Stuck in a rut - then jettisoned out of the solar system!

Direct Sales is a Marathon, not a sprint......

Quite often you are stuck in limbo, feeling like nothing is moving, or progressing. In short you are getting nowhere.

I had been a Star Consultant with Scentsy since August 2012 with a good sized team and I was working hard. Along side working full time at the hospital, and of course being a mum to 2 young boys....and the rest. I loved it, I was working my Scentsy business everyday but I just felt stuck. I wasn't getting anywhere. Or so I thought.

It had been a hard summer, low on sales but who am I kidding, right? I had got a free trip to The Med on a 5 day cruise! So, I must have been doing something right....right? Well, it didn't feel like it. I was earning money from Scentsy, my team were sponsoring new consultants and selling, but it was a slow summer. A story we have heard all over the world, for everybody.

Convention Liverpool 2013

Convention happened in August 2013, in Liverpool. Everyone there had been talking about how hard it had been this year, how they hoped this Christmas it would all fall into place. I was hoping too. This was hard work and I so wanted it to pay off.

The new catalogue launched in September 2013, and my team sprang in action. The top Direct Sales selling months are October and November, we can sell up to 50% of our entire years sales in those 2 months - that's mega! So when I hit Superstar Consultant in September with our best ever team sales and my own personal best sales for a September I was over the moon! This was the boost I had been looking for. The justification for all the hard work I had put in, all the sparks I had left in my path over the last year were starting to ignite!

Then October came. BOOM! Highest team sales EVER!!! I hit Director. The bench mark that we call aim for. Once you hit Director you are in complete control of your team, they look to you for training and advice and you are officially a leader. I was  in a little fairy happy land.

I have trudged on with a song in my heart and a spring in my step through the hardest year business wise. Then BOOM! Super star Consultant! BOOM! Director! From stagnant to elated in 2 short months and still a full Christmas induced frenzy of November and part of December to go! THIS was Direct Selling, THIS was Scentsy, THIS was what makes the hard, slow months worth it!

Since I started out on my little Scentsy journey, I have kept hearing the same things. "You only fail when you quit", "It gets really hard, just keep going and it will be worth it", "People will come and go, don't be the one who goes - be the one who stays". All true. I am telling you.

This year my commission not only covered Christmas for the 3rd year in a row, it also paid for my plane ticket to Cancun. All those promotions had earned me Director and the opportunity to attend an all expenses paid trip to Cancun. But that's another story....

As a family that had always lived month to month, with more month always seeming to be left over once the money had run out, it has been a huge relief to know that we not only have extra income coming in to cover those unexpected essentials, but to be able to SAVE! This is a whole new world for me and my family.

The UK girls representing at Cancun, Leadership retreat.
Cocktails with Mary Christensen!

Since hitting Director in October 2013, I have been to Cancun, Mexico, and have given another presentation at our bi-annual Spring Sprint national meet up event. AND I earnt an all expensive trip to Greece in May 14. It just keeps coming. Not quite the stagnant place I was just 5 months ago.....

Scentsy is open in the USA, Canada, Ireland, UK, Germany, Poland and Australia. If you would like the opportunity to earn free trips, extra income and start a business for just £94 then get in touch or log onto my website and join my team TODAY!

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!

 

10% OFF IN AUGUST - This lot won't be coming back!

So stock up now at www.scenti-mental.scentsy.co.uk if you see your favourites!

Can you believe my top selling wrap, Chickadee is in there??

As well as my first ever favourite fragrance, My Dear Watson. It's a manly one but oh so scrummy!

 Also for the chop are the Baby Buddies - usually £20 including a scent pak of your choice but this month only they are £18 before they are gone for good.

Here are the products we will be loosing - ready for a big reveal of amazing new products come 1st September. I've seen them, they are amazing xx

Discontinued Fragrance Wax Bars - Last chance to purchase 31st August 2013

£4.50 each, 6 for £22.50 (Usually £5 each/6 for £25)

Heirloom Warmer £31.50 (usually £35)

Miami Collection £27 each (usually £30)

 

 

Jet Warmer £31.50 (usually £35)

Downtown Wrap (wrap only) £10.80 (usually £12)

Chickadee Wrap (wrap only) £10.80 (usually £12)

Baby Buddies £18 (usually £20) incl. your choice of scent pak!

Travel Tins £4.50 (usually £5)

3rd times a charm.....

I'm am back from Convention in Liverpool, which was a new learning curve for more than one reason.

 

Scentsy UK Convention August 2011 - The Original

The first time I went, it was with no expectations at all. I really didn't know why I was going or what I would find. What I found were 40 Consultants, mostly women, who were utterly normal. All different, all alone at convention (there was the odd husband that had been dragged along) and all with a drive to get this done, to acheive and to make this work. We were laden with free product and the speeches were amazing. I sat through the second day in a bit of a daze as it dawned on me that this was really something. We had a huge opportunity here as Scentsy was starting out in Europe. Having spent serious time with the companies leaders and top execs that weekend, it was clear that these weren't the get rich quick types. They were honest about every aspect of how they had made it where they were, and how we would too. It would be hard, but it would be worth it.

