Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Why start now?

A little background info? Ok! I began my Mary Kay career 11 months ago to make some extra income and get the coveted 50% discount on the products I love. I'm 26, married, one child. Before MK I had recently quit my job as a bartender/ server/trainer for a popular sports bar chain and was watching a few kids in my home to cushion the blow of no more instant cash. The problem was that the kids I was watching in my home were family and close friends kids and that cushion wasn't really cushioning. Some weeks we'd actually lose money after paying for the groceries and activities, and my husband wasn't having it. He sat me down and told me that my choices were; a)Start charging a realistic rate for childcare(which no one could afford), b)Put our son in daycare and get a job, or c) go back to bartending all night AND watch everyones kids all day, never sleep, keep the house clean, dinner on the table. I'd quit the bar to be at home with my son and husband, I wasn't willing to go back to that, and I certainly didn't want to put out my family. When I heard the MK opportunity it fit my needs. I could do it a few hours a week to suppliment the cushion.
 Now I've read some pretty terrible horror stories of how some Mary Kay lady lied to someone and said that when you sign up you have to buy this HUGE inventory and spend all this money in order to be successful. I just want to say that if someone had said that to me, I would have turned right around and ran. My recruiter and director where very clear on how making money vs spending money in this company works. You put in how much you know you are willing to put in the work to sell. A bigger inventory means you'd have more on hand and could fulfill your customers requests right away. When a woman needs an eyeliner, she needs it now. But you'll need customers to need that eyeliner!  I got stuck on the "customers need eyeliner" part and refused to focus on the "willing to put in the work to sell" part. Thank the Lord I didn't have a huge chunk of money put away OR the credit to get a loan because I would have placed the biggest order possible!! Instead I came in with the lowest "bonus-able" inventory, $600, and came up with that by passing around a Look Book to everyone I knew. Starting out that way showed me that people will buy the products and that it IS possible to make some extra income selling MK
Since then I have lived and learned. I've struggled with not being the "pushy lipstick peddler", not leaving a sale dangling, money and time managment, and organizational skills. All of these struggles I've overcome or am overcoming with the outstanding help and support of my director, my unit, and the company. One thing that stands out is that when I follow the steps laid out in every piece of training material, the result is generally success. In fact, I've gone from being a lone consultant to a consultant with 5 team members under me, simply from working "Full Circle". So, What would happen if I just threw out my own thinking and simply followed the steps in my training? Well, thats where this blog came from.
 Creating a blog to follow me along my Mary Kay journey has been an idea in the back of my head for a while now. I have so many accountability people in my life its hard to not have my goals in the front of my mind, but hey, whats a few extra people? I want to follow the Mary Kay Way for the next year, and regularly update whats goin on in my life, to give an account of what it takes to get anywhere in Mary Kay. For the last 11 months I've just kind of floated around selling MK part time whenever I felt like it. Its been fun, and I've still made a little money. I've blown some money too. Now my goal is directorship within the next year. (I can feel my heart rate going up just typing that out). The steps to get there are pretty clear and I know my director will guide me along the path, my job is to follow the steps and see where it takes me. AND you can come along too!
--And all of you "pinktruthers" can speak up if you see me destroying my life at the end of that year.

No comments:

Post a Comment