Door hangers explained!

There have been some questions about door hangers, so I thought I'd clear it up for y'all!

In the USA, the mail boxes (typically at the end of people's drives) belong to the American Postal Service, so it's therefore illegal to put anything into these mail boxes, or stick or hang anything on them. Because they have mailboxes, no one has letter boxes in their front doors, and therefore the best alternative to a leaflet is a door hanger. Think of a hotel "do not disturb" sign - and that's a door hanger! Now picture the "do not disturb" sign with a Slimming World design - and that's a Slimming World door hanger!

Carol and I have found that the time to physically hang the hanger on each door is quicker than putting a leaflet through each door, however as you'll know from earlier blog entries, the houses are typically bigger here, so the walk between each house takes longer. Also, the big difference is the weather. With temperatures currently around 84 degrees in the morning, rising to an average of 102 degrees in the afternoon and not starting to cool down until around 8pm, it's hot - damn hot! The maximum time I've spent 'on the street' so far is 3 hours, and I regretted that! We're averaging 50 door hangers per person in 42 minutes in my household (that is just myself and Thomas, 8 years old!) and Carol's crew are way ahead at 100 hangers per person, per hour (a 1/4 of which are army trained though - her son Alexander has arrived to help!). Carol's also doing well at gathering help (a fire woman who does the admin at the church in which she has her Tues pm group, and potentially a couple of young men who live accross the road).

I've found that crocs with socks are the most comfortable shoes (when you have blisters!) for doorhanging - any other ideas welcome (please!!). All I can say is that Consultants must all have the most solid of calves! Wearing sunglasses is not a good idea - I have "panda eyes" from my 3 hour stint yesterday - brown nose and face and white eyes - attractive!

I've been told of two apartment blocks in The Colony that have 250 apartments per block where the manager of the block (if they like you!) will hang your hangers for you. I have to say, it's very tempting, but I know that it wouldn't count as part of my prongs, as I wouldn't know that they had hung them.....what would you do? Post your answers on the comments link............

I'm handing over the writing of the blog to Carol for the weekend, as we're moving into our house on Friday - yes, we really are!!!! It's buggered up the community activities that I had planned for Friday and Saturday (where's my commitment?!), so back to the drawing board next week...

I'm a blag queen!

Today has been a promotion spectacular!

This morning 350 door hangers hung in the Colony. This afternoon word of mouthing wherever I went!

I've managed to talk my way into a breakfast "networking" meeting on Friday morning, and got a table at a business expo on Saturday am. More into my stride with it now - you just have to talk to anyone and everyone!

My two groups are opening in two different cities (towns) and I now know that I will never set a new Consultant up to open two groups at the same time in two different towns - such hard work driving backwards and forwards to each city. By far the easiest to promote is the one where I am going to be living - word of mouth at school today - invited to parents meeting next Friday (more WOM - yipee!).

Funny how we get told all this, but it's not until you actually do it for yourself......!

A meeting of great minds!

Today I met with the Houston lawyers that have been working with us on various items in preparation for our launch, most importantly our Consultant Contract. This has proved to be a mine field, but we're very nearly there with it now. It's all been really interesting to work on and things will be quite different to how they are in the UK, for example, we will be charging more for our franchise, charging Consultants for any training after Foundation training, maybe having the contract so that Consultants have to re-train every two years to have their licence re-newed - no licence, no group! And the earnings will be capped at 40% to start with.

Are you all still keen to come to the USA?!

Freedom of speech?!

A very interesting couple of days! After my run in with the MOG, Carol and I checked out the permit situation, and it turns out that every city has its own rules.

So in Frisco, I need a permit to doorhang. I can doorhang from 9am - 7pm Mon - Fri and 10am - 5pm on a Sat or Sun. Permit costs $35 for 6 months and anyone that doorhangs with me also needs a permit at $35! In The Colony I can doorhang from sunrise to sunset 7 days a week, and do not need a permit (so long as I don't talk to anyone!). If Thomas helps me, it is considered as child labor (absolutely!!) and I need to sign consent forms, am not allowed to take him further than 30 miles away from home, and he can only doorhang from 10am - 7pm on any given day! In Flowermound, Carol cannot doorhang on a Sun or bank hol and can only hang from 9am - 5pm. Carol doesn't need a permit, so long as she doesn't talk to anyone! OK, I know - Carol needs a permit!!!!!

So I guess we should be grateful to the MOG, as without him, we would never have known any of this! Andy says that I'm just the same with bonfires (not before 6pm)!

PS: You may have noticed that I have removed my previous posting containing the F word (no, not that F word), as on reflection I decided that I may cause offence (apologies if I have), and my mum reads my blog - and she wouldn't approve - sorry mum!!

Door hanging - Day 2!

Ow, ow, ow! Didn't realise I was quite so out of shape!!

As my Monday night venue wasn't confirmed until a few days ago, the doorhangers for that group arrived from the UK unprinted, so we're stickering as we go. American labels don't fit in my English printer, so Carol's doing the honors for me, so Thomas and I put out the 100 doorhangers that we had left for Frisco this am. 43 mins and 88 degrees.