Convention 2012 - Leeds, chatting afterwards

So lets cut to year 2, our second ever convention with 100 consultants. A few very nervous Consultants took to the stage to share their experience of events, parties & building a team. The microphone shaking in their hands. I sat there watching thinking, I'm so glad I can sit here and watch. I'd be terrified. More ludicrous freebies, and again I attended alone. My fledging team in their small numbers were unable to make it. I was more confident but still felt out of the loop. I was working my business and it was slowly building. I loved it but in that room all those ladies from last year were surrounded my their teams, they seemed to be getting it so right. The speeches again were amazing, emotive and inspiring. I was still sure I was going to make this work - I just felt like I wasn't doing it as quickly or as well as others.

Liverpool 2013. Third time round.  Holy wowser pants. A phrase I use because just one crazy word doesn't quite cut it. I wanted to sit and be inspired, to be trained, to have my heart filled with joy and embrace all that was Scentsy Convention. This time, however, it was different.

This year I had been asked to do a training in front of the 120 strong crowd. In front of my team. Top execs. My Peers. My tummy had been doing flips for weeks, I kept telling myself it'd be fine. The last time I was on a stage I got stage fright. School play 1993, I was Snick The Evil Goblin (starring along side Coldplays William Champion I might add) I had to burst out of my alien time capsule jail onto the stage. I just froze. I actually saw myself on stage like I was floating above as some sort of Angel of Doom. I considered walking off. The words didn't come, I messed up my 10 verse solo and promised myself I'd never grace a stage again. I never did. I chose to stick to back stage from then on, still loving the theatre and wishing I wasn't such a dufus.

Convention 2013 - Liverpool

Still, there was something different about it this time. I knew my stuff. I wasn't panicking about messing up my lines, I didn't have any. I'd prepared a few slides about how I'd organised myself and my business around all my other commitments. You know the score, full time job, running a karate dojo, 2 kids, husband that acts like a kid...., so I lived it and I knew the subject.

The biggest difference, was the expectation. I was with my team - 6 of them came along this time. I'd bigged up Convention so much to them - the freebies, the networking, the top execs, the trainings....I was not prepared for the fall out when it didn't meet expectation for some, or that there would be personalities that were hard to deal with. When you are the leader, all the feed back comes to you, the good and bad. All the traumas and all the joy. It was hard. I was trying to steady my nerves for my training the next day but I was starting to get exhausted from the constantness. I was still loving it, and loved having my Team around - they are a fabulous bunch and I'm so proud of them. But the event bought along challenges I wasn't expecting.

The morning came and it was my big day. I was the last in the line up of 4 Consultants. I couldn't concentrate on any of the content before my turn. My palms were all sweaty. Then it was me. Oh crikey the walk to the stage was the longest ever, the mic was mine and off I went. I looked out into the crowd and all I saw was freinds. I wasn't scared at all. I did my thing, I loved it. All I did was talk about how I worked my business and balanced everything in my life. I was so, so pleased to get such great feedback from my peers.

My wonderful team with Heidi & Orville Thompson

The afternoon rolled on and the big reveals came out, we got freebies, there were more drama's and I handled it all, I hope, with grace. It was a Convention experience that opened my eyes to a new chapter of my Scentsy story. I got to the hotel after it had all finished and I was exhausted by the constantness of it all. My mind racing, I was close to tears after a stressful yet uplifting and amazing weekend. Even though I was so emotionally tied up, I knew even then that once I got some perspective, I would be able to look back and see how much I had learnt from the experience. This is what it is to lead, it's not easy and these hurdles and bumps along the way will make me a better leader. I will be able to deal with it better the next time.

My days of sitting back and being entertained at convention are over - and I'm glad. Now it's for me to show others the wonder of Scentsy and our ethos of generosity, authenticity and simplicity. Its worth it all for others to be able to see what I see - a world of opportunity.

 Liz xxxx

Here the beef on what we learnt!

There is so much I am going to have to do it in bullet points!

• Grace Adele launches in the UK Sept 1st! It's like transformers for fashion chicks!
• Scentsy & Grace Adele launch 1st Sept. in Poland, Australia & Mexico! Join here to become one of the first Consultants in your region, woo hoo!
• Scentsy & Grace Adele launch in Spain & France 1st October! For more information on becoming a Consultant in these areas contact me!
• NEW line of warmers with a £25 price point launching 1st Sept!
• NEW Scentsy laundry line to be added 1st Sept! Scentsy wash days!
• NEW Social Media party planner tool!
• NEW quicker shipping times for UK!
• NEW fabulous fragrances :) 18 of them to be exact! Review to follow....                                                                                                                                                           

Scentsy Launches in Mexico!! 1st September 2013 :)

Scentsy Launches in Australia!!! More information on the products & oppo...