A Peek Into How We Store Our Lilla Rose

The first weeks of January seem to be when most of us organize our piles, our closets, our papers, and more after taking down Christmas. Moms have purged toys and household goods the week after Christmas in time to get year end tax deductions for donations of goods to charity. We all know tax time is looming, and we want our financial stuff in order.

January 9th was National Clean Off Your Desk Day. I don’t have a desk, but I do re-organize my bins and bags of my Lilla Rose supplies or paperwork for all of the above reasons: organization and tax time is looming. I have customers to serve, and shows to apply for in the new year. I need to know where my business supplies are!

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In honor of National Clean Off Your Desk Day, we straightened up our Lilla Rose stashes instead, and did a FB Live demonstration.


I found I had to organize my Lilla Rose personal stash! My snap shut plastic bins were filled to overflowing and would no longer shut. There is no purging Lilla Rose products, of course! My daughters, too, have begun to misplace their clips, hair sticks, u-pins, bobby pins, and hairbands.

Lady L, my 15 year old daughter, received her third beautiful large wood jewelry box for Christmas, and has no room in her room for another large item on her dresser. I absconded with it, and now it stores my Lilla Rose! My minis, bobby pins, and extra smalls go on the top, hair bands go on necklace hooks on one side, and dangles and my braided 8 go on the other. In two drawers, I have my small flexis, and my mediums are in the bottom drawer. I keep my hair sticks and u-pins in a beautiful Lilla Rose zipper pouch that I was gifted by Lilla Rose at convention two years ago. I have a little bit of room to add more clips, but for now, this is a good solution.

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In exchange for her jewelry box, I am buying Lady L a small wall mirror for over her dresser that matches her new turquoise theme and night stand. She is using an acrylic drawer set like this (affiliate link) that matches her make-up storage sets so her clips remain handy and with her own system. Her twenty-five clips and accessories, including her two extra-large flexis, with room to add, fit nicely, in the thin, wide drawers shown below.

Daughter #2, Miss-y E, also received another jewelry box for Christmas. Her box is three drawers, so it is easy to sort her items according to size and product. Now she has one jewelry box for her jewelry, and one for her clips, and she can keep both on the dresser she shares with her younger sister.

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Daughter #3, A-Grape, uses the smallest sizes clips, so for now, she keeps her clips in my bathroom in a drawer in her plastic bin, sorted according to size. This way, I can help her keep track of her personal inventory and teach organizational skills in the process.

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That is how we store our Lilla Rose flexi clips and hair accessories!

How do you or would you store yours? We’d love to see or hear in the comments below.

When you are interested in learning more about starting your own Lilla Rose business, I invite you to message me so we can chat. Note my video on the opportunity at the top of the side bar, or read more on my website.

Blessings,

Deb

 

 

 

Vision As A Proverbs 31 Wanna Be

I was talking to a more mature, wiser, and seasoned lady at church a few weeks ago. I was sharing with her some things God has laid on my heart. I shared that I’d begun to question what I would do after our last child graduates our homeschool in about ten years. I shared with her that God has been laying a foundation with a new vision and the beginnings of a working plan.

I am beginning to see that God has been training me up as a mentor for younger women to not just be wives, mothers, keepers of their homes, but also to be business owners and entrepreneurs. My own short tenure in direct sales with my daughters at my side has begun to shape up to be something far deeper than for training up my own children. My longer range view of being an entrepreneur/small business owner goes more than ten years into the future.

I’ve shared that I’ve been walking the mall. As I walk, I have overheard store employees talking about not getting the hours they were guaranteed at hire, hours being cut, and concerns about paying the bills. In a generation of young people finding it increasingly hard to find and keep jobs, even with college educations, it seems probable that more young women need more grounded older women to mentor them in the endeavor of juggling raising families while working a business.  I shared with my wiser, more seasoned friend that I am yearning to be sure I am prepared as I  grow my team now.

