. It's important to know that businesses will typically operate on losses in the initial months or years, depending on the type of business. Therefore, if starting a business, once must be conscious that they will not see results right away.

Avon isn't for everyone, but since I was little (and my family can vouch for that lol), I like to think that I have a business mind. This time around, I want to see what I am capable of making out of this. The goal is to get this blog to not just help those starting an Avon business or even market mine, but also help those who are interested in starting or already have another type of business of their own.  Even though I am not "seasoned" in business management, I certainly have the knowledge, education, and adequate amount of experience.

Disclosure: I am not an expert, but I can certainly attempt to help or even help find resources.

Currently, I am working on my sale and marketing ideas. Just like any other business, with Avon it is crucial that you are creative. It can go a long way!

Signing off,

Michelle Espinoza

Please visit my different sites:

http://www.mgorganizesfinances.com
http://michelleespinoza.mymarkstore.com/
http://www.youravon.com/mespinoza
http://www.etsy.com/shop/mimicards0726