As of today, I have $1355 wholesale in toward my Star. I’m so excited because I sold every penny! So, I profited! It has been wonderful! I sold $1224 RETAIL in July alone as I reported earlier. August was slow. I think my total August sales were around $500. June sales after the 16th were also around $500. Now, it’s September. I’ve been having difficulty booking parties so I asked my cousin to do a web party at the end of August. The total sales came to $212! I also had some reorders here and there.

I have lots of takers for bookings at the end of September and into October and while that’s awesome, I need to make my Star goal so I’m running an Anniversary Sale this weekend for my clients and those who don’t yet have a counsultant. I sent the email on Wednesday. Yesterday, I didn’t do any follow up. It was just a rough day so I wasn’t in “Mary Kay mode.” Today I picked up the slack and talked to some people that I emailed and contacted on Facebook. Today’s sales were $130! That’s after sale price!

I don’t discount often so people often jump at my sales. I typically do birthday discounts and either an anniversary sale or end of the year sale. Usually if someone asks me if I’m running any specials I tell them I always run specials for hostesses.

As of right now I’m about $800 RETAIL ($400 wholesale) away from my Star! It’s exciting! I am meeting with a new customer tomorrow evening after I return from a training workshop and I have several calls to make. I also had 4 friends at work tell me they are going to place orders. One even referred someone else to my sale and got me a new client! It’s been such a fun quarter! I am excited to do it again in Quarter 2!

I will be rewarding my efforts with a beach getaway paid for by my business! If you’re curious, I’m choosing the scrapbook set for my Star prize.

Myspace
Graphics- At Myspacejunks.com

So, anyway, I got to meeting about 15 minutes late and discovered I was the winner of our monthly purse drawing! I won a fabulous fuchsia Mary Kay tote that I believe was either a Seminar sales booth item or Star prize in the past. If I can ever upload photos on here again, I will post a pic of the tote because it is adorable! My next surprise was as we did our sales count up for the week, I was the last one standing! Once gain I was Queen of Sales! My week was about $350. I had my party yesterday and an online order had come in while I was at Seminar. Gotta love those online orders! I was crowned and had to apoligize because I needed to cut out early to make my delivery. I felt so bad leaving like that, but I needed to make my customer happy. I succeeded!

Today was spent catching up with Hubby. That was nice. I had a great time at Seminar, but I am happy to be back home with my husband.

My favorite class was the last one I went to. For the life of me I can’t remember what it was called, but the teacher was great! It was an interactive class, too, which was very nice. This was such a change from last time when I just sat in Hall A the whole time and some speakers spoke and not much was new info. This was a breath of fresh air! Basically, it was about releasing past mistakes, mishaps, bad experiences, etc. and moving forward. I liked it. We got to talk to our neighbors about things that went wrong in our buisnesses and excuses we may have used to not keep at it. It was almost like group therapy. It was also a relief to see that I am not the only one who is a senior consultant with 5+ yrs under her belt. I felt great after that class!

Next it was time to get ready for the Awards Night festivities! My friends and I met up for dinner all dressed up! That was fun! Dinner was delicious and we took some photos in the lobby of the hotel before meeting our director and heading to the Convention Center.

The Awards Night was amazing! I really enjoyed the entertainment. They had six or seven performances and they were so good! The performer in me appreciated that! It also broke up the recognition. Not that I don’t like the recognition; I just remember it felt very long the last time. This seemed to keep the night moving right along. It was exciting to see people I know get recognized on stage for their accoplishements. Next year I’m going to be up on that stage! I’m tracking Court of Sales! It was a fabulous evening! I can’t believe I’ll be home tomorrow.

We had some training with dinner tonight and that was cool. We had recognition, but most of all it was nice because it was a smaller group so it felt like a group of friends gathering. I got to know some directors who I’ve been around before, but they didn’t really know me because we’re usually in larger groups. Now they might sort of remember me. Well, they will because I’m going to be doing more with my buisness this year anyway. And it’s OK if they don’t remember me because it’s not that deep. Anyway, my two friends that traveled with me were the Queens of Sharing and Sales for our unit. I am very humbled to share that I was voted Miss Go Give for our unit. My director gave me a very pretty pair of earrings which coincidentally match a brooch I got for donating to the Mary Kay Foundation (formerly the Mary Kay Ash Charitable Foundation). Now I know what I’m wearing with my gown tomorrow night for the Awards Night!

I found a shawl downstairs at the vendors that is black pashmina and my brooch can pin that around me. I’ve been freezing in the arena and in the banquet halls in the hotel. The a/c is killing me! Last night one of the sales directors (who happens to be a doctor, yep, that’s right, an MD!) offered me her special director’s shawl becuase she saw me shivering! So sweet of her to do that! So after dinner tonight I learned that the vendors were open until 11:00. I went down there and found a Pashmina scarf in black for my gown as well as some self sealing cello bags from My Girlfriend’s House that I can use for my parties!

It has been a full day and a very rewarding evening.

Today the top NSD’s gave speeches. They were all quite good. I am partial to Kathy Helou, of course, but she really was amazing. I can’t even begin to recap here that would give her justice. She was just amazing. I don’t typically buy the Seminar DVD’s, but I’m going to get this year’s when it becomes available. Gloria Mayfield Banks led us in song: “Man in the Mirror” by Michael Jackson. How fitting.

Seminar opened up with Cassie LeBeau singing Someone is Me live! That was pretty cool! For anyone not familiar with her, she was on American Idol. I don’t keep up with Idol enough to know which season she was on or how far she got, but I know she was on it. I’m also not sure what her MK connection is, but I’m sure she has one. The National Sales Directors made their entrance and did their traditional kickline. That was fun!

After the opening, David Holl, our CEO came out and made some fascinating announcements. First off, he announced that the sales force has reached two million members world wide! That is huge! He also informed us that $6 million was given away in prizes to consultants and directors last year. That, too, is impressive. Other announcements made throughout the day were that Beauty Consultants are now eligible to access InTouch on their BlackBerry smartphones and iPhones! The site you can do this at is http://mkitgo.com. My senior director actually told me about this site a couple months ago, but when I tried to access it I got an error telling me my account was not eligible. I was so sad. I figured only directors could do it at the time. Now I can do it, too! hehehe

After lunch we received a mystery gift from the company that we were not allowed to open until they told us we could. My friend and I figured out what it was beforehand. We kinda cheated and I kinda figured it out anyway. It was a sample size of a brand new product not yet available until September. That was our “party favor” to promote the new theme “Party with a Purpose.”

I’m having a far better time this year than I did in 2004. There are several reasons for this. One being the fact that my director is here with me this time. Another reason is it feels absolutely wonderful knowing that my sales production paid for this trip!