Just a little Team Meeting.....

"How would you feel about doing a joint Team Meeting? It would take the pressure off a bit - don't you think?"

True. By doing a Training meet up together, it would half the amount of work. We could share it out and lean on each other. Brilliant idea! I said. Lets do it!

Today, as I type, the meeting is 2 days away. This little Team Meeting has snowballed and turned into something quite, quite different.

Claire was one of my Incentive Cruise buddies. We are only an hour and a bit up the motorway - so it made perfect sense to join up and arrange a training day. It's fair to say we both have an immovable belief that Scentsy is a huge opportunity, that anyone can succeed with it at any time. I am well aware that most people will give up within the first year of being with a direct sales or party plan company. The purpose of this event was to share our passion for the company and the product with our teams. To promote the long term residual income, and put a fire in their belly for the Winter Sales Season, so that they can really get stuck in and go and achieve what they never thought possible!

We had an idea that we would ask the top Scentsy Consultants for their TOP BUSINESS BUILDING TIPS. The Super Star Directors (the top rank in Scentsy) are all in the USA. Claire and I messaged a few we knew were in our upline and asked them for their TOP TIPS to help our teams launch the Scentsy Brand here in Europe. After all, they had done it so successfully in the USA with a fraction of the support that we have now! 

So we were a little floored to get a reply from one SSD, who we had never met, asking if we would mind if they came over to the UK for our meeting - to help us. OMG! Serioulsy??? You are going to come all this way? We skyped, they were awesome, and normal and just wanted to help us to help our teams. I love it. The Scentsy ethos of pulling together and helping out. The Scentsy Family. More than a company - and I don't care how "La dee da" that sounds! Until I became part of the Scentsy company I really had no idea where all the happy and helpful souls were hiding. I am so glad I found them.

But theres more.....From the launch of Scentsy Europe in April 2011 we have been run from afar in the USA. Many emails and requests for our own home based manager were thrown back and forth, someone who understood the market here and how we are as a nation. And lo...a UK Manager came unto us. As it happened just a week before our meeting! Yay!! I spy an opportunity here....so I emailed, facebooked and generally harassed our previous European Manager, who is based in Idaho, into telling our new guy about our meeting. 

BRING BRING!!! The Dude calls me on the Monday before the meeting to tell me he'd be delighted to come along and meet the Teams! #DoubleYay! 

Claire and I had already decided that, with our SSD coming along we wanted to make the most of the opportunity and open up the meeting not just to our teams but to any one else who was local and could make it. It would be such a shame to have such great training and knowledge to near by and not know about it! So we invited others in, and they gratefully accepted.

We now have a great day planned, 5 trainings, 3 VIP's, a great opportunity to for the UK Manager to meet our UK Consultants and for them to tell him what we need, lots of food, a great networking day for everyone with an evening meal afterwards.

I bloomin' love this job. The opportunities just keep coming - and to think I never knew this world was out there.

All I have left to do is grab a huge tray of doughnuts from Adsa and laminate some print outs for the day. In fact the laminator is warming as I type....

Have a great weekend :)

 

And then it happened.......

Its been nearly two years since I joined Scentsy, the Party Plan company for the safer alternative to candles.

There's been times I've wanted to give up and walk away. But a few phrases and words of advice have always repeated over and over in my mind, so jacking it all in was never more that a fleeting release of frustration.

I wasn't making a lot of money, I was putting hours and hours into it, I was tired, my team was growing meaning I had to make sure I was always one step ahead and knew my stuff, that I could inspire and train. Sometimes sales were thin on the ground. Sometimes events would be like the Mary Celeste.

But on the plus side, I had met some amazingly inspiring people. I had won a free Mediterranean cruise, all expenses paid. I found out that I was actually an OK person and not the failure I had always assumed I was. I had promised myself that if I was going to do this - I was going to do it properly. From the word GO I ran this as a business. Keeping records of my expenditure and earnings, tax returns, receipts, logging petrol. I made myself a timetable of both the days of the week I would spend doing Scentsy, and also the things I would cover during that time to make sure all aspects of the business were covered. Training, recruiting, events, parties, customer services, social media.....its been hard work.

Those words and phases I was telling you about...

"If you work really hard for 2 - 3 years, it will all be worth it....I promise"

"It's not the lucky few who succeed in Party Plan, its the ones who refuse to give up, that's why they are at the top. It's not luck - it's perseverance"

"Most people give up within the first year. That first year it just ground work. Accept it and work towards years 2 and 3"

"I'm not telling you it will be easy....I'm telling you it will be worth it"

Every time it got hard, parties cancelled, team members came and went, my commission went to the stall holders fees, I was tired....these phrases kept coming back to me.

I had invested too much time, too much effort & too much of me to give up. I plodded on. I kept consistent. I did it all on my terms, worked Scentsy when I could and worked it hard. I have never pushed for sales or recruits - that was my promise to myself. Don't EVER turn into one of those pushy target driven drones.

This month I have promoted again. A whole bunch of my team have promoted too. I am arranging a training day with a fellow Scentsy Consultant who has nothing to do with my team - we just share the same drive and passion and immovable belief that this will work! I have been astounded time and time again my the response of others. To help, to motivate, to succeed. I have found a network of people that want to BE somebody and DO something.

My some of my fabulous Team with Orville & Heidi 

This training day is shaping up to be something amazing, beyond my expectations, and that is due to the kindness and selflessness of others.

So now, after 2 years of working hard, every minute I could, I am starting to see results. It's not just "happened". Am I lucky?? Good grief no. I have worked my socks off and now I am seeing the results. I'm not giving up - this is just going to keep getting bigger and bigger.

It will be worth it - and I am so grateful for the people I have met that have given me the vision to build for the long term and not a quick buck.

This year I am aiming to hit Director and go to Cancun, Mexico. Then to Greece. The future is bright, and I'm finally writing my own :)

Cancun, Mexico - see that....that's MY sunbed!