The month before my event I kick it into high gear during every moment the kids are in school. I could be doing any number of things from visiting businesses in Russellville, hanging and pricing items at home, ordering and distributing marketing materials, updating facebook or sending emails, talking to folks about goody bags and vendor booths...the lists don't ever get smaller the closer to an event time I get. For the last year and half I have had double the work as I've owned two different franchises. We purchased Broken Arrow knowing it was over 2 hours away but the possibility of huge income was great. I've loved meeting the nicest people in BA over the last year and a half. I have built the business slowly but well as we have improved in every statistic each event. The hardest part of owning this sale has been the distance and growing the business slowly because I don't live there.
One Friday night Richard and I were laying in bed and I just expressed the frustrations and hard work it was taking to build the business in Broken Arrow. Just getting there and building the business was difficult at best. For the first time, we agreed that if it ever was an option, we would be willing to sell.
The next afternoon, a Saturday, Rhea Lana called me and basically asked, "Have you and Richard ever considered selling Broken Arrow? We have a mom and daughter who have been looking at the nud-town Tulsa area, but they would really rather have Broken Arrow."
Richard was out of town, and I called him with this. How weird! (and potentially wonderful.) When he returned on Monday he sent the ladies all our paperwork and accounting for our last three events. He had come up with a number that we would be willing to sell the business for, accounting for some of our hard work building the business and our losses. We didn't have a lot of conversation about it...it was still pretty crazy that someone had asked and we had been talking about it!
On Tuesday night, Richard got a call when he was in the back of the house. He came in to the living room where I was sitting with Sheridan and said, "We just sold Broken Arrow." No kidding, they had taken our meticulous records (all Richard's doing) to their accountant and were advised that it was a good buy.
One week later I met Debbie and Kristin in NWA and gave them the papers from my files that I had been working on already: day care lists, newspaper deadlines, a billboard contract and other things they needed to consider even before they came to training. Two weeks later I trained them with several of our other new franchise owners.
This could only be a God-thing and there hasn't been ONE MOMENT that I have regretted selling. I'm so thankful someone else is working for that event with the enthusiasm that it needed in downtown Broken Arrow.
Not only that, but the work that I did with that event better prepared me for the training I will be doing in the future with new owners starting from the ground up. I love it that God works ahead of me and it is sometimes so obvious He clearly has great plans for us ALL THE TIME.
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