Have you ever been certain, beyond doubt, that you were absolutely, 100% on track only to find out you weren’t even in the right arena?
For those of you who might not know, I began my Direct Sales journey about 21 years ago. So my kiddos were small, and they were one of the driving forces behind me building my business. I knew I wanted to be a stay at home mom.
I loved that I could take them to school, drive car pool, volunteer in their classrooms and really be present in their lives. For me, it was a great decision for our family.
As my business grew, I got caught up in a lot of the “shiny” things that comes with a successful Direct Sales business: awards, trips, accolades, the rankings. I’m a recovering Type A girl and in the early years of my business I became really good at chasing all those sparkly bonuses and recognitions.
Then I had a great big “A-HA” moment.
I was at a hostess event with some of my very best customers. At this point I was doing 5-6 live events each week, entirely on the weekends and at night. This one in particular was a Sunday afternoon in February. Actually a pretty fun way to spend a wintery Wisconsin weekend.
About half way thru I got a call from my husband and he said my youngest son, James, wanted to talk to me. James was about 9 years old at the time.
He was so excited to tell me that his hockey team had just won the State Championship. In a game that I didn’t see and wasn’t at because I was working.
I teared up knowing I had missed something that had so much meaning for him. Granted I had carpooled to ALL those practices, washed all those stinky uniforms, cooked all those Saturday team brunches, but I missed this really big win.
My customers were quick to tell me how exciting it will be for him to re-live each moment with me when I got home. It sounded good so I started making that part of the story I told myself and others. And it was true, there was no shortage of play by play when I got home!
It was time for a little heart to heart with myself. The reason I got into my business was because of the flexibility it offered me to be present with my kiddos. But I had allowed myself to be working so much that I wasn’t as fully present as I wanted to be. I was missing things that mattered to them and to me.
Let me know if this sounds familiar to you: I could easily hit all of my personal goals with far less work, but I was being lured in by all those sparkly awards and accolades.
I wasn’t just working to hit my goals, I was working to hit the company’s definition of success. And that was pulling me off track.
So I made a HUGE adjustment. I threw away the idea of the trips, the titles, the rankings and I figured out what I needed to do to make the financial goals I had set for myself. I put that into play and almost immediately began making more money with far less time investment. As a bonus, I also became much more profitable because I focused on those activities that were a solid financial decision.
The best decision I made was to determine what success looked like for me and then build my business to ensure those things happened.
The company is going to incent the behavior THEY want and need. There is nothing wrong with that. We each need to decide for ourself what success means and then build a business that creates that success. I don’t need someone at home office or fellow consultants to think I’m a rockstar. But I sure want to think of myself as a rockstar and to inspire my family by how I show up for myself and them.
Regardless of the company, the career plan, the incentives or the culture, your best decision will have those things become PERKS of building a business that aligns with your soul.