Beginning earlier in 2016, I took many training webinars on how to grow my business, and I implemented many new things and learned new skills. November ended and I missed a few of my goals. Despite this, God very clearly said “Build It On This Solid Foundation. ” It was not time for my goals to be met, and with full confidence I know that God is in control and has a plan. He has prepared a way for me to build on a more solid foundation.


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In the vein of Build It On This Solid Foundation, and as a future small business mentor, I know that one message I will always need to impart is that an unmet goal is not a failure. It does not mean I didn’t work hard enough, or smart enough. It doesn’t mean I didn’t have goals or a plan, necessarily. It might simply be a delay. It might be re-calibrate of the goal itself. It not a failure, and women need that validated. That is my first message as a future small business mentor.

Another lesson is this. If anyone tells prospective team member that being an entrepreneur is easy money, they are not giving an honest assessment of the opportunity. Is it an opportunity to join a direct sales business? Yes. Investing in a small business with a small amount of start up money is a fantastic opportunity. It is work. It is investment of time resources and organizational changes with your home. Do entrepreneurs set their own hours? Perhaps. Usually. It might depend on their commitment to their schedule and organization, and they should. To say anything else is not an honest or fair characterization of the opportunity. Honestly, it requires fortitude and perseverance to build a business, and it takes time. This is no “get rich quick.”

phil-3-12-14 All of us, then, who are mature should take such a view of things. And if on some point you think differently, that too God will make clear to you.  Only let us live up to what we have already attained. Join together in following my example, brothers and sisters, and just as you have us as a model, keep your eyes on those who live as we do. Philippians 3:15-17

And, finally for now, any goals, dreams, plans, priorities a team member has is theirs-not a team leader’s. Team leaders don’t decide the priorities of other team members. Team members don’t work for leaders, and they ought not be referring to them as “my girls.” A mentor can help a team member sift and sort through ideas and methods for attaining dreams, goals, or plans, but the mentor does not own these. Nor do they own the work ethic, successes, or mistakes of their team members. Ultimately, it is up to all small business entrepreneurs to catch their own vision in their own time, cultivate it, learn, improve, do the work, and pave their own way to success. Team leaders encourage, equip, and empower their team. They can offer a hand to lift up, and celebrate successes.

“The measure of a leader is not the number of people who serve him, but the number of people he serves.” John C. Maxwell

It’s 2017. I’m ready to Build It! Who is with me? Join me in this Proverbs 31 Wanna Be entrepreneurship race.

Happy New Year Blessings,

Deb

PS. Coming soon is my new 2017 Vision Board.

 


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Comparing Apples & Oranges

I walked 8500 steps or about 3+ miles at the mall on Monday. On Tuesday and Wednesday I walked 9000+ (partly because I have mean sons who wouldn’t let me off the hook.) ♥ I’ve gradually been working up the number of steps I’m walking because I have a goal of losing 3 lbs/month before my son’s wedding. I had been biking but I had a bike injury, and I have to keep losing weight. Frankly, this is for my health too, because this time last year, I was feeling physically lousy for a while.

I keep saying I don’t mind looking like the proud mom of six, but I don’t want to look like the frumpy proud mom of six. I don’t want to buy a dress for the wedding until I’ve reached a few more of my goals. I bought the Lilla Rose Arrow flexi clip in varying sizes and coordinating bobby pins for my hair. I have hair jewelry. But I have no dress.

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In the past couple of weeks, I’ve received some really negative comments and attitudes toward my health goals and about business oriented concepts. I can honestly tell you that my dander is up!

Don’t tell me I can’t or won’t achieve them!

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I was at the mall at 8:30 on Tuesday to walk. I’d had no coffee yet. I really couldn’t believe I was there that early, being that I’m not a morning person anyway.

I began observing who was also walking, because I figured there wouldn’t be many of us.  There were middle aged men, whole families, children walking with Grandma, and ladies pushing baby strollers. Ladies my age had weights strapped to their wrists and ankles as they blazed a trail doing mall laps. There was a group home of people with diverse special needs. There were several well seasoned in life men and women literally taking 15-20 steps, and sitting on their walkers to rest. They repeated getting up, walking 15-20 steps, and then sitting to rest.

