Tuesday, August 28, 2012

News from Convention

It's getting late, so instead of talking to you about another one of the convention speakers I've decided to cover all the news we received at Convention this year in case you've missed it in your Scentsy, Inc emails.

First, I want to send a very special congratulations to Lesya!  She received her 10,000 lifetime PRV bracelet and charm over the summer, and I missed giving her a special WAY TO GO at the time!  What an awesome job!

And now on with the news:

Velata: This new brand is beginning much like that of the original Scentsy Wickless (now called Scentsy Fragrance).  Don't get discouraged if sales aren't as high as you'd like.  A new catalog is not coming for Fall, but they are working on some new stuff.

Grace Adele:  This was the BIG news from convention.  The announcement of our latest Scentsy Family brand.  This is a high-fashion handbag, clutch, accessories brand.  There are 5 core bag designs, 6 clutch designs, and 7 colors.  There are also 9 jewelry collections available in all colors.  There are also 4 premium leather core bags.  The idea is that you mix and match the bags, clutches, accessories, and jewelry to fit your own personal style all the while being fashionable.  The starter kit is $199 and includes $190 worth of product NOT including the business supplies.

Incentive Trip 2013:  We covered this pretty thoroughly a couple of posts ago.  It's called Pick. Pack. Play.  You get to choose between 6 destinations when you qualify.  The highest qualifiers will choose first.  The destinations are Whistler, Charleston, NYC, Washington, D.C., Oahu, and Costa Rica.

Leadership Retreat 2012-2015:  Due to our ever increasing size, it is getting difficult to find destinations to hold all of us.  They have decided to hold Leadership Retreat at the same location for the next 3 years at the Moon Palace resort in Cancun, Mexico.  This trip is only for Director's and above, so we need to get busy!  I personally love this option because I honeymooned at the Sun Palace in Cancun - a sister resort to the Moon Palace. 

Spring Sprint 2013:  They want to be within 250 miles of 80% of all consultants with their Spring Sprint journey next year.  They will have 7 teams hitting 38 cities between February 3 and February 23.  Look for the city announcements coming soon.

Scentsy Convention 2013:  To coincide with our growing family of brands and our camaraderie as consultants with each other and the home office, this event will now be called the Scentsy Family Reunion.  It will be held a Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, IN, July 10-12, 2013.  I hope to see many of you there!

I think that hits most of the news.  I'll get back to speakers next week.  Until then, I remain

Scentsationally yours,
~Heather

Thursday, August 23, 2012

Light the Fire Within

As promised in my last post, I'm going to blog more, and I'm starting with some of the Convention speeches.  However, before I start on that I have to give a couple of shout-outs from July that I forgot to recognize last time:  Lesya posted over 170 PRV and Stephanie had over 200 PRV last month.  I want to give myself a bit of a pat on the back as well for having almost 300 PRV in July.  Way to go team!  :)

Heidi is our Scentsy President and is notorious for making everyone cry, including herself, with her heartfelt words.  Well, this year's convention speech was no excpetion.  She wrote a letter to her oldest daughter, Sarah, who is starting college this fall and shared the message with all of us.  These are the words of wisdom that Heidi hopes Sarah takes with her as she begins this new chapter in her life:

  • Love yourself for who you are
  • Laugh often, cry when needed, and love deeply
  • Do things that stretch you, even if you are afraid
  • Everyone needs a few good friends
  • Learn to let go
  • Always lend a helping hand
  • Dream big
  • Read, read, read!
  • Keep a journal
  • Spread your wings and fly.

How does this apply to your Scentsy business?  Well, it's just good life advice.  Most of us joined Scentsy looking for a way to make a better life for ourselves and/or our families.  Part of that is learning how to juggle all the things we have going in our busy lives.  Sometimes we need to remind ourselves to take care of us, so we can take care of all of our other responsibilities.  Heidi's speech is a nice road map for taking care of ourselves and reminds us to be who we are while striving to be even better. 

