Team Time-Getting ready to build your team in 2017

One of the biggest struggles people in direct sales face is team building.  One of the biggest road blocks in building your team is perception.  It's not only the perception that a direct sales company is a "real" job, but it's your own perception that you aren't qualified to lead because you don't yet believe in your business.

In order to effectively recruit, you have to shift that perception.  

In this photo, I am surrounded by incredibly successful women.

I had this realization a while back when I decided to join a networking group.  I got dressed in my business best and slunk into the back corner of the meeting because I did't feel like I deserved to be there.  These were women who had created products that were in every store from Walmart to Costco, women who owned realty groups, successful coffee chains, salons, and marketing firms.  I didn't feel like I fit in because I was just a mom trying to grow a Damsel in Defense business.

I am the owner of a direct sales business with more than
30 hard working girls who are constantly growing, and they
believe in me.

When I was evaluating why my business was at a stand still, it was painfully obvious.  I didn't believe I was an expert in my field.  I believed that everyone looked down on my business and saw me as another mlm scam.  

Well guess what?  I am the owner of a direct sales business, which is not the same as an mlm.  I have a team of more than 30 hard working girls who are constantly growing, and they believe in me.  The moment I realized my value, I started projecting myself as a successful business owner, and things began to change.  People began to shift their perception of what I did, but it first took me shifting mine.  Now, I can waltz into a networking meeting and know that I have just as much worth as the women there.  They start to see the value in my business and take the time to connect me with people in their networks to do business with, and my business begins to grow.

For me, 2017 is going to be the year of shifting perception.  I will be doing a series of challenges on Tuesdays to help others break out of the mindset that direct selling isn't a "real" job.  No matter what your company is, join me in claiming your place as the CEO of your business and power building the company of your dreams. The first challenge will be  January 3rd, 2017.

If you have no idea what a direct sales company is, but you're looking for a way to work from home, in your own hours, and make a great living, contact me at Sunshine@YourDamselDiva.com or go to my website StunGunCrew.com and let's talk about it!

Are you ready?

Motivation Mondays-get those last minute shoppers

The end of the year can be a really hard time for many businesses.  The Christmas rush slows down, and people start holding on to their money very tightly.  It can spell disaster if you’re not prepared for a decline in sales.  This is the time of year when last minute shoppers are your bread and butter.  How is a direct seller supposed to get in front of a last-minute shopper when they are probably just going to dash in the nearest store and pick out something that they know their gift receiver will probably not like?

Being creative in the final push for Christmas is going to set you apart from everyone else.  You know as well as I do that our last-minute shopper is on Facebook trying to figure out what to get their gift receivers right now, and think about what they see.

500 things that have been copied and pasted, 200 advertisements from every other business, pictures of kids, and funny videos.

People get on social media to be entertained.  It’s the great American time suck, and most of that entertainment comes in the form of videos.  I’m not talking about just sitting in front of your camera and babbling on Facebook live for twenty minutes, I’m talking about hilarious entertaining videos or live feeds.

How do you get this shopper’s attention?  Be silly and think Christmas.  Decorate yourself like a Christmas tree and sing a song about how amazing they are and how much you want to help them purchase your product.  Create an online character, click that Go Live button, and have some fun. 

Here are some tips to making great Facebook videos:

•         Keep them under 2 minutes.  Social media has created a civilization of people with finger
  
  swiping ADHD. 
•        Plan out what you’re going to say and do before you start.
•         Make sure it’s relevant to what your viewers are looking for.  Don’t dress like a vampire the week before Christmas and try to sell Halloween, unless you’re selling blinky green and red vampire teeth.
•         Find blinky red and green vampire teeth and send them to me, because I need that in my life.
•         Don’t live feed everyone to death.  One good live feed per day is great.  Contact some of your biggest cheerleaders and ask them if they will share it on their pages and give you a plug, but contact them in person.
•         Don’t spam.  Facebook jail is a real thing.  Don’t go there.  I hear the food is terrible and there aren’t any mojitos. 
•         Most important, be clear and concise in what you’re trying to communicate and HAVE FUN!

Trust me, you’re gonna’ love it!

A pause in your business can mean a future struggle

Many of you may have noticed that there hasn't been a StunGunGirl blog post in quite a while.  Many of you also know that a few months ago, life was moving along at the perfect pace when I was given a cancer diagnosis.  My seemingly perfect little universe was turned up-side-down, in-side-out, and kicked across the cosmos.

