Disclaimer: there is not an exact time period for this journey and if I already posted this, I apologize, I don't think I did because I believe I was ready to post it and we had four or five new topics posted very closely and I didn't want to take away from those articles. I simply saved this for a future date and thought now would be a great time to share!
This is a question that does not have an exact answer and will leave a lot of room for discussion. I am going to base my explanations on my personal experience. I will start with this part and then as the discussion takes place, I will add more because I could actually write a book if I wanted to include everything that I would want to share.
In this business, there is a lot to learn. A new consultant has to learn about the products, how to present them in a knowledgeable manner, proper color application, learn good people skills, and sales techniques, how to book, how to present themselves in a professional manner, how to separate business and personal emotions. This will take time, depending on how many classes/presentations a consultant does, the more they do, the faster they master their techniques and skills – the more confident a consultant becomes, the better the results.. I personally like my unit members to master a skin care class before they begin team building because as you decide to build your team, you now have to master how to present the Company opportunity and how to support a team member. How are you going to do a good job at this if you yourself haven’t mastered the basic presentation yourself? My view has been: you learn to walk before you learn how to run and the same principle applies to developing your business.
With a consultant working fulltime and with a family, I find it takes about a year, to get confident in your ability just doing your presentations. (Please note –this is just my opinion and it is not every case – I am speaking in general). Then once the class is mastered, building your team will also take time to figure out how to do it well. Earning the car and learning how to work with a team and continue to do a good job with your bookings and personal sales is a great way to find the balance before you jump into the responsibility of directorship.
Can it be done faster?? Of course it can. Can it take a lot longer, of course it can. But from all I have witnessed and experienced – investing 2 -3 years before becoming a director is going to benefit the person becoming the director. There is a heck of a lot more to being a director than “wearing the suit”. It adds a whole new dimension to your business. You don’t only deal with your ups and downs but also your units and that can take a lot of energy at times.
The numbers are spelled out. I had always heard to be a unit, it takes 30 and only 1 of the 30 will be a super star and that will be you – the director. That probably explains why we are required to have 30 to become a director, working with less than that is going to cause one to struggle. So if you become a director on “fake” consultants, you are hurting yourself because you don’t have the numbers that you need to produce the volume you need. – This is just the way it is. The Company tells us that a unit of approx. 75 will produce a Saturn unit. Why?? To maintain the production – doing it with fewer people will cause you to struggle. Doing anything with enough consultants working, can be achieved and maintained without headaches. For Cadillac you are looking at a unit of at least 125. Can it be done with fewer people, yup; does it also leave you in a position if “life” happens to a few of your top producers you are going to be wondering what to do?
Yup.
Doing things too fast seems to be the downfall of many units. Once we become a director, we want to be a Senior director, but if you remember the numbers, if only 1 in 30 is going to be a superstar and you have a unit member become a director and take 30 out of your unit and leaves you with 30, you are back to really only having one superstar and will go from enjoying your business to struggling. I know many say fast is easy, slow is hard – but there must be a balance between doing it too fast and taking too long.
Often doing it too fast leads to weak units and instead of production coming from selling consultants having to order product to service their clients, the work ethic changes to find a newbie and bring them in with a big inventory and the unit managed to make production for the month. So what happens the next month? The same thing, so as long as you can find someone you can talk into starting with a large inventory – your unit will make production, what happens the month you don’t find someone?? You miss production because now even your selling consultants have too much product so they don’t need to order and you end up on the hamster wheel that some directors complain about. Imho, this is setting yourself and your unit up for failure. It will cause burn out – it is probably why many end up charging product they don’t need because they don’t want to give up what they have worked for. Pride gets in the way, because who wants to go from a Cadillac unit, to a Saturn unit? - You know what, I would have way more respect for a director that realized her unit wasn’t supporting the Cadillac and she dropped down to a Saturn unit. This is a smart business move. There is no disgrace. Hey, it is an “earned” car. I have been a senior director, guess what, I had two directors stop down – no they didn’t have too, life changes caused them to go a different direction and they are both still consultants. Was their a little ouch for me going from an almost “future executive senior director” to a director, yup… but it wasn’t because of anything I did or didn’t do. I am still just mk4me and those that respect me still do, and well, those that didn’t, didn’t any way so who really gives a hoot what they think anyway.
Now my theory… build selling consultants, allow them to build their inventory while they build their customer base. If your unit is selling, they will need to order. Production comes in naturally. Promote selling not ordering. Reward activity not ordering. Understand what you need and do the work that is required to get it. Don’t try to shortcut the system, it isn’t going to work. Set yourself up for success, not failure.
May I share a little personal note…. I have shared that do to medical issues with a child this year, I had several months that I couldn’t be the director or consultant I like to be, we fell short of finishing up the $300,000 unit club and we didn’t miss it by much. Could I have begged every unit member to put in an unneeded order and finished, I honestly think the answer is “yes”. Did I? – No. The reason is simple. I am still very proud of where we finished this year. With everything that happened in my unit, I think the figure is awesome. Now did I encourage my unit to work until the end? Yes, as long as they were selling and needed to order, I was happy to see them put in their order.
But if I had gone the other way, where exactly would I be this month? Historically, July is never a great month. Not only because of the after June fallout, but many people are on vacation, it is hot, it is harder to get groups together, so I would imagine trying to have a decent July if you pulled everything into June, leaves your July looking pretty dim. Generally because we work for the month we are in, our July is almost as good as every other month of the year. Call me to0 analytical or practical but if one uses good business sense, many of the obstacles and problems that we hear about could be avoided. My conclusion: Conduct your business as a business and you will produce good results, you and your unit members will be happy!
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