Direct Sales: Easy or Hard?
We know Mary Kay isn’t “direct sales” and that the real focus is recruiting. Nonetheless, the company and its reps like to use that phrase because it “hides” the focus on recruiting and sounds like something legitimate. Who could object to selling??? I thought this was an interesting piece from Anita Garrett Roe’s site.
The following article is an excerpt from a speech given by a direct seller at a local meeting. We are told she was asked to speak on how direct sales compares to working a “regular” job. It was submitted to us, and although the original author is unknown, we wish to thank her for her thoughts and insights. We have edited it to share with you as you embark on a brand new year, with new opportunities to count the many blessings we have in this business.
Lately, I have heard so many people say how difficult direct sales is. “Its hard.” “I can’t get bookings.” “This just isn’t for me.” “I didn’t know how difficult it would be.”Well, I am a single mom of three who, before joining the direct sales family, held down two jobs. I would get up at 4:00 in the morning and not get to bed until midnight most nights, after returning from my part-time retail job, packing lunches, checking homework and relieving my mother, who helped out with the kids.
That, my friends, is difficult.
It is difficult always having to lower your dreams to meet your means. It is difficult to miss your son’s football game because you have to work. It is difficult knowing the rust bucket you call a car is eating you alive in maintenance, but you can’t afford a new one. It is difficult to realize that someone else is going to watch your daughter take her first step or have your son say mama to the preschool teacher.
It is difficult knowing that you have spent 40 years of your life working for someone else, only to realize that you will be retiring on one-third of what you can live on today. Or, worse yet, it is difficult knowing that you have diligently worked all your life, only to be given an early retirement and replaced by someone younger, more capable.
I will tell you what is difficult. It is difficult waking up one morning and realizing that your children, the most precious things imaginable, no longer need bottles, diapers, have tea parties, or are shorter than the baseball bat they are trying to swing. It is difficult realizing it is too late and that the time frittered away can never be retrieved. It slips through our fingers one-second at a time.
It is also difficult watching the spark in your partner’s eyes fade because both of you realize the house you have been wanting is just a dream because someone else is controlling your finances.
We have nasty habits about rationalizing, procrastination and skirting important things, rather than facing the issues. Too often we allow others who do not pay our bills, who do not share our dreams, to direct our futures.
As children we have absolutely no freedom; we rebel in our teens and scream for freedom. We reach adulthood and are finally free, only to relinquish that freedom because we think it is too difficult. We do not want to take responsibility. We do not want to make a wrong decision, so we obligingly give that awesome power to someone else. We wake up too late. We hear ourselves uttering phrases like: “I wish I had only . . .” and “If I could do it over again.”
You have no one but yourself to blame. You had the chance. Perhaps the opportunity was presented many times and each time you elevated the trivial to a higher priority than yourself.
Let me ask you: Is direct sales really difficult?
Is it so traumatic to show someone an exciting product or idea? Is it so difficult to understand that if you work this marketing idea for three to five years, you just might finally be able to send your children to a college chosen by excellence, rather than one chosen by price? That you could finally put your family in the home of their dreams?
Would you work really hard for eight to ten years, so you could mold a lifestyle of your choosing, so your family could live a lifestyle of their dreams, rather than trying to live how someone else thinks you should live?
How difficult is it to pick up the phone and call your hostess? How difficult is it to pack up your kit and meet some new friends? How difficult is it, really, to share what you love with others? Think about it.
Realize the awesome power you have in your hands with direct sales. There are people out there working three jobs. There are people drowning in debt; or agonizing through bankruptcy, realizing they only needed a couple hundred more dollars per month. That is difficult!
This business you have chosen has the ability to change lives. Direct sales cannot do anything. But YOU can change lives with it. You are the one with the life-changing ability. What are you waiting for?
There is difficulty and pain in success, and there is difficulty and pain in failure. Difficulty and pain in success will last a short period of time; but pain in failure lasts a lifetime. Which one is really more
difficult?You will pay a price for your actions, and your choices.
Which choice will you make?
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Comments (8)
enorth
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“…she was asked to speak on how direct sales compares to working a regular job.”
OK, so, where’s the info? I don’t see it in the excerpt. It does not matter, as I don’t believe that there really was this “speaker at a local meeting.” More fairy tales.
