I save £400 a week being an Avon Lady
Rebecca Brookman works from home as an Avon Sales leader so she does not have to childcare - meaning she is better off than if she went out to work.
A Quick Pink Party
Rebecca Brookman held a special pink street party to raise funds for research into the disease.
INSIGHT MAGAZINE SEPT 2008
DORSET ECHO 18TH SEPT 2008
A DAY IN THE LIFE OF A SALES LEADER - May 2008
Down line Advanced sales leader. Margaret Greenaway - May 2008
Gails Avon: Article in the Independent - July 27th 2006
Gails Avon: Article in the Mail on Sunday - April 30th 2006
Gails Avon: Article in the Sun - March 1st 2006
Gails Avon: Article in the Sunday Times - October 9th 2005 Avon ladies ring the right bells
Roger Eglin looks at why the 120-year-old cosmetics company is still going strong as high-street retailers face a struggle
GAIL REYNOLDS was a part-time accountant working in Hastings. Then she thought she would try a change. She gave up accountancy and now, as a self-employed Avon lady, she looks after 1,000 customers in Bexhill, Hastings and St Leonard's.
One measure of how successful she has become is that her husband has given up his job as a manager to become an Avon representative. Reynolds thinks the products are fantastic and the company's approach impressive.
The flexible, self-employed way of working suits her lifestyle as a mother and she has nothing but praise for Avon's commitment to training and development. "The company tries to encourage us 100%," she said.
With promotions using the former EastEnders' star Tamzin Outhwaite, sales of cosmetics in the Avon Colour Brand range are blossoming. UK sales have reached £280m while globally they are £7.5 billion a year.
It is difficult to take in what a vast machine Avon is. It is the largest direct-selling company in the world, and last year it sold more lipstick, eye make-up, nail enamel, skin care items and bottles of fragrance than any other manufacturer. While high-street retailers like Boots are finding it tough, Avon goes from strength to strength.
In the past six months, 31% of women in Britain have bought an Avon product. The company has more than 8m customers and 160,000 representatives in the UK, more people than the army. Over a year 50m sales brochures go out to customers. After Radio Times, this is the magazine with the biggest circulation in Britain.
The company, which is registered on the New York Stock Exchange and is a member of the Fortune 500, is more than 100 years old. It operates in 140 countries and has been in Britain since l959. With the exception of the jewellery range and lingerie, Avon makes all its own products. Some of these come from factories in Poland, Russia and Germany.
Central to Avon's success is its ability to enthuse and motivate vast numbers of women. Every three weeks they collect a new Avon brochure, which runs to more than 170 pages, and go out to sell beauty products to customers - friends, colleagues, acquaintances or door-to-door.
At the basic level, earnings are reasonable. For every £100 of goods they sell, Avon ladies get 20%, which rises to 25% over £130. Earnings of between £30 and £50 every three weeks are common, with £75 to £150 not exceptional. Top performers make more, as much as £20,000 a year, particularly as they build up their business. Many have created a substantial enterprise. Reynolds had built up a 100-strong customer chain in Sussex before her manager asked if she wanted to start recruiting Avon representatives on commission.
Incentives are built into the system. "The better I train a representative, the more she can earn and the more I am going to earn," said Reynolds, who can recruit as many as 25 in a three-week period. What she finds particularly satisfying is the way she can organise her work to suit her needs, and those of her children.
Between 130,000 and 140,000 representatives are recruited every year by the 450 area sales managers. Typically an Avon lady is outgoing, enthusiastic and gets her training from the company, said Peter Nicholls, UK vice-president of sales.
"Out of the 160,000 people we have about 80,000 that have been with us for a long time. Others join and leave on a fairly regular basis." One lady is still active after 45 years, and others have placed an order every three weeks for 40 years.
A year ago, in a big initiative, Avon set up its sales-leadership programme. Sales leaders recruit, manage and motivate a team of Avon sales ladies, perhaps as many as 500.
Rebekah Testar, a housewife, began work with Avon two-and-a-half years ago and has become one of the top sales leaders in the country. She soon started earning more than the £15,000 she made in an office. She now has a team of 500, including 30 "down liners" as sales leaders are called.
Her husband has given up his job in financial services and joined the team as a sales leader, with seven people reporting to him. The couple share a customer base of 100.
The sales leadership programme has been running in America for 10 years and Nicholls said some of the top people make more than $500,000 (£284,000). He expects some of the British participants to be earning more than £100,000 in a year or two. "Sales leadership is a major initiative for us and the sky really is the limit," he said.
Before becoming an Avon lady, Linda Rumbold had been a hardworking international insurance broker. Today she runs a team of 90 customers in Ipswich, Suffolk, as well as managing 25 other Avon representatives. She has more time for her two children and works only 25 hours a week.
Recognition of people's effort and performance is seen as an important way of motivating them. Representatives who achieve the annual target of £6,500 within six months become members of the President's Club.
Avon UK president Jerry McDonald has spent part of the summer touring Britain, holding lunches for 2,500 of them. Another 17,000 who hit the annual target have attended a recognition dinner. "There's a lot of recognition and celebration of people's achievements," he said. "It's a very important element in Avon."
Market conditions have been less easy in recent years and Nicholls said that this year is proving a challenging one.
However, he is looking forward to Christmas. This is a key time, when 40% of Avon's business is done, and the build-up is already under way. Avon's annual growth rate runs at some 7% and Nicholls is confident that this year business will not be disappointing.
