I use to think that saving money meant only one thing – holding on tightly to every dollar I earned. I mean, it makes sense, right?
But I’ve had an experience over the last ten months or so that has made me realize that in some cases, you have to loosen up a little in order to let your money return to you.
I know, it sounds confusing, so let me give you the whole story.
I’ve been doing my best to move toward natural, chemical-free living for a number of years now, making my own household products when I can and cringing about the prices of natural alternatives when I can’t.
So, of course, I discovered essential oils somewhere along the way and started using them as sparingly as I could in order to save money.
It never really occurred to me to try to build a business selling the essential oils because my experience with friends in multi-level marketing businesses has kind of left a sour taste in my mouth (if you’re involved in multi-level marketing, please don’t take offense! This is just my personal experience with some well, more obnoxious than average friends).
Not only that, but in order to receive monthly commission checks from Young Living, I have to order $100 worth of products every single month, which of course, completely aside from the fact that I didn’t want to spend that much money every month, sent red flags up in my mind. You’ve gotta spend money to make money. Sure. Scammers.
But eventually, some blogging acquaintances were telling me about how they ran their Young Living businesses as an extension of their blogs, and I thought, hey, I could probably do that, so I decided to take the risk, set aside a hundred dollars every month for a few months, and just see what happened.
Well, here’s what has happened:
As I got started in trying to understand how this multi-level marketing thing worked, the one thing I kept hearing over and over is “you have to get to know the products – try to keep ordering something new every months”. Well, my thinking was that I was only interested in the essential oils, because everything else Young Living sells is super expensive, and I try to make my own anyway.
So for a few months I filled my shelf up with all the oils I’d always wanted but was too cheap to invest in, and never tired of opening up the bottles just to smell (yes, I’m a total geek).
But then a miracle happened. About three months into trying my hand at business building, I started getting commission checks. For real?
That was pretty exciting, but it also happened to coincide with my previously mentioned oil shelf getting completely full.
I felt a little guilty about putting things like toothpaste and deodorant in my monthly order, but I bit the bullet and did it anyway for a couple of reasons.
- I wanted to try them and see if they lived up to their reputation. The truth is, I am very happy with my homemade versions of all these things, but I wanted to know if Young Living’s version worked, because even though I know the highly quality of the oils themselves, a lot of those natural cleaners and deodorants that I’ve tried from other brands are really disappointing, I can’t recommend things to my friends if I haven’t personally tried them.
- I had to spend that $100, so while I want to get the most bang for my buck (as always), it was all money that was already allotted to my Young Living budget anyway.
So I eventually got over the guilt, and realized that expensive as that stuff is, Young Living’s Laundry detergent is Healthy, as opposed to the cheap stuff I was buying before, and it’s actually not costing me anything!
What? Well, that first commission check only put $30 in my bank account, but after about three months, I started making enough money to more than pay for my $100 order every month. It surprised me, because I don’t have a lot of time to put into marketing a business, and I do not market incessantly to my friends or family (most of them don’t even know I’m a YL junkie) but thanks to an awesome “upline”, and a few well-placed advertisements, things started happening.
I pay $100 a month for natural, healthy products that work really well (Young Living’s household cleaner is the ONLY natural cleaner I’ve used that actually elements yucky bathroom odor), and then I make $100 (more now actually), back in commissions.
So basically, I’m getting stuff for free.
Yeah, buying super high-end supplements saves me money.
A Little About The Business
(FYI, this article didn’t start off as a pitch for Young living, but since it’s played such an integral part in basically getting healthy household products for free, I would be remiss to leave it out)
Something you’ll hear from a lot of Young living Distributors is that you only have to get three of your friends to order starter kits in order to pay for yours (the commission generated from a premium starter kit is roughly $50, so three kits sold = $150), but that’s not completely true.
When I first joined Young Living, my upline used a large portion of her commission from my purchase to gift me with reference materials (and an Amazon gift card if I recall correctly), and I realized that without those things, I pretty much would have been lost and frustrated with not knowing how to use my oils, so it’s only fair that I do the same thing for my own new sign-ups.
I personally spend half to three-quarters of my commissions checks on premium starter kits gifting the purchaser with a reference guide app and usually something like a diffuser necklace (or other oily tool). So yeah, new sign ups don’t pay for my oils.
What pays for my oils is that because now that these folks are equipped with the tools they need to learn how to use their oils, they’re amazed by their effectiveness, and keep making purchases.
Some of them, like me, purchase every month, some of them only occasionally, but every time they purchase, I make a small commission (5-8%), and the accumulation from all those orders earns me enough to keep filling my home with all natural, chemical-free goodness.
I don’t expect to ever be a multi-level marketing superstar (although that kind of passive income would be nice! 😉 ), because I depend almost entirely on blog readers like you to sign up under me, because honestly? Many of the people I know in real life have the same opinion of multi-level marketing that I had before I really understood how it worked. Most of my friends and family don’t even know I’m a distributor. (Sometimes I think about posting about oils on my personal Facebook profile, but then I remember that if a certain one of my family members sees it, he’ll never speak to me again, so I don’t. LOL!)
If you’re intrigued by the idea of making a business with Young Living, I have one thing to say to you: If I can do it, YOU CAN DO IT!
You’ve probably heard that out of a lot of people who wanted you to do something, but seriously, I am the most introverted, non-sales person that ever lived. I can’t even run a successful farmer’s market booth. Seriously! (I thank God every day for the internet!)
I’m certainly not telling you that you have to sign up under me, but if you do, and if you are interested my being a business builder, please be sure and send me an email when you sign up letting me know, because I would love to help you on your business building journey!
And of course, I can’t leave you without telling you how to get started (duh!), so here’s the short version (for the long version, you can click here):
Here’s how to sign up:
- Head over to the Young Living page here and fill out your information. It only takes a second, I promise!
- BE SURE the “Wholesale Member” option is checked so that you don’t end up paying retail prices.
- BE SURE the “sponsor ID” and “enroller id” say 2652017 (those numbers should automatically populate if you click through the link above.)
- If you do not feel comfortable putting in your social security number (this is only for tax purposes if you decide to turn this into a business) then you can get an EIN from the IRS in just a few seconds here and use that number instead (the IRS just needs to be able to connect some number with you for tax purposes). They need a Social Security Number or an EIN because if you make $600 or more per year selling Young Living products, you will receive a 1099 form in the mail (which is required by law). Young Living will never share this info with anyone.
- Select which starter kit you want to get. My recommendation would be the Premium Starter Kit Those are the oils that I use almost every single day! You can get the kit that’s $160, or you can choose one of the more expensive essential oil diffusers (shown below)
- I’d recommend skipping the Step 3 (Optional) part of the sign-up process. I’ll send over an email with more details on that part of things after you sign up (if you’re going to be purchasing products monthly then it’s a great program that will give you credit back with each order and save you on shipping costs).
- Go through the checkout process. Young Living accepts most major credit cards, including Visa, MasterCard, Discover, and American Express.
Keep in mind that you HAVE to go through the entire sign up process including paying for your order in order to receive the cool freebie bonuses. I pay for those out of my pocket with the commission from your sign up. (I know it sounds silly, but I’ve had a lot of people sign up, but then not pay, hoping to get the bonuses for free!).
I can’t wait to be oily with you!
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