Consultants of the Month
Mary Bentley and Kay Heihn, San Antonio,
TX
Written by Mary Bentley
I would like to share with all my fellow Tomboy Tools
consultants how awesome it is to be involved in community education classes in San Antonio. And ladies, I would love to see this
everywhere. We can do this!! Here’s our story.
Kay and I were doing a booth at a very
small community “Business Expo” at my neighborhood community center with minimal sales. The lady in the booth next
to us loved the tools. She said she knew the coordinator for the Northside ISD (Independent School District) community ed classes
and we needed to call her. The coordinator thought we had a great class idea. She would love to have us for the
summer classes but, she added, the catalog had just gone to be proofed. (Rats! I thought to myself. Oh well,
maybe next time) But quickly she said, “If you send me something today” she could walk it through.
BINGO!!! Kay and I were in.
I called Northside the week before the first
class. I was told the first class had 28 enrolled. WOW! I’m glad I was sitting
down! Now, Kay and I are nervous, “Are we ready? Do we really know what we are talking
about? Will they ask questions? Will they volunteer? Oh, my gosh, what do we do
now?”
Well, we arrived with seven drywall demo boards,
a crown moulding/caulking demo board, an air compressor, wearing our body pockets, and NOT enough handouts. A new total of 32
people were on the roster the night of the class. Thirty-one people showed up for the class. We started
the demos about 15 minutes late due to late arrivals. We filled the 15 minutes with: Why did you take the
class? What do you hope to get from the class? And how many of you are single and live alone? Over 75% of the
class was single and living alone. One lady said she wished she lived alone because now she was fixing her husband’s
mistakes.
Several volunteers hammered holes in the drywall,
they patched the drywall and I thought the questions would never stop! We had ladies asking how to replace the entire 4 x 8
sheet of drywall in the ceiling. I just looked at Kay and said, “I am MINOR home repair.” Kay
knew exactly what to say next and explained the entire process.
Since I was in charge of keeping track of time
and we had allotted about 45 minutes per topic, after an hour and a half of drywall instruction, I told Kay we had to move on.
Trust me, those ladies had lots and lots of questions. Our two and a half hour class could have easily lasted four
hours. We had a big drywall hammering mess but thanks to the TT canvases we picked it up, dumped it in the trash and we were ready
for crown moulding with the same canvas tarps to protect the tables.
We asked for volunteers for the crown moulding
and caulking demos. They walked to the front of the class without raising their hand. They were
ready. They were hungry for all the knowledge and hands on experience they could get. We had ladies standing on
their chairs trying to see. We were in a classroom setting. They asked about the compressor, about cutting 45
degree angles, etc. Again, they had so many questions. We let them practice on the demo
board.
The ladies kept asking about the tools we were
using and, of course, we had on our body pockets. We told them, “Our business is selling tools and, more importantly,
empowering women to do home repairs. We are not here tonight to sell tools. We are here to teach
you.” Catalogs and business cards were available after class. EVERYONE wanted a catalog and a
card. The idea of promoting our business has changed and we will be promoting it more in class.
The second class for Northside ISD, we were told,
had 22 people enrolled. When we arrived for class the roster had 29 enrolled and 27 were present. In the second
class we discussed toilets and faucets. Everything happened just like the previous week. One lady told us she
signed up a couple days before the class because she had toilet problems during the week. She hadn’t planned to go to the
class. Didn’t think she needed to. She told all her friends she was going to “toilet
training!”
At the end of each class, the students are asked
by the school district to fill in an evaluation card concerning the class and the instructor. The community ed. coordinator told
me those were the BEST evaluations she had gotten in a long time.
From both classes we have everyone’s name
and phone numbers. Kay and I split the list, plan to call everyone to see how they liked the class, and if we could answer any
more questions. Hopefully this will lead to a few new consultants along the way. Because of these classes, our
contact list is growing by leaps and bounds. And we know all of these ladies are really interested in doing their own
repairs.
I have been blessed to have a wonderful teammate
who sees the importance of these classes. Kay and I are somewhere between Abbott and Costello, Tim, the Toolman, and Al, and Ty
Pennington and his crew. We have a ball. We still can’t get the smiles off our faces.
The students were laughing with us and participating. We couldn’t get some of them to go home!
Didn’t they know we had to go to work the next morning?
And, there is still more. The
day after our FIRST class Northeast ISD called my home and left a message. They had heard about our “fabulous” class
the night before and want us to teach for them. Our list of classes has now grown to five different topics for each of the school
districts. Oh, my gosh, 3 school districts x 5 classes each = 15 classes for the fall semester.
Thank you for taking the time to read our
story. Always be prepared for “your” moment of opportunity because it will happen when you least expect
it. It sure did for us.