Even still, through the process of wrapping my brain around the C word that was living in my body, learning treatment options, deciding to go with surgery, and then the hardship of healing, my long term goals never wavered.  I thought for sure that when I was well, I would just pick up where I left off and continue the climb to the top with only maybe a minor hiccup.

Boy was I wrong.

As I sat down in front of my computer and opened my CRM software (I love fiitfu.com the most), it overwhelmed me.  I had 196 overdue followups.  I suddenly realized that I was so behind I might never catch up.  When I started working through those followups, I also realized that none of my contact's lives stopped, and it was like starting all over again with at least 180 of them.

That was just the foothills of Mt. Overwhelming.

All the while, I didn't want to appear that things weren't okay, so I appeared as if business was normal on the outside saying things like, "I'm so blessed to have a job that I can take time off for to beat this cancer," because I didn't want to scare anyone away from joining my company.

Really, taking months off to fight a beast like cancer already takes a mental and physical toll on you.  I wish I would have known the reality of taking that time off and what it would be like to come back to work after so much time passed.  I think I could have been better prepared for what was to come.  I'm here to tell you, you don't pick up where you left off, you start about 500 steps behind, and that's okay.

When you expect to come back to the exact point you left off, it doesn't feel okay.  Luckily, I learned something really important along the way, and even though I felt like I was treading water in my last hour of strength in the open waters of the deep blue sea, I reached out.  When you're feeling down, call up.  I wasn't just feeling down, I was feeling defeated.  My fire was gone and I was questioning whether or not I could succeed.

I am here to tell you, that after some hours on the phone with some amazing ladies who not only let me fall apart, but then picked up my pieces and handed them back to me while reminding me who I am, what my destiny is, that there is no future without me in it (especially for me), and told me to put those damned pieces back together, I am ready.  The fire has been lit, the passion has reignited, and even though I'm not starting where I thought I would, I'm getting started where I am.


How do you eat an elephant?  Invite your friends!  When you're feeling down, call up, and when you're feeling up, call down.  You never know which one of your team members might be floating in open water alone and not saying anything.


Have a blessed day!

CEO of Backpage arrested on charges of pimping

Carl Ferrer, 55, CEO of Backpage.com

For years, dozens of organizations have been on the heels of Dallas-based website Backpage, linked to sex trafficking and prostitution.  Because of a major investigation launched against the site, Carl Ferrer, CEO of the websitehas been arrested, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced Thursday.

Ferrer was arrested on charges of pimping and related crimes in California at Houston's Bush Intercontinental Airport around 2 p.m. Thursday. He was returning from Amsterdam, where the company also has offices.  Texas will also be investigating.  

"A lengthy joint investigation by the offices of the Texas and California attorneys general uncovered evidence that adult and child sex trafficking victims were forced into prostitution through escort ads that appeared repeatedly on Backpage," read a release from Paxton's office sent later Thursday.

Texas investigators were executing a search warrant at Backpage's offices at the corner of Oak Lawn and Maple Avenues in Dallas during the arrest. 

“Backpage is the single largest advertiser of adult escort services" in the United States, Paxton said. The company “advertises sex acts for money,” and earns millions of dollars in advertising profits annually, he added.

An indictment filed in late September and obtained Thursday by News 8 cites 17 incidents between 2012 and 2015 in which sex trafficking advertisements were purportedly posted on Backpage.

The site made $2 million per month in advertisements from October 2014 to May 2015, the indictment states.

The Texas attorney general said Backpage exploited both adults and children for financial gain.

What the heck happened to my business plan?

I am the first one to tell people that in order to make God laugh, all you need to do is tell him your plans.  It's all fun and games until it's my plan that gets smashed to pieces.

I had a bullet proof business plan.  For two months I have been busting my tail to attain it, taking trainings, putting processes into place, and making sure to reach out to 5 new contacts every day.  My calendar was FILLED, I was all signed up for our Destination Diamond program, and I was going to be a director by October.

That was my plan.  The math was there, the formula was working, and my team had a record breaking month in August.  Not to mention, Damsel in Defense released the September special.....$99 to join?  Holy canoli!!!! I jumped right into the month with gazelle intensity that would have made Dave Ramsey blush!

