Ding dong! It's the Avon man calling
June 30, 2011Read more at: http://menmedia.co.uk/tamesideadvertiser/news/s/1425140_ding-dong-its-the-avon-man-calling
Couple Wayne and Nadine Rowlands who both work for Avon
Avon calling! It’s been the familiar calling card for the American beauty business for 125 years and it has made billions of dollars selling cosmetics and perfumes door-to-door.
But how many of us would expect to be guided through the finer points of picking the right blusher by a man? Given the brand’s reputation as the housewife’s hobby, probably not many of us. But several men are now among the top 20 sales leaders on its books – and they’re making very good money doing it.
Increasingly, men are coming to the business along with their partners as couples see it as an opportunity to run a franchise business together. It’s certainly what attracted Nadine and Wayne Rowlands, from Ashton, to the idea of becoming an Avon couple.
Nadine, 42, had been working as a legal secretary for several years before a conversation with a friend turned her on to Avon. She had been a sales representative before, but the modern Avon business model meant that she would be able to take on reps herself and become the leader of a large team.
Her first recruit was husband Wayne, 52 – then a maintenance technician and engineer. In year one, the couple earned £8,000; with a bit more knowledge and a bigger team, they earned £30,000 in year two.
Surprisingly, it was Wayne who opted to quit his job and turn Avon into his profession first, which he did at the end of their second year. By year three, they took home almost £50k; by the end of their sixth year in business this August, they anticipate earning £110,000 between them.
In Nadine’s multi-level team of sales leaders and representatives are 1,200 people; Wayne, meanwhile, earns his income from a team of around 500. The figures have put both of them in the top 10 sales leaders in the country.
Nadine said: “I’m not a hard sales person, but we’re proof that if you stick at something like this it can become your first income. “For us, it’s been a lifestyle choice as much as a career choice. We were spending a lot of time apart when Wayne was doing overtime in his engineering job. “It has brought us much closer together because we’ve got a common goal with our business. Before, we’d be telling each other things about our days that the other person knew nothing about.”
Wayne agrees that the decision to make it their full-time job has been a positive one. He said: “You do have to come out of your comfort zone to do this. “When I left engineering, all the lads took the mickey.”
Wayne says he’s not afraid to demonstrate any product to any buyer – man or woman – and that he has never received a frosty reception on the doorstep because he’s a man selling make-up. He says: “What I did was just approach it as if it was a normal thing for a man to do. “Because I’m selling Avon, it doesn’t mean I have to like handbags and lipsticks myself – just that other people do!”
Read more at: http://menmedia.co.uk/tamesideadvertiser/news/s/1425140_ding-dong-its-the-avon-man-calling
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