Rags to Riches
May 27 2012 By Gail Shortland, Sunday People Magazine
Nadine Rowlands, 43, has a life she had only dreamed of...
Every night when I got home from my job as a legal secretary, I felt the same.
Is life always going to be this hard? I sighed.
With money so tight, I shopped in a local discount supermarket that sold out-of-date tinned food.
My husband Wayne, 52, sat down to a dinner of cereal with a pile
of bills and throbbing headaches. How would we ever make ends meet?
It was 2005 and wed been living in rented accommodation but our landlord had sold up, so wed just bought a house with a sky high rate mortgage.
Wayne, now 52, worked as an engineer all hours but still our wages barely covered our outgoings.
Im sick of shopping in charity shops, I moaned.
But we had no choice. One month we had just 35 left to spend.
Then one day, an old friend suggested Avon, the beauty company as a great opportunity for me.
Ive tried that before, I said.
Id been a seller a few years earlier, delivering brochures and promoting products but my friend told me about the position of Sales Leader.
For a small administration fee, you can build and co-ordinate a network of Avon representatives.
This is a turning point, I thought, excitedly.
My mind was made up.
When Wayne came back to our home in Manchester after a long shift, I told him. Ive decided to work for Avon! I announced.
He listened to my plans and agreed it was a chance to stop the daily grind.
Go for it, he encouraged.
At first, I worked around my job. I recruited Wayne and we gave everything we had. We advertised, walked the streets really pushed our business.
And pretty soon, it started to pay off.
In year one, we earned 8,000. After 14 years without a holiday abroad, we rewarded ourselves with a two week break to Lanzarote.
That rose to 30,000 in year two. And after three years, Wayne gave up his day job.
Today, we both work full-time for Avon as Executive Sales Leaders with a joint team of over 2000 people.
At the end of 2011, we took home 110,000 and turned over s4.5million. Incredible!
Wayne drives a Jaguar and were taking three weeks off in Portugal later this year.
We're proof that anyone can make it big with hard work and determination.
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