Maybe the Usborne Books & More consultants and spouses out there can relate to this.  It’s a Friday night around 9PM.  Becky and I are exhausted!  We finally got the kids to sleep.  I’ve had a long week at work and Becky’s been working hard at her book biz.  She has a BIG event coming up tomorrow (Saturday) and setup time is at 7AM.  Becky goes to the garage to start packing boxes to take to the event and I go to the car to take out the car seats and make room for all books.  11PM rolls around and we’ve finally got the car packed with the $5,000 of inventory going to the event.  Whew!  Time for bed.

On Saturday Becky heads up to the event and works the booth all day from 7-4 while I stay home and watch the kids.  It’s a rough one at home.  The kids are fighting and whining all day about pretty much everything.  Makenzie had a couple accidents so there are soiled clothes by the laundry I didn’t get a chance to run yet.  Toys are scattered throughout the house – you can barely even see the floor.  They both refused to take a nap so they are starting to enter complete meltdown mode.  I’m ready for a break!  6PM rolls around and Becky finally makes it home after packing up and driving back.  Becky’s been on her feet all day, talking to customers and working the booth so she’s exhausted and not excited about dealing with cranky kids.  She walks in and I see the worn out look on her face as she enters the mad house.

I ask, “How’d it go?  What were sales like?”

“I sold about $950,” she replies.

I think to myself, $950 at about a 30% commission…so she made $285.  Take out the $200 booth fee and it is $85 for 13 hours of work between two of us packing up the night before and her working the booth for 9 hours.  That’s $6.50 an hour!!  Why are we doing this?!?!

Business Owner vs. Employee

This was my thought process in the beginning when Becky was first starting out.  What I came to realize later was my thought process was all wrong.  Becky isn’t an employee any longer working for an hourly wage.  She’s a business owner building and growing a business.  Considering that only half of business owners pay themselves a salary I guess that $85 isn’t so bad!

Personal sales are a necessary part of the business, at least for us, because it brings in cash that we need to pay for our day-to-day expenses.  That side of the business is limited, though.  There are only so many hours in the day and so many events and book fairs you can do.  Becky’s personal sales do continue to increase as she continues to do more book fairs and events.  She’s learning which ones are good and which ones are not and essentially trading up so her time spent making personal sales is on better events that bring in more money.

The personal sales are great, but the way to truly grow the business is through promoting to a leader and building a team where you earn overrides on team sales.  This side of the business has no limits.  You meet people and bring them into the business, teach them what you know then they do the same.  It has a compounding effect that grows faster and faster as more people join the team.

To help illustrate this I made a calculator at the bottom of this post to help you envision what your income will look like under different scenarios.  Play around with it and see for yourself!

Your Sales Numbers

First, plug in your sales numbers and see if it matches what you are making.  If it doesn’t let me know so I can fix the calculator!

Consultant Level

Digging through the back office I see for March 2017 the Top 50 consultants had sales ranging from about $3,600 to $7,100.  As a consultant you will only make a commission on your personal sales.  We’ll take $5,000 which is near the middle of that range.  To see what your income would be like for those types of sales set Your Level to Consultant and split the $5,000 between Parties and Web Sales and Special Programs ($2,500 each) then you’ll see you end up with $1,150 monthly income.  Not too shabby, but see what happens when you promote!

Team Leader

Once you promote to Team Leader you start earning overrides on sales from your central group and 1st and 2nd leader levels.  This is where it starts to get exciting because you start earning UBAM income for sales you aren’t actively making.  For March 2017 the Top 25 had central group sales around the $21,000-$40,000 range.  Let’s use $30,000 which is close to the middle of that range.  In the calculator change Your Level to Team Leader and add some central group sales (this would be sales from the Central Group Consultants in the calculator diagram).  If we keep the $5,000 in personal sales and add the remaining $25,000 to central group sales, splitting it $12,500/$12,500 between parties and special programs, you’ll see we’re up to $3,062.50 per month.  Woo hoo!

Executive Leader and Above

Once you reach Executive Leader you will earn overrides down to your 3rd Team Leader level.  The Top 20 for March 2017 in Executive Group Sales range from about $205,000 all the way up to $623,000!  Let’s assume we are somewhere in the middle around $400,000.  Change Your Level to Director.  We’ll keep the $5,000 in personal sales then split the remaining $395,000 between the central group, 1st, 2nd and 3rd level sales putting $49,375 each in parties and special programs.  Now we are making over $15,000 per month and we’re only working part time and still doing our average of $5,000 per month personally!  I’ll take it!

Focus on the Future

Hopefully this post has helped you visualize the power of promoting to team leader and how your income can grow as your team grows.  It has helped me change my perspective on events Becky goes to.  What I failed to realize that Saturday when Becky made $6.50 per hour was that she came home with a stack of over 100 lead forms.  From those leads she booked Facebook parties, home parties and added a couple new consultants to the team.  All of those lead to income down the road and helped build the business.  Our conversations have changed from “What in the world are we doing”? and “Is this really worth it?” to “What are we going to do when the business grows so large that we’re making enough to replace my income also”?  It keeps us focused on the future and excited about what’s possible down the road!