I passed one very seasoned gentleman four times before he made his one lap. Actually, I didn’t pass him. I could have/would have, but I felt bad so I turned before I reached him and did my lap in the opposite direction instead. I felt like I was flaunting that I could pass him….and frankly, I was proud of him for going that lap. That was clearly hard work for him.


This brings me to the negative business attitude I have seen with direct sellers within some direct sales companies and selling groups. There seems to be the sentiment by some direct sales leaderships that if one person has a certain set of challenging circumstances, and they achieve some level of success or a earn a promotion, then anyone can achieve that level of success without too much difficulty. If they don’t, they are making excuses. That comes with some dangerous elite-est comparison attitudes, sometimes, suggesting that another person’s situation isn’t that difficult or as difficult as another’s. Or, it suggests that the person not achieving success doesn’t have high enough goals or perhaps priorities are wrong. Comparison gets ugly.

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What if I’d said to the seasoned gentleman making his one lap “Come on. You can do more. If I can do it, so can you.” What if I’d said that to the young mom who was pushing the infant in a stroller and a 2 year old not wanting to keep up? It would be pretty jerky and insensitive of me to tell her she wasn’t pulling her walking weight.

All these people at the mall were walking with the same idea, same goal, same purpose. They are trying to maintain or regain their health. They were all doing so at their own pace, based on their own needs and circumstances, and working hard. They were getting their steps, miles, laps in, reaching their own private goals. Some of us were healthier and could walk faster. Some of us are doing great if we could do a single lap in an hour and a half.

Going into direct sales, small business, and entrepreneurship is not that different. Nobody can or has the right to determine another’s priorities or goals. All are always looking at circumstances of another through the lens of their own personal ones. What is motivating is observing another whose circumstances as far larger than we think we can manage, and then saying “Hey! You have more circumstances/more hard than I do! How do you do it so that I can improve?”


On Wednesday, I hadn’t wanted to walk at all. I’m allowed 2 days off/week. I was sore, tired, and it was cold and snowing outside. I didn’t want to leave my warm house, but my son would not take no for an answer and insisted I go walk with him. He was driving, so I reluctantly went.

I’m glad I did, by the way. We had great conversation, and I went those 9100+ steps which has me 900 steps away from my first goal of getting up to 10000 steps, and ahead of schedule, for what that is worth.

While he was parking his car, I began my warm-up laps through the food court. As I made my first lap, I saw the seasoned gentleman with his walker. He had a big smile on his face as he headed to a table of his waiting friends. First, I was convicted of my laziness. This man had already been walking for his one lap, and it was only 9:30 in the morning on a cold, snowy, blustery day. I hadn’t wanted to leave my house. I resolved to walk a little faster as I rounded my second lap waiting for my son. As I did, I noted his table of friends, all happy to see him, greeting him. Nobody saying a single negative thing or looking impatient at waiting for him. They just all began to have coffee together and celebrating their morning routine.

I got a little teared up.

This, my friends, is positive team encouragement, accomplishment, and success. It’s beautiful when there is no condemnation or judgement, no “what took you so long.” or “You could have done it faster if only you had…” It’s beautiful when we each set our own pace and achieve our goals. It’s beautiful when we have positive reinforcement and support.


Do work ethic and an entrepreneurial spirit energize you? Do you love hair styling and accessories? Would you love excitement, rewards, fun, and friends?

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During January, I’m seeking 10 new Stylists to join my Lilla Rose team, and to be Hair Heroes with me! With effort you’re able to put into your business, you could earn a full or part-full time income by helping ladies look and feel beautiful, and by providing them with an easier morning hair routine!

Message me for details, click my Lilla Rose link and sign up to “become a Lilla Rose” too.

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I can promise that I’ll do my level best to be an encouraging and supportive influence as you work toward the business goals you set for yourself! To the best of my abilities, I won’t compare my apples to your oranges and be one of *those* leaders!

Blessings, 

Deb
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What a fantastic Lilla Rose January customer special! Most excellent.

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