Gails Avon: Article in The Argus - November 1st 2005
Ding, dong - Avon's proved a real calling for couple
THINK Avon Lady and the picture of a highly-coiffured woman selling pink powder puffs and perfume in ornate bottles springs to mind. It's a perception that dates back to the Sixties but times have changed. Today's Avon sales representatives, as they are now known, are entrepreneurial businesswomen - and men! - cashing in on one of the most successful brands in the world. JAMES LANCASTER reports:
GAIL Reynolds gave up her job as a part-time accountant to become an Avon lady when she realised she could make more in a day selling lipstick than number crunching for 16 hours.
In three years she has built her own Avon "empire" with thousands of customers in the East Sussex coastal towns of Bexhill, Hastings and St Leonards.
One measure of how successful she has become is that her husband Brian gave up his job as a manager for a leisure company in August last year to join her.
Avon sales representatives are self-employed people who receive 25 per cent commission on the goods they sell, which now range from perfume to DVDs and homeware.
Some just sell the products for a bit of extra cash and often work around part-time jobs.
Others, like Gail and Brian, become sales leaders, recruiting and training up other sales avon. Here there is real scope to earn a decent living.
Not only do you earn commission on your own sales, you also earn commission on what your representatives manage to sell.
If your representative goes on to become a sales leader you earn even more commission.
This multi-level earnings system means there is an inbuilt incentive to keep growing.
In the US where the sales leader system has been in place for ten years - it was introduced in the UK in 2000 - sales leaders have been known to earn a huge £300,000 a year.
Gail, 34, now has more than 100 representatives and 15 sales leaders in her team. She can recruit as many as 25 reps in a three-week period.
She said: "Once I became a sales leader I was earning more in a day than a week of part-time work as an accountant. Brian couldn't believe how much I was pulling in.
"The better I train a representative the more she can earn and the more I am going to earn."
The sales leaders system is one of the reasons why more men -about 20 per cent of the total sales force - are pounding the streets with an armful of Avon brochures. There's good money to be made.
Many people start selling Avon at college to their friends, others take it up in their 20s when they want to spend more on holidays, on- high rent rates in city centres or a new car.
Every three weeks they collect a new Avon brochure, which runs to more than 170 pages, and go out to sell beauty products to customers - friends, colleagues, acquaintances or door-to-door.
At the basic level, earnings are modest. For every £100 of goods they sell, Avon ladies get 20 per cent, which rises to 25 per cent over £130.
Earnings are typically between £30 and £150 every three weeks. Top performers can earn as much as £20,000 a year.
Brian has 40 customers but it never gets competitive. Instead he and Gail help each other out, merging her accountancy background with his experience as a manager at a holiday camp.
Brian, 35, said: "The great thing is you never have to explain what Avon is because everyone knows so you don't get tongue-tied on the doorstep trying to describe a perfume, for example.
"I have had a few comments from punters - some assume I am gay - but who cares? You just get on with it. The fact is the opportunities are huge and I would never work for anyone else again."
Gail and Brian are Avon fanatics. They've gone so far as to set up their own web site - www. gailsavon - and have created promotional car stickers and bill boards as well as a freephone number for anyone wanting to join their team.
Their house in St Leonards is wall-to-wall Avon and 80 per cent of their conversations are about Avon too. They both live, sleep and dream Avon - Gail now does 30 or 40 hours of Avon a week but fits it in round her three children.
The flexible, self-employed way of working suits Gall's lifestyle as a mum. She said: "Because the income is residual I can be at home whenever my children are on holiday. It's half-term now so I am not at work.
"Even the six weeks in summer I can take off because someone is out there making money for me. It's great."
While the High Street braces itself for a bleak Christmas, Avon goes from strength to strength.
With promotions using the former EastEnders' star Tamsin Outhwaite, sales of cosmetics in the Avon Colour Brand range are blossoming. UK sales have reached £280 million while globally they are £7.5 billion a year.
Avon is the largest direct-selling company in the world and last year it sold more lipstick, eye make-up, nail enamel, skin care items and bottles of fragrance than any other manufacturer.
In the past six months, 31 per cent of women in Britain have bought an Avon product.
Gail reckons one of the biggest appeals is the cash-back guarantee if buyers are unhappy with the product.
In this way the brand has developed a Marks & Spencer-esque relationship with its customers.
She said: "The first and last thing I tell people on the doorstep is you can get your money back.
"That gives people the impetus to try the product in the first place. Then they get hooked because the brochure changes so quickly and Avon is constantly introducing new offers."
Avon now has more than eight million customers and 160,000 representatives in the UK, more people than the Army.
Over a year, 50 million sales brochures go out to customers.
The company, which is registered on the New York Stock Exchange and is a member of the Fortune 500, is more than 100 years old.
It operates in 140 countries and has been in Britain since 1959. With the exception of the jewellery range and lingerie, Avon makes all its own products. Some come from factories in Poland, Russia and Germany.
Between 130,000 and 140,000 representatives are recruited every year by the 450 area sales managers and with fanatics like Gail on board those numbers are likely to keep growing.
She said: "Wild horses wouldn't drag me back to accounting."
james.lancaster@theargus.co.uk
fact file
There are 160,000 Avon ladies in the UK (a bigger force than the Army) and 4.9 million across the world selling to women in 143 countries.
The top five largest markets last year were: the US, Mexico, Brazil, the UK and Japan.
More than 600 million Avon brochures are distributed each year.
There are 7,500 Avon products.
Avon now has its own range of lingerie, baby products, jewellery and toys as well as its six make-up ranges, nine personal care ranges and six skin care ranges.
In South America, Avon ladies kayak up the Amazon and barter their nail polish for gold nuggets, food and wood.
In Iceland, Avon ladies traverse the ice caps with products in the backpacks.
After the Turkish earthquake in 1991, one woman single-handedly rebuilt her family's fortunes by sending off for her first package of Avon products on credit and building up her business selling make-up from tent to tent.
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