Yesterday was November 10 and 68 degrees.  That probably doesn't sound like a big deal until I mention I live in Minnesota, and this warm weather is very rare this time of year.

My son, Christian and I took a walk this afternoon and enjoyed the sunshine - chatting along the way.  I love living in the country....which got me thinking about the similarity between my gardens, and my business.

I love gardening.  My passion is flowers, and every year I still marvel at the wonder and miraculous events that take place in order to have a kaleidoscope of color each and every season.  On average, I spend 2-3 hours per day in my gardens.  I water, pick off spent flowers and pick the weeds - not forgetting to give thanks to my Creator for such beauty.

So what does gardening and business building have in common?

It's simple....do you tend to your business like a gardener tends to her garden?

There are many types of businesses, just like there are many types of gardens.  Let's take flowers & network marketing for instance.  Most flowers are produced from seed.  They need TLC in order to blossom and flourish throughout the season.  Now let's look at the common geranium.  Geraniums come in many different colors and sizes.  I plant them every year because they are hardy in our hot and muggy Minnesota summers.  But, one thing geraniums need and that's water.  They don't like too dry a soil.  If I don't water them regularly, their leaves start drying out and become crunchy and brown.  They like consistently moist soil.  I also dead-head the spent flowers in order to encourage more new growth.

If I don't water my geraniums they will die.  If I don't regularly dead-head and fertilize my geraniums with good food, the flowers will be smaller and less abundant.

Are you watering and fertilizing your business everyday? Or do you let it get dried out and crusty?  Sometimes you can bring a wilted flower back to life, and no harm will be done - but neglect your flowers too many times and they start looking less than healthy.  The leaves start falling off, and the blooms are sparatic.

Our businesses work the same way as a garden full of flowers.  We must "water" our businesses everyday to encourage growth.  We must "fertilize" our team with encouragement, training, and weekly meetings to encourage bigger "blooms".  We must congratulate and recognize our biggest leaders by making announcements, and sending cards of congratulations.  Just like a gardener places his most prized flowers in a vase for everyone to admire, so must we with our big team leaders!

Occasionally, we all get the "weeds" of discouragement.  But after a little weed killer (personal development books and events), we can then focus on our garden better - with less distractions and frustrations.  There's nothing worse than being over-whelmed with weeds.  Sometimes they get so bad, we throw down the hoe and say "forget it".  "I quit".

So think of your business as a beautiful flower garden - with each flower having its own uniqueness.  It takes time to produce the eye-popping rainbow of color, but with water your flowers will grow, with fertilizer your flowers will multiply and produce even bigger blooms, and with weekly "weeding" you can keep those ugly weeds under control, and stay focused on the most important thing.... your "garden".

To your budding success,

Connie
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