Building the Cocoon

It's been just over a month since my last blog post for several reasons:
1. I was up to my ears in the Direct Sales SUPER Summit, which was an amazing success in more ways than I think I will realize for months or years to come.

2. I was BOMBARDED by bizops from well-meaning, yet opportunistic consultants (more on that in a minute).

3. I've been building a cocoon, I think, and I'm nearly finished.

If you followed my last post, you know that my career with The Body Shop at Home is officially ending this month. To that end, I have been humbled (and sometimes annoyed) by consultants approaching me with their opportunities - some of them right here on this blog. The comments in my last post that I DIDN'T delete were the posts done right.

Take a look and learn. These people offered quality comments that added value to the discussion BEFORE they shared their business opportunity. So many of the posts to my blog looked somethng like this:

"I'm so sorry to hear about TBSAH closing. It's such a shame, but we have the best products in the world and we'll give you a bunch of free stuff for joining our team becaue you can really make a lot of money with us, and please join my company because we're the best."

Bleh.

Without incriminating anyone, let me just say that this is NOT the way to approach someone with your business opportunity. You come off like a vulture circling prey.


There are right and wrong ways to make a connection. If you want to recieve something (like a new team member), you want to GIVE first. Give content, give advice, give connections, give love, but GIVE.

And shame on you if you didn't give first and have been following my blog for any length of time! You should know better.

If you really want to approach a potential business partner with an opportunity, it's much better to:

a) approach them privately, or if that's not possible
b) approach them discreetly, by first providing value and setting yourself up as an expert that can help their situation.

For example, when I approached a handful of Sarah Coventry Reps last fall, I didn't start with how great I or my company was, but offered to help them in their search. Now it HELPS that I have some authority in my market - but many of the women didn't know who I was.

In fact, some of them didn't even know Sarah Coventry was closing when I approached them. I also talked to them about why I thought THEY would be a great addition to any team - and never mentioned my company.

Of the 5 I approached, 2 joined my business - and neither one of them had ever heard of me. They appreciated that I focused on THEM and not on trying to get them on my team.

That's one of the reasons I ultimately went with the new company I'm with, Sensaria. So please don't approach me about joining your "hot business opp", because I'm all set, thanks. They approached me, and shared how I could be valuable with any company - and then asked to get on my schedule to share more about the product BEFORE we talked about the opporunity.

I'm now in the process of migrating clients, systems and marketing to my new company - which because of the summit has been stalled until this week.

So that's part of the reason for the month-long absence. Transitions like this have usually been more difficult - this one wasn't difficult, just lengthy.

The other reason - the cocoon reason - is really just getting going. And it hit me HARD today.

I'm calling it a cocoon because it doesn't feel like a wall, but there's definitely some kind of barrier around me right now. I can sense that I'm insulated from a lot of people I used to have regular contact with. And it feels like it's leading to a major transformation that will require a bit of struggle to make it work fully.

I talked with a new friend today that cleared up a few things for me, and it's been an amazing couple of hours since then. It's almost time to wriggle out of the cocoon, and get ready for what's next.

I've just launched a 12-month coaching program for direct sellers and am planning for my first ever LIVE event in August, and that's just the beginning of te transformational shift I'm feeling.

It's overwhelming right now. I'm still processing, but I think God's tapping me to take the next big step, and as my friend indicated today, to jump head first into the pool.

But first, I've got to wriggle out of this Cocoon...