We did our first evening shift tonight, starting at 6.30pm (and 97 degrees) - we managed a measly 150 before Thomas knee's started giving way underneath him!!

We've just worked out that we need to hang at least 273 per day, every day to get them all done in time before we open - no problem!!

Door Hanging - Day 1!

Thomas and I started to try and put a dent in our 6,000 doorhangers today. We left home hotel!) at 8am when it was a very cool 88 degrees. Averaged 42 minutes per 100 doorhangers (between the two of us!), had to stop at 11.20am, as it was a "too hot to have your 8 year old walking in this heat" 104 degrees. Told Andy that we need him and Drew in a support vehicle tomorrow for regular refreshment (and resuscitation!) so that we can get a few more done, as at this rate we will take another 14 days to get these done!!

Only met one MOG (miserable old git!) who asked to see my 'permit'. Of course, I didn't have one, but apparently 'the city' require anyone doorhanging in Frisco to have a permit - oops, better get myself to city hall on Monday! So that's a permit for doorhanging, a permit for a banner - I wonder if you need a permit for word of mouth?!!

Drum roll please.......

Slimming World's USA website is now live! Visit us at http://www.slimmingworldusa.com/

Not only are we blessed...we are also the chosen ones!

Our marketing materials have been "chosen" to be checked by customs, meaning that we shall not be receiving them until probably Friday - you know Friday, the day we were supposed to be moving into our new home (again!). Well, we're not (again!), so it's another weekend in the hotel for us!! How will I ever get used to not having cleaners visit every day?!!

We had another fab day visual making. Today's accomplishments were a Challenge Board, a Slimming World synergy board, a Body Magic board, Free food and Superfree food picture boards and we also started on our other visual displays of food packaging. We've decided to pull together various "kits" (e.g: Tex Mex, tipples, breads, Italian, snacks etc) and then we can share these and keep changing the displays in our groups to keep them interesting. I said to Carol that I remember that the Gosport and Fareham team in the Hampshire district always used to do this - make kits and share them around the team - so thanks for the idea guys!

Downtown la la la la la la!

Today started with a meeting "downtown" at the Dallas Morning News. I got the best deal that I could for our group opening adverts. Didn't realise that I would be interviewed to make sure that we were a suitable organisation to advertise in their newspaper - of course they loved Slimming World!

The morning wasn't without drama - a little incident with a dollar bill and a toll booth!! I must get a toll tag to stop this happening! I must also remember that road rage is not a good thing - it's not big and it's not clever (and some people carry guns and knives!!)!

Rest of the day spent visual making with Carol. We have all of our diplomas and other awards ready for our new members table, "meet the team" boards, footprints to show the "way to weigh", a gorgeous Slimmer of the Week basket, a welcome board for the new members table, various countdown visuals - all Slimming World logo'd of course!! I'm sure I've fogotten a few....

OMG - venues are sorted!!

I viewed a church this morning that is perfect for a Monday evening group. It's right in the middle of a MASSIVE area of housing - yipee! And I think that the room could seat about 200 members! Managed to negotiate the rent for the whole evening, which we've found we've been able to do with all of our venues. Much better that way because when we go double / triple session - no rent increase!!! We're also booking our venues October/November & January for the other evenings that they have available, as we know that we'll need to operate more than one group out of each venue to fulfil our growth potential, and of course having our venues booked in advance will make our Consultant recruitment much easier and stronger.

Carol and I visited our Tuesday and Thursday pm group venues today and practised our group layout so that we could best place the chairs, tables and visuals. Thank goodness we did, as we couldn't get the layout that we wanted in the room that we had booked for my Thursday night group, so we've booked a bigger room (for the same rent of course!).

We also went shopping for some more bits and pieces for our groups - baskets to put low syn / free food packaging in, ribbons for our Slimmer of the Week basket (yes, really!) etc.

Carol was contacted today to sign customs forms for the marketing materials that are being delivered to her house. They are arriving in the country tomorrow, but need to clear customs before we get them, which we have been told will be Friday (3 days after we had thought). Our four week promotional period is turning into a two and a bit week promotion (I just hope we can get all of our door hangers out in time!)

We are still homeless!

But don't feel sorry for us - staying in a hotel isn't so bad! We've been told that we can hope to move in next Friday!

Bought some group essentials today - Slimmer of the week basket (the biggest I could find - just need some ribbons and bows to decorate it!), bits and pieces for visual making - Carol and I are getting together to make before and after boards, a "meet the social team" visual (thank you Cheryll Hoskins for that great idea!), boards to display our diplomas and many more visuals besides. We want our groups to visually show "success" - even from night one.

Carol's been out food shopping. She's buying various foods and keeping the packaging to demonstrate high syn v's low syn, as we'll need to teach our members where the syns are hidden. Should make for some great visuals for our interest tables! We'll also be able to discuss in Image Therapy how to make them yourself for even less syns - what's a zucchini again Carol??!!!!