At the same time, I was undergoing a series of tests because my body was a little out of whack.  Okay, by a little out of whack, I mean if I was a golf ball getting whacked by Happy Gilmore, that would be the out of whack my body was being.

Still, a little thyroid medication here, a month of water pills there, some blood work, and some invasive tests were NOT going to stop my road to director.

Then, one beautiful morning, I got the call.  It was my doctor's assistant telling me that my doctor wanted me to come in right away to discuss some test results.

My heart stopped.  "Can you just tell me over the phone?" I asked.  No.  No, she couldn't.  My doctor will only go over these results in person.

Well that's it, isn't it.  I'm dying.

Through a series of miracles and child care clients who are more like family than clients, parents showed up out of the woodwork to get their kiddos so that my husband could go be with me to hear my sentence.

The doctor's office was somber.  Everyone spoke to me in a lower and more careful tone.  I was checked in, and sitting in a room full of future mommies waiting to see their babies on ultrasound or to find out how they were progressing.  I was waiting to find out what the rest of my life was going to look like.  It was like driving through darkness with no headlights.

Finally, we were called back.  Uncomfortably, we shared very few words as we waited for the doctor.  An eternity passed, and every movement I made was emphasized by the deafening sound of the paper underneath me.   My heart pounded in my chest, and I struggled not to run away.

Then she came in and told me the news.  I had cancer, however there was a good chance she got it all.

Wait....
what?...
I have what?...
Did you say......?

She kept talking, but I am sure I stuck my head under water, because that's what it sounded like...distorted echoes of her voice answering my husband's questions.

There was no prognosis, just a referral to an oncologist....an.....oncologist.....

My oncologist.  The one who would be treating my cancer.

There's that word again.

Wait, I don't have cancer.  Didn't she say she got it all?  Why do I need an oncologist?

The next week was a mixture of hyperventilating, crying, numbness, and not knowing what to say when people had questions.

What stage is it?
What is the prognosis?
What do you need?

I need this to go AWAY because I have a BUSINESS to run!!!!

Next I met with my oncologist, who told me again that I had cancer, and I would be having surgery that will knock me out for 6-12 weeks.

What?

Director is slipping from my fingertips again.......

Then it hit me...oh yeah, my plan isn't always the plan I get to have.

Sometimes you have to put yourself in check and remember that you're not in control.

Has it slowed my business?

Yes.

I have been taking more time with my babies, snuggling my husband, taking care of myself, and preparing for the long winter ahead.  Am I still working?  Heck yes, but my balance has changed.  Director will be there when it's time to be there.  Until then, I'm going to be focusing on the things I can control.

My prognosis is good.  I will be having a radical hysterectomy with a small possibility of radiation.

Cloudy with a chance of radioactive meatballs.....

I am staying positive.  I have come to terms with the phrase, "I have cancer".  I can say it without crying my face off.  I can say that I need prayers, encouragement, and support.

My business plan will be modified, and I will take the time I need to heal, but I'm not going to give up or let this stop me from my goals.  That is the beauty of a business like Damsel in Defense, you can work it around your needs instead of having to work around a boss and an unreal work schedule.  I don't know what I would do if it wasn't for the flexibility of this business.

I will say one thing.  I would be lost in my business if I didn't have a business plan in place.  I may be modifying it, but I still have clear goals and actions in place.

Today I have decided that it's not my business plan.  It's God's business plan, and I'm going to work with what he gives me.

Let's talk about our direct sales friends

Hi blog family, I hope this post finds you well today.

Two things have been bothering me for about a week now, and that usually means I need to sit down and write about it.  What could they be?  They both boil down to how we treat our friends in other direct sales companies.

This particular blog post was brought on by a complaint that was posted publicly on Facebook by a girl we'll call Suzie Q.  You see, Suzie Q was feeling jealous last week because one of her friends signed on with a different direct sales company than she was in.

The first bothersome moment was a complaint post went something like this:

"I just don't understand why someone would join another company when they have seen how much I have made with my company."

While it is okay to wonder about the answer to that question, it's only okay to do it alone, and in your head.  I feel like this is obvious, but let's be honest, Captain Obvious wouldn't be a character in a major media campaign if there weren't enough people who lacked the ability to know when something is obvious, and this isn't the first time I've seen someone post something similar.

The second thing is a constant bother.

