I was one of those people who said I never would do something like this; selling something that is. Who has time for it and seriously does anyone actually make money with it? I was convinced I was not a sales person and any effort I would put into something like selling products would be a loss in the end. Surely there was something else I could do that would have a better return for my time and effort. That had always been my thought about it and yet I find myself now 3 years later selling natural products and holding a much different perspective about it all.
When first asked about it, I said I wouldn’t be very good at it and was not looking for something else to do. I already work full time and have a family. My salary is decent and well it is a full time job to keep up with too. It wasn’t like I needed the money. Yet when I was asked if I would be interested in sharing doTERRA I said yes that day. Nothing would come of it I was convinced and since there wasn’t a commitment I figured what was the harm? I said yes and then on the drive home asked myself what exactly I had just done.
Several weeks would go by before I even told anyone what I was now doing. I honestly didn’t even take it that seriously and just went about using these products that were slowly taking over my home and life. I was enjoying learning all that each oil was possible of doing and making different things from them to use for cleaning. It was my new little hobby you could say and selling it or making a new career selling it was not where my interests lie at all. This was just fun and something I was certain would not last forever so why invest in it long term as a business?
I have always read business books and the latest on leadership topics. It was important for my career to stay on top of the latest thinking for how to be an excellent leader that could increase a company’s profit. It was there I first realized the connection between leadership and selling. The art of both was to align others into doing what you wanted them to do and having them love it, want more of it and keep coming back. People followed leaders who inspired them, raised them up and encouraged their best self forward. Selling the right product does the same. Why I had never realized this relationship between leading and selling before dumbfounded me but I dug deeper.
Soon I started to see that I was already a sales person in all that I did in my life. From recommending a restaurant I liked to a friend or sharing where I had gotten a great deal on my blouse. I was endorsing products to others without more than a compliment in return. At work I was leading a team of direct reports providing my best to them in the way of support, encouragement, the channel to vent when needed and management for their and our team’s success. I was producing results through performance of a loyal and high performing team for the betterment of a company. I was selling.
The hardest part of selling products for a direct marketing company is the stigma most people have about it. Their reasons range from personal experience of failing to thinking the products are too expensive compared to something else. Regardless though they don’t give you the opportunity to show them differently and the sales person gets frustrated and thinks they can’t do it. Direct marketing has a high turnover rate because people don’t end up making much money and they end up with products and inventory they can’t use either. It ends up a loss and they close up their shop returning to life as it was.
I didn’t want that to happen. If I was going to invest even an hour into this I wanted it to be productive and result in returns. When people say there are no guarantees in life they stop themselves short and place limitations on their own results. I didn’t want to do that either in this situation so I became a student of learning all that I could about how people were successfully selling these oils and natural products. This was not so much that I could mimic them though I did at first and of course my results did not always produce the same as theirs but more so that I could develop my own style about it. One that worked for me.
This interest in selling began with my own interest in what worked for me. I started to tell a few friends what I was doing and offering them a sample or two. The work I invested into this was not typical as I was not interested in setting up farmer market tables or vendor booths, hosting parties and driving my friends crazy. Instead I wrote. I started to write what would become this blog forum where I shared my own journey. The good, bad, relevant and irrelevant all poured into blog posts. I was going to build my business online I told my upline leader in 2018.
At the time some were selling online and social media was starting to burst with posts and groups for things people were selling. I held back and did some of those things still exploring for the right structure for me. It is still a work in progress but I continued to do what felt right for me without expectation of success of failure. My work would evolve as I tried different strategies and approaches to grow what I was doing into a little business. I started to gain customers and followers the more I grew in my own voice to speak on this subject.
Today, I proudly tell people what I do for a living beginning with owning my own business where I sell natural products before I describe my work career. It is a shift for me that here too has evolved where once I wouldn’t have said anything about essential oils. I have taken many aspects of my career and used the skills, knowledge, creativity and more to setup my business and it has worked! As it grew I found that what I couldn’t do at my job I could in my business and that further energized me. It was liberating and exciting.
So for the women who is making six figures thinking your professional career is all you should focus on I challenge you to consider what happens when that career goes away. What happens when there is a layoff and your name is called? Like me you will likely go find another job but what if there was something else you were working on that started to change that story? What if there was something that changed your life long term that you didn’t have to keep going up a corporate ladder to make any money? What if you found something that actually listened to your ideas and gave you the freedom to execute on them?
I learned to never say never and that there is more to direct marketing than anyone is telling you. It is actually quite rewarding personally and professionally too.
If you’re interested in more and exploring if this is an ideal situation for you too, let’s chat at dragonspitapothecary.com