Monday
Posted by: jeanannduckworth on: August 3, 2009
Back home and hard at work. Finishing the back-to-school issue of G2G magazine so I can upload it today or tomorrow. Building our first paper and ink catalog for the holidays. I am impressed with the cover even if I did do it myself. Put a question before the Divas today. When people make purchases, they are not buying the product. There is a deeper motivation that drives them to choose the specific items they buy. Trying to get a handle on what motivates our potential customers. Knowing this allows us to focus all our marketing on their motivation. If you have any ideas, let me know.
Tuesday
Posted by: jeanannduckworth on: July 21, 2009
Taking off for another camping trip. Still plan to work while I am communing with nature! 
Hope to get most of my book completed on this trip.
Friday
Posted by: jeanannduckworth on: July 17, 2009
I want to put the finishing touches on all the web items I have been busy creating this week. Need to make certain each web piece leads visitors to other information. Nothing should stand alone.
Also going to work on new business cards for authors. These include their cover on the front and information on the back. The first one takes time and then they flow after that.
Thursday
Posted by: jeanannduckworth on: July 16, 2009
Today I am working on info for Sales Consultants. I realized I had strayed from my original intent. My mission is to help women improve the quality of their lives. Instead, I was only thinking about selling books. I was anxious about finding sales reps. I decided to get back to basics. I am creating info to benefit sales reps whether they work for us or not. As with the publishing side of our company, I want to set the standard. I believe by training and mentoring sales reps, whether they work for us or not, I am helping to improve the quality of the industry. That benefits all of us.
Must remember our mantra: Serving not Selling!
Wednesday
Posted by: jeanannduckworth on: July 15, 2009
When I began this blog, the purpose was a record of our company as it developed. I work to keep it positive but I need to include the bad with the good. I have been incredibly discouraged lately. There aren’t enough words to say how much I believe in our books and our company. I have been inspired by the incredible women God has sent to us. I know we can make an impact, working together. We can help women improve the quality of their lives.
The problem is sales. Our books just aren’t selling. I’m not sure why. The women who have bought the books and seen the books and reviewed the books tell me how great they are. Yet they still don’t sell. We have put all our financial resources into getting these books printed. We have nothing left to put into the company. We do, however, have an extensive inventory of books. Until they sell, we can’t move forward.
I keep hanging on. I don’t want to discourage any of the women working with us. I want all of us to keep pushing forward so we can break through what I believe to be the final barrier. I just need the strength to hang on. Praying hard. It’s all I have left.
Tuesday
Posted by: jeanannduckworth on: July 14, 2009
Today I am focusing on information for women in direct sales. As a publisher, I take the approach that the more authors I mentor, the more I help them improve the way they run their business, the more we can improve the industry. I plan to take the same approach with direct sales. We are reformatting our company as a direct sales company. We do not just publish books. We have a message to share with women and we now know we need to do this one on one. By training women to do presentations during events, teaching their clients about our philosophy and then showing how our products help them incorporate that philosophy into their lives, we can be more effective.
I realized today that I can take my thoughts on sales, on direct sales and write articles for women. I want to set the standard in the industry. I believe we can do this by taking the focus away from SELLING and putting it on SERVING. Yes, this is a very altruistic attitude. I really don’t care how corny it seems. I believe it will work and I plan to prove it.
Let the games begin!
Monday
Posted by: jeanannduckworth on: July 13, 2009
Beginning of a new week. I am starting a new campaign called “Put Mr Diva to Work” It began as a tongue in cheek video about my husband who handles the processing of our orders. I got an idea to create a slideshow video, showing photos of him sleeping on the job because he didn’t have any orders to fill. Posted the video yesterday to YouTube.
Today, I realized I can turn this into a whole campaign. Create a website and blog to update women on our progress to put Mr Diva to work. Plan to take more photos showing him goofing off and smirking because he thinks he won’t be put to work. So, will play with that today.
Also, sending info to 2 women that applied as Sales Divas. One is local and one in Michigan. That brings us up to 5. It’s a start.
Have a great Monday!
Thursday
Posted by: jeanannduckworth on: July 9, 2009
My day off. Time to run errands. Going to purchase pattern and material for the dress I plan to wear in my new publicity photos. Also plan to begin new recruitment video for sales reps. Received suggestions from one of our sales reps on the approach I need to use. Maybe I can squeeze a nap in there somewhere. We’ll see.
Wednesday
Posted by: jeanannduckworth on: July 8, 2009
Day off with Mr Diva. However, I still work on my days off. Today, I plan to develop a new approach to recruit sales divas. Yesterday, our cousin, Karen went to a local bookstore to discuss carrying our books. She shops there all the time and thought it was a great place to begin. The owner thought he should get a bigger discount. Karen pointed out the advantages of carrying our books, even asked the women working in the store what they thought of the books (they liked them.) It was a not go. When Karen called to discuss it, I told her this is the reason we need to move into direct sales. Stores just don’t seem to understand our books and the advantage of them. So, we need to take them directly to the customer!
Let’s see what happens!
Tuesday
Posted by: jeanannduckworth on: July 7, 2009
I got a lot accomplished yesterday. Today, I have orders to process and more work to do on the website. I want to get the site completely updated this week so I can begin updating my site and all my support materials next week. While all this keeps me busy, at least I feel I am moving ahead. Only time will tell, though.