I am a cheerleader.  I don't care what direct sales company you're in, or even if it isn't a direct sales company at all, I love cheering people on, even if it's hard.  I have a rule of thumb that I live by.  That rule is, if you're feeling jealous or upset at someone, that is when you need to force yourself to cheer them on.  I hardly ever have to force myself because of those reasons, but sometimes I do find myself having a Facebook like fest, and I have to stop and actually slow down and comment.

I want my time on Facebook to be actually building relationships and caring about what the people I have accepted in my life are doing, whether they are struggling or succeeding.

Here's the bother, and I know some people do this out of excitement for their own businesses, but when I comment on another direct seller's post and five minutes later I get this message:

"Hey, I saw that you liked my post about promoting to yadda yadda.  If you join my team, you can yadda yadda too."

Hmmmmm.......does anyone else see the problem with that?

I chalk it up to people not knowing because maybe it is their first rodeo or something, and I'm always gracious about declining, but then I stay on their "lead" list and get the algorithm of contacts.  Once a week for a month, then once every two weeks for two months, then once a month until they either give up or I tell them for the ten thousandth time,

"Thank you, but I'm focusing on my Damsel business.  I wish you nothing but success in [enter business here]"

So, here's a golden nugget of direct sales advice, and I promise you, it will grow your business ten thousand times more strong than head hunting your direct sales friends.

Are you ready?

Here it is:

Don't head hunt your other direct sales friends. Invest in the relationship instead.

Whaaaaaaaat?

Yes.  Let me set up a scenario:

I have a friend who sells a makeup line.  Let's call her Sally.  Sally is growing her business and jumping up the ranks, and is posting about how she gets to go on this amazing all expense paid trip to somewhere with palm trees and umbrella drinks that you need a passport to go to.

I congratulate her or tell her how awesome she is on every photo she posts, because I genuinely love seeing people succeed.

Sally knows that I'm not trying to join her team, because she's also blessed me with gushes of congratulations on every achievement I make too, because she genuinely cares about people doing what they love and loving what they do.

She has never once, in more than a year of knowing her, asked me to join her team.

Instead, she has sent people to me by saying,

"Girl, I know this amazing Damsel, she will hook you up!  Just tell her I sent you!"  

Why?  Because she knows that safety is important, and I have invested in a relationship with her.

At the same time, whenever someone asks what makeup to try or if I have a friend selling her specific line, what do you think I say?

"Girl, I know this amazing makeup girl!  She will hook you up!  Just tell her I sent you!"

I know she will take excellent care of my referral, and I know she will send referrals my way.

Some of those people just buy, some join her team, some join mine, but the point is, we have each other's backs.

As a matter of fact, I have a referral program that is a win-win for everyone.  If a person refers someone to me and they join my team,

I pay the person who referred them $25 if my new team member reaches their first promotion within 60 days, which is a cake walk.  

That's twenty five smakeroos just for realizing someone would benefit from owning their own Damsel in Defense company.  

On the same hand, if I don't feel like someone will soar with Damsel but I know they would probably be amazing at another direct sales company, I connect them with a mentor from that company that I have a relationship with.

Think about it, do you want someone to join your team who isn't passionate about what you do?  It won't work!  If I have a person looking to join a direct sales team who just isn't feeling Damsel but LOVES makeup, where do you think they are going to succeed?

I'll tell you one thing, I definitely would support them in their choice rather than shame them for not choosing me.

So, there it is.  Two things, off my chest and out in the universe.  I hope it helps you in your business practices, and remember, there are two kinds of people.  You're either a fountain or a siphon.  Which one are you today?

Have a blessed day,

Finally, you can talk to your kids

Looking back through history, there are several people in history that changed a generation.  Jesus, The Boston Tea Party, Mother Theresa, Rosa Parks, Nelson Mandela, and Martin Luther King Jr. jump to mind immediately when you think of positive changes to our world.  The social changes they made through their actions greatly impacted humanity for the better.  According to MIT, the most influential person in history is Aristotle. 

Aristotle was an Ancient Greek philosopher born circa 384 B.C. in Stagira, Greece. At 17, he enrolled in Plato’s Academy. In 338, he began tutoring Alexander the Great. In 335, Aristotle founded his own school, the Lyceum, in Athens, where he spent most of the rest of his life studying, teaching and writing. Aristotle died in 322 B.C. after being one of the most influential people to form western philosophy.  He did that through learning, writing, and teaching. 

