Selling Avon Retro Style!

Age 16, 1981

Every entrepreneur needs to learn how to sell. There is no better way to learn to sell than going to work for a franchise or worldwide retailer.

Just because you are an entrepreneur doesn’t mean you have to start every business by yourself. There are great advantages in spending periods of time working for other businesses, that have excellent business systems, that have proven to work well.

Examples such as McDonald’s, KFC, Pizza Hut, or a giant retailer (such as, in Australia, Harvey Norman, or America, Walmart), are perfect places so very young entrepreneurs to start a career.

If you do want to work for yourself whilst learning to sell, the best way is to buy a franchise, or a selling system such as Avon, or Tupperware.

When I was 16 I began an “Avon Round”. The local Avon lady did not want to continue her round and asked me if I would like to take her round on for her. I was studying in my fourth year at highschool, and had exams, but decided I would love to do it.

In order to become an Avon lady I had to invest some of my savings into buying Sample products, and other Resources, to build the advertising and marketing side of my business. This was an enormous discipline and forced me to consider my budget and earnings. An invaluable lesson.

I was given a district in which I was allowed to distribute products. The district was quite small for a starter sales person, perhaps three or four streets in my suburb. As I gained experience, and grew larger, I was able to extend my territory.

In 1981 when I sold Avon the structure may have been different to what it is now. I will just describe what was of great use for a budding entrepreneur at that time.

To start with it taught me accounting, and profit and loss. I also had to budget, and forecast my cash flow.

The Avon company chose products to feature each month in a brochure. They chose which Products to put on sale, which to hold back, and which to feature for the season. This process taught me about sales and product cycles.

The company also provided achievement goals and incentive rewards. This helped me to understand how to grow my business. In order to receive a reward I would have to achieve a certain number of sales, or a certain level of revenue. When I achieve these goals I was rewarded with a gift that was not available in the catalogue. I remember being rewarded with a beautiful handbag for one achievement and a Tea set for another.

There were also commission incentives. Commission started at 20% for a basic sale. Rose to 25% after you had sold to over 10 people from one seasonal catalogue. A higher number of customers per catalogue brought higher commissions. I remember reaching 30%. This was a very great achievement for me.

The next big lesson I had to learn was distributing products to the customers on time. This proved to be the most difficult part of the job. Delivering products in a timely fashion whilst juggling exams was a big responsibility. And because I delivered everything on my bike, weather conditions also played a part in whether I got there on time. I have to admit to being a bit tardy on product delivery. This is bad because payments were always made prior to ordering the product. So I already had my cash and counted my profits before I took delivery of the products. The product arrived a few weeks later. Then I would have to sort them, Pack them, and take them to the customer.

I used to make the boring parts of the job more enjoyable by adding Samples to the products and making it into an advertising opportunity. This way I could choose what I wanted to advertise and make the delivery a little bit more fun too.

The great thing is I still have three of the products from 1981. Clear nail topcoat, Only half used. Ice green Eye pencil, Because I prefered to use the warmer green pencil. And the 1980s essential –
Dazzle Dust. I was so excited by this product I hardly ever used it at all. To me it was a magic shimmery luminescence, I never wanted it to end. So this is little pot is nearly full!

I spent 3 years selling Avon. By the time I had finished my first year of University I had decided to take on more familiar jobs, such as waitressing and sales. My learning never stopped.