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seeing the truth
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just like everything else. No real training or substance, just trying to guilt you into thinking that you are not doing it right and it is your fault
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Scrib
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“It is difficult knowing that you have spent 40 years of your life working for someone else, only to realize that you will be retiring on one-third of what you can live on today.”
But never mind that in Mary Kay, one can spend 40 years of their life grinding away on the wheel, only to reach the rank of mid-level director and realizing that all the work has netted nothing: no insurance benefits, no retirement benefits, no pension, and the sobering reality that you’ve just spent 4 decades building a business that was never yours to begin with.
Enriching women’s lives, indeed.
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gotheart
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Ditto what the women above have said.
no insurance benefits, no retirement benefits, no pension, and the sobering reality that you’ve just spent 4 decades building a business that was never yours to begin with.
That you have spent 40 years advertising/volunteering FREE for mkc.
That your children have picked up your lifestyle of manipulation.
Ya wonder why your child lies all the time? LOL! Cause he heard alll your 40 years of lies to others when you spoke on the phone! He thinks it is OK to exaggerated. Boy does he!
Ya wonder why your adult son is never happy with his life? Although he is a 4. student. Has a degree in engineering, works for a company in the financial district in SF, is a fashion designer, and paints like a Master artist. Has many talents but never actually enjoys his now?
Cause he caught your lifestyle of living in the future to pay off the past and missed out on his NOW. He never gets there. Driven. Can NOT relax!
The emotion confusion is so entangled with the god talk and the manipulation talk, and the looking like there is money but hungry and have one pair of shoes. But there is a Caddy in the driveway? Everyone of their friends has more than they do and their friends think they are rich? Confusing?
I could go on and on.
That is hard.
Sincerely,
gotheart
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exIBC78
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I was really hoping to read something other then guilt. I was hoping she would say “Yes, yes it is hard. It is hard to get started and when you start you are frustrated. But you learn and you get better and more efficient. Work in any capacity is HARD. It is not call work because it is easy. My job is easy, but it is hard. Anything worth doing is going to be hard. The main question is always “Are you happy?” If not find that and change it. Whatever it is. It is always possible to change it. You tell me your issue and I will tell you have to change it.” That would be more help. I hate pep talk or guilt laden speeches.
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MLM Radar Detector
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“You have no one but yourself to blame. You had the chance.”
Oh really? What chance was that? The chance to recruit other people to sell, knowing that there is no real money in end-user sales, but talking them out of money to buy distributor kits anyway? And I’m supposed to “blame myself” for not being successful at this stunt? Hahahaha!
“How difficult is it to pick up the phone and call your hostess? How difficult is it to pack up your kit and meet some new friends? How difficult is it, really, to share what you love with others?”
How difficult is it to lead a horse to water? It isn’t difficult. Getting the horse to drink is the hard part.
How difficult is it to pick up the phone, pack your kit, and warm-stalk total strangers (MK calls them “new friends”)? It isn’t difficult. Getting them to answer the phone, look at your kit, and fork over money is the hard part.
Funny how she leaves that part out….
No need for you to feel guilty. If she had a sensitive bone left in her body, she would feel ashamed of herself for repeating the same old fruitless “motivational” lines. She knows those things don’t work. That’s why she’s not doing them herself. She wants you to do them for her, after forking over your money (which she shamelessly accepts).
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cbbgreat
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“It is difficult knowing that you have spent 40 years of your life working for someone else, only to realize that you will be retiring on one-third of what you can live on today.”
Makes me laugh! My husband recently retired after 33 years with the same company. Lots of hard work, sacrifices, choices. And after 33 years, his retirement income is more than enough to last until beyond age 100 – because of steady investing in the company-supplied retirement program, because he moved up in the company based on his effort, expertise, education not someone else buying a spot for him. I don’t get to retire yet, and because of my foray into MK as well as following my spouse around the world for his career, my retirement income won’t be as great as it could have been. But it will far exceed anything MK ever offered – which was a big fat Nothing.
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Mi Ki
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gotheart got it right: ‘you have spent 40 years advertising/volunteering FREE for mkc.’
There’s a word for that: slavery. Slap a bee on it and call it consensual.
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