Here we stand, in the 21^st century in a country where we are free to believe anything, to live out any possibility, and to love who we want to love, yet the statistics still remain that 1 in 4 girls and 1 in 6 boys will be sexually abused.  It’s a silent epidemic that affects nearly everyone in some way, either because they were abused, or they know someone who was. 

More than a year ago, a team was formed within a company called Damsel in Defense.  Even before Damsel in Defense became a household name, Co-Founder Mindy Lin knew there was a need to protect more than adult women.  From the beginning, she wanted to find a way to change the way abuse had always been silenced.

As an outspoken survivor, advocate, student of abuse, writer, and public speaker, when I started with Damsel in Defense, I knew in my heart there was a greater mission.  I tried to find where my passion was hiding by shadowing others who worked with organizations that fought sex trafficking, domestic violence, and sexual assault.  Those are all great causes, and they need every person they have working for them, but still I felt like there was more.  Every time I looked into the eyes of a victim of any of those things, I saw a lost child staring back at me, pleading for that one thing that was missing: prevention.

I began working with national organizations like RAINN (Rape And Incest National Network) by joining their speaker’s bureaus, and searching more locally where my impact could help my own community by working with OAASIS (Oregon Abuse Advocates and survivors In Service), but my legacy was still an enigma.

When Mindy Lin contacted me to work on a top secret project that would help children, I was all in.  After flying to Boise, Damsel in Defense’s headquarters, for a brainstorming meeting, it was clear the direction we were going and we went to work to answer the question that was presented to me as a survivor: What did I need to help tell?

The answer was validation.  I tried several times as a child to tell a teacher or a friend’s mom or someone who I felt could do something about it, and nobody knew what to do.  I didn’t come straight out and say my father was molesting me, but I clearly was trying to open up a conversation in hopes that someone would hear me.  By the time I was in the third grade, I already saw that it was pointless, and the threats from my dad became too much, so I endured.  The only programs about my safety that were offered through my whole life were stranger danger talks.  No one repeated to be COURAGEOUS and make the RIGHT choice, or to keep telling until someone listened.  No one said that the invisible line around me was for anybody, even if I knew them or they tried to make me.  

These things weren’t talked about, and to this day, more than 30 years later, I still see it being silenced.  The conversations aren’t happening because people either don’t know how to handle them, or they’re too scared to find out something is. 

It’s time to normalize the conversation and change the way society talks about the silent epidemic of abuse.

I was commissioned to write a series of children’s books to start the process of creating safe space for parents to open the conversation with their children.  Our team included amazing professionals from a psychologist, marketing team, illustrator, and focus groups. 

SAFE Hearts stands for Share Awareness for Family Empowerment, and begins with the release of the first 2 books, My Friend’s New Toy and Madison’s Big Brother as well as a Parent Guide.  The Parent Guide is key to navigating the conversations you will start opening up with your kids.  It will lead you through why it’s important, what to look for, and what to do if something in one of the books triggers your kids to start talking about something that happened to them or someone they know. 

My Friend’s New Toy is about a young girl who goes to play at a new friend’s house, where she finds herself in a tricky situation and meets the Heart Defenders, four kids on a mission to protect the hearts of kids in trouble. 

Madison’s Big Brother takes us to a girl whose best friend’s brother has a crush that might go too far.  Again, the Heart Defenders step in to teach children everywhere how to protect their hearts and the hearts of others. 

The interaction doesn’t just stop with a story.  There are interactive pieces in the back of each book to keep the conversation going, as well as puzzle packs to keep the Heart Defenders fresh in their minds, and a website filled with printable coloring pages, Heart Defender Certificates, and your child’s own Heart Defender badge.

SAFE Hearts has also partnered with Speak Your Silence, a non-profit that pays for counseling services for children who are victims of sexual abuse.  The mission is to empower as many children as possible to change an entire generation of children.

 The end product that was shaped behind closed doors in secret was just a group of people learning, writing, and teaching just like Aristotle did with the hopes that it will make an impact on the lives of families in bondage. 

SAFE HEARTS  can be purchased either directly from the website or by hosing an Empowering Kidversations class either online or in person, or find your passion in a career you love by joining us.  Find more information at YourDamselDiva.com.