Taking the Plunge

So yesterday I stepped off the cliff. It’s official! Am I nervous? Well, to a certain extent, yes. I believe that is quite normal. Most people have a certain sense of excitement/nervousness/what-the-hell-am-I-doing type of butterflies when they embark on a new adventure such as this.

Except in my case, this is not the first time I’ve embarked in this particular type of journey. If you’ve read my Girl Behind the Blog section, you’ll notice that I consider myself a serial entrepreneur. It’s quite an accurate description. I have already worked with three other direct sales companies in the past. My first experience, with Safety Pro, Inc., I actually did full time for two whole years, and I loved it. After that I did Scentsy and then Avon. Although the essence of every direct sales company is, for the most part, similar, each one has it’s own little quirks that makes it slightly unique from the rest.

Here’s the most important thing to know about direct sales, if that’s something you’re interested in getting into: Just because you’re not good at one, doesn’t mean you won’t be good at another. For example, I LOVE Scentsy products. I love their cute candle warmers, and I love their scents. But I’m not quite passionate enough about them to be great at selling them. I really like Jamberry products, but I’m just not excited enough about them to make a living at selling them. Skincare? I’ve been obsessed with skincare since high school. On the other hand, even though Avon is known as a skincare brand, I really didn’t like their corporate structure, or the fact that they only offer you 20% on your sales (not to mention I didn’t like the person I signed up with). You can earn 50% commission on your sales in Mary Kay, but still, that’s only one reason why I chose to join them.

Why? Gosh, there’s probably at least a dozen reasons. But I’ll narrow it down to the first three for now.

The first reason is probably the same as everyone who ever joins any direct sales business – $money$. It’s all about the Benjamins, baby! But in the end, if that’s all you’re in it for, you most likely won’t last very long. In my experience in sales, unless you genuinely care about people and care about helping them, you’re not going to get very far in your business. The internet is ripe with people complaining about how pushy their MK rep was, or how all their MK rep wanted to talk about was the business opportunity (bad recruiting technique), and so on and so forth. These complaints can be found about EVERY direct sales company out there. Just like any business, there’s always going to be some bad apples.

Second reason – I’m obsessed with setting myself up for the future. I’m not yet married, and I don’t have any children yet. But someday both of those are going to happen. My boyfriend and I have been together for two and a half years, and we have done a lot of planning for our future. And although we live together now, we feel like it would be irresponsible of us to start a family without being more financially secure than we are now. Children can be stressful enough as it is, and neither of us want to have children that lead to arguments because we don’t have enough money for diapers and baby food. So really, I’m not in MK because I want to make an extra $2-300/month. I’m in it because I want to be able to have a business to support my family in the future.

The third, and ultimately the most important, reason is that I believe in my ability to succeed. Unless you believe in yourself, I can’t imagine being able to succeed at anything. Why else would you even try? You have to believe in yourself before anyone else will. I have 7 year’s experience in sales (being a ballroom dance teacher pretty much certifies you as a sales expert when you work for a franchise), along with several year’s experience in direct sales specifically. 

Unlike some other MK blogs that I’ve found recently, I’ve realized that my blog is not full of hearts and exclamation marks and raw enthusiasm for starting my new business. Honestly, I’ve done a TON of research about MK before actually getting started. This has been a very calculated step for me to take. As I’ve mentioned before, I met my MK rep three years ago, and she’s been talking to me about starting ever since then.

So what’s next?

I should be receiving my starter kit sometime next week. I have a meeting with my rep, Patty, on Wednesday morning and we’re going to talk about how to get started. One obstacle someone like me has, is that I’ve done so many sales jobs that I’ve pretty much worn out my list of friends who will host a pity party for me. And honestly, that’s really what it is. Your friends are not your target market, but usually they’ll love you enough to help you get started. But at this point, I don’t even want to bother them with it. I’ve actually only told two people about this – my boyfriend and my best friend.

So here we go! The first day of the rest of your life, as they say. Here’s to a new adventure! Now where’s my appletini?