"I Will Match My Time With Your Effort

"I'll match my time with your effort"
We do hear this statement often in Mary Kay. What does it actually mean? In my humble opinion, one can put a realistic (or positive) spin on it or turn it into something negative. How do I view it?

Before I go further please understand that I see my time basically in fourths. I have family/faith time, I have business time, I have friend /errand(other) time, and I have sleep time. Like everyone else I have 24 hours in a day and it must be used wisely.

Will it surprise anyone that has followed my posts, that I see Mary Kay as a business? So if I were ever to say to my consultants, I will match my time with your efforts, it does not mean, I will not be there for them, it does not mean I will not train or help them. It is common sense that a consultant that is working her MK as a business is going to need more time and mentoring than a personal use consultant, yes?? (This theory seems pretty basic to me). Many have seen the 45/45/10 time split:

Spend 45% of time with New Consultants
Spend 45% of time with Key People
Spend 10% of time with the rest.

This is kind of generally accepted as how one's time should be spent as a director (this doesn't include her personal business).

Of course, some, once again will see this as negative, but let’s think about it, once a consultant is trained, does she really require a lot of time? If she is doing personal use or hobby level, probably not, and I think if I were to always be calling her and bugging her, she would find this very unpleasant because it is her business so if she is happy with the level she is doing, why can’t I be happy for her were she is?? I started my MK business for personal use, I attended new consultant training, learned about the products and that was it, after that the only thing I planned on doing was ordering when myself and a few friends need our products. – OK, how much help did I need to do that? I never felt like my director didn’t care about me. I also knew if I did have a question, I could pick up the phone and call my director and she was more than happy to help me. I can guarantee you that if she had always been calling me to encourage me and support me to do more and build my business, yada, yada, yada; I would have been long gone. When I wanted more, she was there, as she should have been. My phone works both ways; it is just as easy to place a call as it is to answer a call. Communication is what is most important and it takes two parties to communicate. None of us have a crystal ball to know what they other person wants or feels, most of us base what someone else feels by how we would feel in the same situation – and sometime this is can be really far off. For example, when I need to get something done in a little time or by a dealine, I want everyone to just leave me alone and let me do what I need to do. I do not want calls of encouragement, cheerleaders, everyone giving me suggestions and ideas on how to do it, I know what I need to do, now leave me alone and let me do it. I get overwhelmed any other way and begin to have a meltdown. Now I know for others this is the exact opposite of how they would like to handle the same situation. Each one of us is unique and special and that is what keeps life from being very boring. We must also be sensitvie to the individual.

The consultants that are trying to build their business are going to require more personal time to learn how to grow. Let’s face it, they do know how to do a class, but as they move up there are other areas to learn.
So the majority of my time SHOULD BE spent with the new consultants and the ones who require more assistance, but I still need to have time even for our personal use and hobby level people because after all, they, too, are a part of our unit and still important as an individual.
Now I must point out that this is the business part of my time. If I happen to have a friend that is a p.u. consultant in my unit, the additional time spent with her may be from the “friend” time and not the business time. Not because I am playing favorites, likewise if I have a hotshot, if she was my friend before MK (and she will be my friend after MK) I may spend more time with her but some of the time is coming out of the friend segment not the MK segment.

I have heard some consultants complain because their director calls them, that she doesn’t know when to leave them alone, if they have had a crisis in their lives, they don’t have time for MK and don’t need their director encouraging them to work. That is fair, however, how can they then turn around and complain that when they had a crisis in their life, they barely heard from their director. Could it be the director is trying to respect their space and doesn’t want to be a burden to that consultant? Honestly, at the risk of sounding cruel, how much time does a consultant that is not working need from me??? ***Now please note that if there is an illness or a death, etc… I will be the first one to bring over a meal, drive someone to the hospital, etc… but she doesn’t need her MK BUSINESS director in her face.
I love my unit, I have lots of great consultants, I respect them all and do enjoy them all, but some were friends before MK, some did become friends in Mk, others even though I like them are business associates. Should they quit Mk, they are not all of a sudden going to become my friend.
I also must chuckle at the complaint that, “once I quit and sent back product; she didn’t have time for me. Umm… if we weren’t friends before MK, and we were business associates in MK, and you quit MK, what is there if we didn’t become friends in MK?? - In Corporate when I had an employee quit, I honestly didn’t expect to continue contact, the only thing we had in common was employment. Remove the common thread, there is now nothing in common. This is not cruel, it is just life.

My time is valuable, I can not possible do a new consultant debut or skin care class for every unit member, especially since my unit, even my home based unit is spread over 2 – 3 hours, we are also in about 6 other states, some over 3,000 miles away. So how do we managed, I will have the “strong, confident” recruiters help with their team members debuts. I will do my personals and the team members of the consultants that are not comfortable doing them. It works because this also builds a strong bond amongst team members. None of the directors I work with (including myself) will only do a business debut if a consultant is a star, all of us feel, a strong start is important for any consultant, and perhaps even more so if the consultant doesn’t have the money to work with. Having the money and the product does make things easier. This is using my time wisely, a strong happy consultant will stay a consultant, I do not worry when my consultants do the debuts because they have been trained and our goal is to get the new consultant off to a strong start. Our focus is NOT recruiting at a debut. AND IT NEVER WILL BE. Our focus is getting the new consultant bookings and selling product. We build a strong foundation before we start building the structure.

So now that you have my take on that statement, let’s start some conversation, your thoughts?? Is the statement fair? Is it cruel? Is it just plain good business savy?
How else could a director provide what everyone needs without totally stressing herself and everyone else out? Your thoughts??