You know what one of the best things about being in direct sales is? I mean seriously, not the scam sales type hype that turns so many off from it but the real luxury that it holds. The one thing that most don’t talk about but it keeps people in this business for years for extra cash, eventual income replacement and real life positive impacts. It is a luxury in fact and sadly not many will find it before they give up too.
Freedom.
Freedom is within the direct sales industry and all these home based businesses. Yet sometimes we get afraid at all that freedom and it really causes us to get frustrated and give up when things are not going well. We’re not used to that much freedom I guess. Oh we have the dream of what freedom will be like and don’t you doubt it! We all know what that view looks like but holding it in our hands and feeling it’s power and responsibility is more than we are sometimes ready to handle. Maybe we’re just not used to so much freedom all at once and that I find truly sad.
Contrary to all the whining, complaining, grumbling and bad PR direct sales gets, it is actually the purest forms of work freedom one can get. Don’t like your boss, poof you’re now the boss. Don’t like what you earn on your paycheck, poof you get all you need to earn your own wages. Don’t like having to ask for a day off, oh that is gone now too! It is all one hundred percent wide open pasture for you to create the work life you always dreamed. That is a huge selling point that is attractive right? I mean seriously who doesn’t want to set their own schedule, work the hours they want, take off when they feel like it and earn as much as they desire? Those are fantastic things and we can all have that, with some responsibility and effort.
See the free ride work life doesn’t come before we actually put in the work. No business owner goes into their dream business and thinks he/she will just do whatever they like and the business will thrive. Even dream lives need a little work. The luxury in all of it though is the process of creating it to be exactly what you want it to be that leads you to exactly the place where your work dreams come true. I ask again who doesn’t want that type of job? Sign me up! You just have to figure out how to get there.
Where I feel direct sales has suffered the most in reputation is too many have just seen the glitz and glamour of what is possible and not realized there’s still work involved. There’s still time needed to make that dream vision come true. Most of the time what I see happen is people run out of friends and family and then they think this doesn’t work anymore so they talk about about it. The dream is dead and was impossible to reach so they discourage others from it as well. My heart seriously breaks when I hear this because they missed the luxury part. They overlooked the place where you actually have to figure some things out beyond the friends and family point to make a business in direct sales an actual business.
Here’s the honest truth with my own experience the last 4 years running Dragonspit Apothecary. I have complete freedom to create this business. I can make it whatever I want, sell to who I want, do nothing, do a lot, whatever! I love that. It works in my life so when I have time to focus on it I can and when my career or family are needing my time I can focus there. In my 30 year healthcare career I’ve worked on all levels of management from senior leadership to lower level manager and never have I ever had this level of freedom in my work. It is truly liberating.
The second truth is direct sales is a luxury. It is a business that I invest my time, energy, money into and I actively work at it to create the feeling of luxury that it provides in my life. Luxury is an energy, sensation and feeling representative of us. It is what helps us feel our absolute confident, beautiful self. When something you are doing or have makes you feel like that you have luxury. Working on Dragonspit Apothecary makes me feel like that. The feeling I get when I make a sale and that customer tells me how great they feel makes me feel great. It builds my confidence. It gives me energy and motivates me to take risks to create more of that feeling. The feeling that there is no glass ceiling, the power of success is in my grasp and I can make my own dreams come true.
The third hard truth, it is still work. Not every day will bring a new customer or sale. Some months I struggle to hit my goals. Some months I have team members who are pissing off other team members by being pushy, desperate selling or spreading gossip and I have to deal with that. Some months I swear about hashtags and social media engagement. Some months it’s a lot of work on top of managing my career and family needs. Despite it all though, it makes me happy because I’ve stuck with it long enough to realize there are ebbs and flows that I need to ride out. There are challenges to my creativity and inspiration that I can figure out. It feeds more of the energy that makes me feel my best. What I have learned more than anything is when you feel that energy, you don’t stop feeding it.
Luxury is an energy we generate. It begins within our very souls and when pursued with intensity that never wavers it becomes reflected back in everything around us. It can become the physical wealth of monetary things we can now afford when we get to that point. Yet luxury is not something we achieve because we can afford it, it is something we awaken when we are the only thing we have. It comes through realizing the power of freedom and learning to wield that in our own hands through work we do. It is where we put our focus that extends that energy around us. Direct sales is the purest form of luxury in work because it gives us that complete freedom. It is up to us individually what we do with that opportunity.
You can have luxury in your own work this year. Learn more: dragonspitapothecary.com