Making Time For Both Your Home Business and Your Family
By Audrey Okaneko

I remember when I began my first business. There were just not enough hours in the day. And this was true for each of the 7 days of the week. My daughter was only 3 months old when I started that business. I was not working outside of the home.

I was now looking at needing time to be a mom to my newborn daughter, be a daughter to my two wonderful parents, be a wife to my husband, take care of the household and now run a business.

Unfortunately, as is often the case, my business was the only entity not suffering from time neglect. I was working 80 to 100 hours per week on this business. I seldom spoke to friends. I was constantly saying no to social invitations. My husband and I were fast becoming strangers. I was also missing out on quality time with my daughter as her dad took over bath time, bed time and even weekend time.

Then I discovered day planners. I was now scheduling everything. By using a day planner I discovered I actually had time to say yes to some of those social invitations. I had time to visit with my parents at least once a week. I had time to spend with my husband and I took back some nights with my daughter, bathing her and putting her to bed at night.

This day planner worked wonderfully all through my next pregnancy and the years that followed. I was able to volunteer at school, go on field trips and still run a successful business.

I remember when my daughter was a teenager, she knew the rules. “If you want me there, you need to put it into my day planner”. I recall she and I battled one day as she felt it was silly for a teenager to have to schedule time with mom. She was right that it does sound silly, however if she wanted me at her school, if she needed me to drive carpool, if she wanted me to attend a meeting, or even if she wanted to schedule in a lunch, if she wrote it in my day planner, it was going to happen. She began really hearing her friend’s complaints of moms who worked too much, had too many meetings and had no time for their daughters. These moms did not use day planners like I did. These women were not being able to find time to give to their daughters. I was often driving their children to events as they couldn’t find the time.

I scheduled my business time too. I knew which days/hours were going to be spent marketing, talking with customers, talking with team members etc. When you keep track of your time in writing, in a day planner, it is so much easier to fit it all in. I scheduled several times per day to check email and return phone calls. It truly is easier to answer 5 calls back to back versus stopping what you’re doing to answer the phone 5 different times.

One area that was troubling to me was reading. I had a huge list of books that had been recommended to me and yet I was not finding the time to read them. One mentor said “can you find 10 minutes per day?” I laughed. “I’m the queen of day planners, or course I can find 10 minutes a day, why?” He went on to explain that 10 minutes per day reading came out to over an hour per week, over 4 hours per month. He felt quite confident that spending just 10 minutes per day would have me finishing about one book per month. This was so easy to schedule in. I left home 10 minutes early to pick my daughter up from school. I spent those 10 extra minutes either in the car reading, or I’d sit on the grass when the weather was nice and use those 10 minutes to read. I began getting through that list of books and loved what I was learning.

My kids are both older now. While they were young, having a day planner helped me have it all, a successful business and plenty of time with my family.

About the Author
Audrey Okaneko has been in business since 1983. She can be reached at audreyoka@cox.net or visited at http://www.scrapping-made-simple.com

I'm Not Interested
By Wendy Weiss

Whenever I conduct a workshop or teleclass, invariably someone asks the question: "What should I say when the prospect says, 'I'm not interested?'"

My response invariably is: "It's probably too late."

Certainly you can try to recover from that "I'm not interested" response. You can ask, "Why do you say that?" (Say this gently, as though you are confused and really, really want the answer.) You can repeat back: "Not interested?" (Again, say this gently, as though you are confused.) This sometimes gets people to start talking and explain themselves. Bottom line, however, if everyone that you speak with says, "I'm not interested," you're not saying anything interesting.

If you have a compelling script with stellar delivery, you will hardly ever hear the words, "I'm not interested." That's because you will actually be saying something interesting!

On the telephone, you have approximately 10-20 seconds to grab your prospect's attention - and if you do not do that, your call is probably over. 10-20 seconds is not a lot of time. You are not going to convey a lot of information in 10-20 seconds. Instead, what you'll convey is your energy, your confidence and your excitement. Your words must reach out and immediately grab and hook your prospect's attention.

From the moment your prospect says, "Hello," your goal is to gain your prospect's attention so that she is hungry to hear more. If you don't hook your prospects in the beginning of your conversation, they will not want to speak with you. They will say, "I'm not interested," and worse case, they may hang up on you.

In order to hook your prospect, ask yourself: Whom are you calling? Why should they be interested? You're looking for hot buttons, those issues that are so important to your prospect that when they come up, your prospect stops in her tracks to listen. The big point here is that when you are trying to hook someone, you have to have some sense of what's important to them.

Ask yourself: What is the value that I (the company/product/service) bring to customers. How do they benefit? How do I (the company/product/service) make customer's lives easy, stress-free, happy, profitable etc? You may have to do some market research and/or brainstorming here. Once you've determined that value, however, lead with it.

Here's an example:

Last year when I conducted the "Cold Calling College" teleclass, I received an e-mail from a participant. He said he was calling owners of mid-size companies and not having much success. His e-mail read:

"...I say my name and company and then say 'we specialize in business performance management solutions for budgeting, reporting and analysis.... I hear 'not interested' then they hang up before I can say anything else.

Another thing I have tried is, '...the reason I am calling is to introduce [company name]'s budgeting reporting analysis solutions and to invite you to an Excel seminar....' But after this I hear, 'not interested,' then they hang up before I can say anything else."

It's hardly surprising that these introductions didn't work. They weren't interesting. There was nothing in those first sentences to grab and hook a business owner's attention.

Later on, after going through the "Cold Calling College" system, the person who wrote this e-mail was able to pare his introduction down. His introduction ended up being something like: "We help companies keep the money they make." Short, sweet, to the point and focused on the value to business owners. Prospects stopped hanging up on him. Instead, he was able to start scheduling meetings with those business owners.

Lesson learned: Do your homework. Do what ever is necessary to truly understand your prospects. Before you ever pick up the phone, have the answer to the question: "Why should this prospect be interested?" If you have that answer, you will never again
hear: "I'm not interested."

© 2006 Wendy Weiss

About the Author
Wendy Weiss, "The Queen of Cold Calling," is a sales trainer, author and sales coach. Her recently released program, Cold Calling College, and/or her book, Cold Calling for Women, can be ordered by visiting http://www.wendyweiss.com. Contact her at wendy@wendyweiss.com. Get Wendy's free e-zine at http://www.wendyweiss.com.