Anne Perez

Avon Lady Trebles Turnover In One Month Using SuccessTrack Strategies

Using the marketing strategies she learned from SuccessTrack has helped Avon cosmetics sales leader Anne Perez to treble her direct sales in one month.

Anne is one of 170,000 Avon sales representatives in the UK. She is also one of its ‘Sales Leaders’, the title given to highly successful Avon sales representatives who recruit, manage and motivate their own team of agents. According to Avon, teams can grow as big as 500 members over a wide geographic area and its top performers run businesses which turnover about £2 million annually.

Since becoming a Sales Leader in February, Anne has already built a team (the AllStarsAvon) of 200 representatives who are based across the South of England, from Cornwall to London.

The speed of her progress has astounded her mentors at Avon. “They’re just amazed at the success I’ve had. They say ‘My goodness, we’ve done it three years and you’ve done it in one.’ And they keep asking me, ‘What have you done now? What have you learnt now?’

And it’s all thanks to SuccessTrack, she says, adding that she learnt an enormous amount from the very first weekend seminar she attended only six months ago.

“I had decided to go because knew I needed to get an edge over everybody else – but I wasn’t sure whether marketing was how I could do it. I wasn’t sure if it was something I should cut back on or not.”

She admits that she was apprehensive about what the weekend would be like. “I was the worst cynic when I joined. I was such a sceptic. The night before the conference, I was thinking, ‘My goodness, what am I doing?’ Then I met [SuccessTrack Founder] Jonathan Jay and I thought, ‘He’s a regular person.’ I honestly thought he would be some slick marketing guy who would baffle me… and that I was going to fall into a trap.”

What doubts she may still have had were quickly allayed once the seminar began. “It was phenomenal what I learned that weekend… it completely changed my mind-set. I discovered that the only way to dominate is to out-market everybody else and that instead of thinking of marketing as a cost, you should think of it as an investment. It was such an important lesson for me.”

At the end of the two day event, inspired by what she had already learned and wanting to know more, Anne took the plunge and signed up for SuccessTrack’s advanced Platinum Programme.

“I remember the last hour of that weekend, pacing all around the estate because of the Platinum group membership Jonathan was offering. I was thinking ‘I’m a mum with three kids and a part-time business and I’m considering spending that much money. Oh my gosh.’ And then I thought, ‘You know, go for it.’ And it was the best decision I’d made in a long time. You definitely get what you pay for – it is amazing. The speakers Jonathan brings in have been amazing. He’s got a very good crew.

“It’s really great because attending regular monthly meetings holds you accountable – you know you’ve got to work and you know you’ve got to keep it going.”

She says the marketing information she’s been given by Jonathan has also made it a worthwhile investment. “Every month I go to these Platinum meetings and Jonathan has something new for me. He’s actually looked into my business and keeps thinking of ways to help me. He really cares about the people who attend.”

After the first seminar Anne began to use what she had learned. “I revamped everything to make sure that my marketing was the key focus of my expenditure.”

Over the following few months, she developed a website to attract new Avon sales representatives. “It’s proving to be more and more popular and I’m getting a lot of new reps through it.”

Since attending her first two Platinum Programme one-day events she has learned about copywriting, web marketing and automating the administrative side of her business to save time.

“Jonathan suggested I use a voicemail to free up my time and it’s proved to be very beneficial. Instead of answering the phone to everybody I have my calls go through a message system.

“SuccessTrack has definitely helped me save time. I’m not bombarded with phone calls about basic information. Callers now get the information automatically and that frees up my time to concentrate on other parts of the business.

“I’ve also learned about putting a free phone number in adverts and then using a voicemail message so people who respond call the free number and leave their details after hearing my message. I call them back in my time rather than having them calling me and interrupting what I’m doing. That’s been a big time saver. And people don’t mind hearing a voicemail message. I think the important thing is they get through and hear a voice and get the information. The company that Jonathan recommended sends a text to let me know there are messages and I call them back pretty promptly.

“It saves me time – and time is money – and the ideas that Jonathan has given me means I spend more time on more productive activities which I wouldn’t have known about before. I spend time in front of people rather than on all the back-up, administrative stuff that needs doing. It allows me to work on my business not in my business.”

She’s also begun using automated email messages (autoresponders) to help with the recruiting and training of new sales representatives.

“I’m also using opt-in boxes on my websites – that was new for me – and after the session on copywriting, I rewrote my website.”

While much of her focus over the past six months has been on her Avon business, Anne has begun to use her marketing skills to develop her other business, Beauty By Anne, which offers a special occasion makeup service.

“I’m in the process of redoing my Beauty By Anne website to make it more in line with the way Jonathan suggested it should be – I’m simplifying it and making it more user-friendly and stressing the benefits of my service.

“A big thing I learnt from Jonathan is pricing. I used to really under price myself and that’s changed. I didn’t realise that people don’t buy on price. It was in my head that you’ve got to beat everyone else on price. Jonathan said ‘Look at your prices – you have more value than that.’ I took his advice and I have increased my prices. I added more value and made it more of a package and I’m getting a lot more calls from it now. That’s increased my business.

“I may have been putting people off by being too cheap. If you charge more they have a better reaction to you. It was weird noticing that. I do the same job but people treat me as a professional.”

At the moment, Anne spends about 20 hours a week working on her Avon business. She’s also working on her first book on direct sales and developing a free report to offer to prospective sales representatives and customers.

“There’s so much to do. It’s all a matter of focusing on what has to be done. I’m just really excited to see by the end of the year where I’m going to be – I only started with Jonathan in the summer and I’ve got another nine Platinum sessions to go. My goal is to reach Senior Executive Level in Avon within 18 months. It normally takes people about four years to attain that level but I’m not that far away from reaching my goal.”