I'm still struggling with this aspect of my home business, especially while maintaining my "regular" job for 40-ish hours per week.  Now, my whole schedule has changed with my son starting Kindergarten, and my whole life will change again when we welcome our daughter on October 24.  Life is ever changing, and we have to adapt.  That is just the way it is.  If you can establish good work/life routines and habits, you can continue your business even with major life changes.  Yes, you may have to adapt the specifics, but you know what works and can fit that in to the new circumstances.  I had a busy and exhausting July, so I kind of crashed in August.  My PRV shows it (can you say goose egg?)!  However, I'm laying some foundations this week to pull it all back together for next month.  I'm OK with that.  I needed the time off to recuperate and suspected that my business would suffer.  Now, I'm ready for the big push through the Fall/Winter season and have no plans to take off a lot of time after the baby arrives.  Joseph and Aiden may have to help a lot more, but I can still work my laptop, my smartphone, and care for an infant while recovering from surgery.  Ha!  Reality may prove otherwise, but right now, I plan to work my business a LOT while I'm on maternity leave and don't have the distraction of that other job.  Wish me luck!

Scentsationally,
Heather

Monday, August 13, 2012

Scentsy Team Meeting

We had a fabulous team meeting at Panera in Bentonville on Saturday.  We talked way longer than I expected, but it was just too much fun to stop.  I'll hit the highlights of the meeting here for those that were unable to make it.

First though, remember that August is Transition month.  What does that mean?  First of all most of the Spring/Summer catalog is 10% off and several items are on the discontuned list.  This is a great time to stock up and recruit.  Most people that join Scentsy Family during a transition month get both seasons of business supplies (catalogs and testers) in their starter kit for no additional cost.  This is also the time of year to purchase your own catalogs and testers for the next season while they are discounted.

The August 11 meeting:

I opened the meeting with a discussion of the Scentsy Family business structure.  I wanted to make sure everyone understands how this whole multi-brand company works and how it benefits us.  Scentsy Family consists of three brands: Scentsy Fragrance, Velata, and Grace Adele.  As a Scentsy Family independent consultant you can sell any combination of these brands - 1, 2, or 3 - AND you can sponsor people to sell brands that you don't sell AND it all falls under one compensation plan.  This is an entirely new and innovative way to do direst-selling business.  Heidi and Orville, the predsident and CEO of Scentsy Family, want you to have a business that you can pass down to your children and run for years.  There are also long-term plans for more brands in the Scentsy Family.  If you have any questions about this structure, please don't hesitate to ask?  If I don't have the answer, I will find it.

The next topic was the Pick. Pack. Play. Incentive Trip.  I have been told that these incentive trips aren't just you receiving tickets to some nice desitination.  These are scentsified trips - they spoil you with specials and freebies.  It's probably one of those things that we won't fully understand until we take one, but if it's anything like Spring Sprint or Convention I'm sure it's amazing.  I provided the team with a handout for setting goals to achieve the incentive that I "borrowed" from Allison Dalke, our SuperStar director.  My recommendation was to jot down what you know you can do in pencil, tally your points, and find how hard you need to work to really get there.

The final topic was Convention information.  I highly recommend that you read books by the speakers from Convention - Laura Stack, the Productivity Pro; Carrie Wilkerson, the Barefoot Executie; and DeWitt Jones, the National Geographic photographer and Oscar-nominated director.  I will have more from this speakers in future blogs.  We also had some outstanding consultant speakers that spoke about successful parties.  I will have more them next month because that is the topic of our next meeting.  Orville gave an outstanding speech about being friends and not foes in this industry.  To achieve the current Scentsy Family financial forcase, we need another 800,000 consultants.  We are NOT a company on the decline - far from it.  He also laid out a Simple System of Careeer Progression in Scentsy Family.  I included a hand out with this system as well.  The big fun came when I showed off some of the new Scenty Fragrance products for Fall.  There are beautiful new warmers, amazing scents, and a couple of new products.  The Layers line as expanded to include hand soap and bath fizzies as well as adding scents to some of the existing products.  There are also new Combine & Save options to mix and match Layers products.  Best yet, Layers is part of the Fall/Winter Catalog.  I was also able to show the Grace Adele bag, clutch, keychain, mirror, and necklace given to us during the announcement of the latest brand. 

Our goal is to book a party between now and the next meeting - September 8.  The topic for that meeting will be party ideas for successful sales and recruiting.

If you have any questions, please contact me.

Scentsationally,
~Heather