Episode 37 Transcript

Hey everyone, it’s me Lisa and welcome back to another episode of The Other 99%. Today’s episode is going to be a little bit different. I am currently sitting at a beautiful beach house on Lake Huron near Grand Bend, Ontario. I’m away at a leadership retreat for the weekend and I thought it would be great to ask my housemates to give you a few tips for the holiday season. So what you’re gonna hear over the next few minutes is some great tips from my colleagues, my work buddies. They’re gonna share what their biggest tips are for the holidays and hopefully you can resonate with something they’re sharing. Now keep in mind that we are Epicure people. So you might hear some talk about food because that’s just what we do, But remember what I always say, anything that you hear that is direct sales related, you can pivot the information that they’re sharing with you and apply it to your business. So you just have to think about how can I put my business in that tip or trick? So take a listen and then I’m gonna come back and share my biggest tip for the holiday season with you as well.

Hey, it’s Jacqueline, Global Director here, and you’re wondering how to get prepared for the holiday season. Well, here it goes. I would highly recommend that you start immediately. You need to plan for this because it’s gonna sneak up on you faster than you can possibly imagine. So get all your collateral together, look at your calendar, figure out what you got open and what your plans are. Have fun!

Hey everybody, this is Debra Spiers, Executive Director with Epic here. And…I understand we’re looking for tips for the holiday season. My tips don’t actually change from season to season, although….One of the biggest ones for this season is to make sure that you’re on top of everything that your company is providing you. This is the busiest season for direct sales as a whole. So chances are, there’s a lot of promos, a lot of incentives, a lot of things going on both for your customers and for yourself to earn. So you’re probably going to want to know what those are. Cause if you don’t know, you can’t set a goal. But my biggest tip always is to make sure that you get paid every At my company, we get paid every Friday for our sales that we enter. And I make sure that I am getting paid every single Friday. And if you follow that tip, you’ll always have money coming in. You’ll always have customers and you’ll always have follow-up to do. All right. Wishing you all the best this holiday season.

Hi, my name is Pauleen Kerkhof and I am a senior director with Epicure. I have been with Epicure for almost 20 years. So my piece of advice for the holiday season is first of all, if whatever it is that you’re doing, I’m sure that you have a passion for the product that it is that you represent. Why do you love your product? Why is your product good and useful and of service to someone else? You know these things, so are you going to keep these things to yourself or are you going to make sure that other people know about what you have and how good it is for them. So my advice is, don’t keep it to yourself, share it. Let them know how you can help them.

Hi, I’m Kandice-Lee Doucette. I’m an independent Epicure Leader, and I’m in Toronto, Ontario. And my best tip for drug sellers during the holiday season is not to stress about time. Take five minutes here, take five minutes there, just remember that that five minutes you can get so much done with the one person you’re reaching out to, whether it’s to check in on their family, whether it’s to see if they need something, where as to give them a tip or whatever. Like for us we’re all about food, so a recipe, but don’t try to think that you need to do all of it in a large quantity of time, especially during the holiday season. So just take five minutes on your break and reach out to someone you care about.

Hi, I’m Melissa Berard and I am a leader with Epicure, sharing good food and my tip for the holiday season is don’t forget about the customers. They also need to eat, it’s not all about the holiday gifting, so they also need the healthy meals because it is a busy time. So be in service for your customers is my number one tip.

Hello, I’m Chantelle Staff, senior leader with Epicure. My biggest tip for the fall is to bundle things together that go together. People a lot of times don’t think about that stuff. So if you bundle things that go together, maybe it’s a piece of small cookware with two different items, or maybe it’s three items that go well together. Bundle them up in some nice Christmas cello and yeah, have it on display. And that oftentimes will jog their thinking.

Tricia Sturgeon here, senior leader with Epicure. One of my best holiday tips is first, be kind to yourself and take time you need because it is a busy season. And secondly, giving people different ideas of how to use a product. I do a lot of vendor events in the fall and I share so much information about products. People are, what do you do with this? What do you do with that? And so quick and easy. And then of course I get other customers who are there to purchase products, sharing their ideas as well. And it brings a sense of community and connection with my customers. That is something that I am striving for.

All right, everyone, weren’t those some great tips? I hope that you’ve been able to take some notes and are going to implement some of those tips in your business over the next couple months. And now it’s my time to give my biggest tip for the holiday season. Now I see this remember 18 years in the business and I see this time and time again. I see too many consultants locking the doors to their business once their company shuts off holiday shipping. Now I know the holidays are a And I know that we just need to take a break. And I’m not saying don’t take a break. What I’m saying is don’t lock the doors to your business. There is still so much that we can offer our customers. Think about it. Our businesses run the rest of the year, no problem. We are not just a gift-giving business. We have products and most of us have consumable products. You know and people use these every day they like for example epic here like People eat every day they they consume our products. They might be making holiday meals. They might be making you know, they might have To stock up on their favourites heck. We might even have some Holiday deals that come out. So whatever you do, please please please do not lock your doors to your business Once the shipping cutoff arrives. Now keep in mind that if you do lock the doors, what’s gonna happen? You’re gonna find that you take a break over the holidays and then the new year comes and it’s still the busyness. If you have kids, they’re going back to school and then it’s like, oh, well, maybe I’ll get started. And then what happens is you’re in the second, you’re in the third, you’re in the fourth week of January and you don’t restart your business until February. and then you’re struggling because it’s almost like starting a new business. So what I’m recommending is that don’t lock your doors. You might wanna put in a, I’ll be back in 15 minutes sign on your door and then take a pause and then regroup, be with your family for a bit, but stay in front of your customers. Make it a plan to be there and sharing everything that you have to offer. Don’t lock the door.because what you’ll notice is that if you keep that consistency in your business, your business will start off at the beginning of the year with a big bang. You’re not gonna have to feel like you’re restarting the wheel, pushing it uphill to get the momentum going. So I hope you enjoyed all of these tips, everyone. I appreciate you taking the time to listen and thank you so much for joining me on another episode of The Other 99% and we will see you again next week. Take care.