Avon leave the likes of AMWAY in the dark ages with MARK!

Whilst many direct sales companies believe they must have manufacturers agents (independent distributors) sitting eye-ball to eye-ball AVON have talen massive steps to aim at a brand new market with a new brand driven through technology to younger customers

The constant pitch for twenty to thirty years has been all about the baby boomer when frankly a whole new consumer should be the new target!

Thes consumers will be easy to spot as they would very easily be spotted as being born on or after the inception of the 1970's Pyramid Selling Act!

For such a revolutionary way of selling you would expect these massive direct sellers to be fast paced and frankly they simply tend to cling to the 'tried & tested' direct selling methods.

AMWAY tried to ignore the web, then the are alleged to have allowed a group of distributors to hang the whole business model on a system called QUIXTAR which simply made money for the leaders in trainings and affiliate ideas.

The effect was almost catastrophic in causing a massive fall out of disgruntled distributors who allowed dream-stealers to send them back from life-changing goal to the job or is the 9-5 jub (just under broke) and therfore buying into another scam (a job for life and a pension)

In the UK we saw British subsidiary of AMWAY one of the world's largest multi-level marketing groups suufer from a Goverment attempt to close it down after claims that it was operating unlawfully.

Amway (UK) was however cleared at the High Court of "dream selling", of operating an unlawful lottery and of being an unlawful trading scheme.

However, the company had to give several legal undertakings including not to recruit further sales agents until it had publishing details of their average earnings and to scrap its annual charge to register as a distributor.

The company, part of a worldwide group with three million sales agents and an annual turnover of $6.5billion (£3.3billion), had been the subject of a Government investigation last year.

John Hutton, the Business Secretary, attempted to force the closure of AMWAY in the UK after investigators allegedly found that just six per cent of sales agents were earning 95 per cent of the bonus income.

High Court is not the usual place to find those educated in the workings of MLM and how it could be a great business.

Luckily for the whole industry the same people dealing with this (Mr Justice Norris and Mr Justice Lewison) case saw other manufacturers agents clearing up a spat and demonstrating the six and seven figure income being made by the sellers of aloe vera.

This was an inadveratnt pitch for how good being a manufacturers agent for a network marketing company can be.

Could this be why Mr Justice Norris dismissed the petition to wind up the company after hearing that it had modified its business model to address the Government's concerns and had given a series of undertakings about its future conduct.

"Amway is openly selling a proposition to prospective IBOs, not providing careers advice."

Mr Justice Norris

The Honourable Mr Justice Norris is a judge of the Chancery Division of the High Court and has also been appointed by the Lord Chancellor (pursuant to section 12(2)(b) of the Enterprise Act 2002) as a chairman of the Competition Appeal Tribunal.

It must be said that this was no walk in the park for Amway as The High Court heard that between 2001 and 2006 the number of British agents not earning any bonus income at all varied between 69 per cent and 78 per cent. In 2004/5 only 74 agents out of 25,342 earned more than £10,000 in bonuses.

These figures demonstrate that you must have unique products that are priced to sell and cannot be found on the shelf of a shop.

With this business model people invest a little money although more importantly a lot of time once aboard they will know if they have saleable products by simply lending a sample (say 9 people) of the products to try before they buy.

The usual rule of selling (all products or services) is 1 person in three and therfore if you lend 9 target customers some products anything over 2 sales would be considered a success.

However dinosaur companies with has been products and methods will see this reflected in actual sales.

This blog is not a platform to pick on individual companies and I will leave the reader with only facts

The Government investigation claims to have shown that only 10 per cent of Amway’s agents make any profit and only 6 per cent sell a single item of the group’s products


Many direct sales businesse have come to market since Fuller brush, AMWAY and others came to the scene.

The challenge for the distributors is simply spotting whether you are joining an old dinosaur or new breakthrough company. From personal experience it must be said that the old companies tend to have the resource to hang on and invest to get it right...... whilst the new contender might have a brilliant idea a single set back could wipe-out its own and the distributors business due to lack of capital

Many say that AVON is a dinosaur back from the brink of extinction, the range was seen by some as dated, the business model survived by resting on its laurels, the web was seen firstly by AVON as the route to increased profit by pinching its distributors customers and keeping all the profit for itself!

Possibly after one of the famous three hour three martini lunches they even opened shops and allowed distributors to use retail shoping outlets (undermining the whole bedrock of the industry)

AVON actually copied AMWAY with a multi-level marketing approach and went a stage further by copying the marvellous pay structure of (my personal favourite income earner) Forever Living Products the world leader in aloe based health & beauty

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bEHK3Ezw3bQ

http://foreverliving.com

“We’ve taken the same DNA of direct selling that has always been a part of Avon’s history and applied it to the digital world for our Mark reps to reach their customers,”

Claudia Poccia, president of Mark at Avon

MARK was first introduced as an AVON brand in 2003.

“Now, we’re offering our Mark reps the opportunity to sell products not just door to door, but on Facebook, wall to wall.”

The Mark brand is evolving. It has its own spokeswoman, Lauren Conrad, the former reality TV star of “The Hills,” now a fashion designer and best-selling author of “L.A. Candy.” Its Facebook fan page has over 84,000 fans. According to estimates from Stifel Nicolaus, an investment bank, Mark’s revenue last year was about $70 million.

Unlike other companies involved in direct sales — including Amway, which may dedicate a product line or two to a more youth-oriented market, or Mary Kay and Avon, whose products are geared toward middle-aged women — Mark focuses almost exclusively on teenagers and women under 30.

The younger demographic, at least concerning sales representatives, has its drawbacks. “The fact that the reps are younger can mean different rules apply as to how a direct-selling company is going to have to manage them,” said Linda Bolton Weiser, a managing director of consumer equity research at Caris & Company, an investment bank. “There could be questions about volume limits and credit — a younger rep may be cut off earlier. And, if a rep is under 18, obviously you would need parental permission.”

Still, Mark’s motto — “Make your mark” — seems to resonate with its zealous representatives.

But can Tweets and news feeds from Mark Girls compete with over a century of Avon Ladies’ experience?

Because of the difference in how the products are branded and the separation between Avon and Mark representatives (those selling Avon can also sell Mark products, but not the other way around), there is some internal competition among representatives.

On the mark.girl discussion board on Facebook, the Mark-versus-Avon topic sparked a lively debate when one Mark representative wrote: “Has anybody else noticed Avon reps not taking the Mark product seriously?” An Avon representative replied: “A lot of Avon women I know don’t push Mark because it has a lower profit as compared to the Avon core product line.”

Some experts in the beauty business are fans of Mark. “It really helps that Mark has such low price points,” said Elaine D’Farley, beauty director of Self magazine. “Visually, it’s fun. The products hit the trend.”

Indeed, products such as the magnetic refillable color palette compact ($4) and Hook Ups (about $10) — two-ended cosmetic dispensers that can be customized to connect, for example, lip gloss and lip pencil, eyeliner and mascara — are so popular, as one Mark representative said, that “they’re impossible to keep in my purse.”

But some products have been criticized online, where a bad review may resonate more negatively than an item quietly returned to a store. On the Mark Web site, one reviewer said that a cheek tint left “zero shimmer on my cheek but plenty on my hands.” And on Makeupalley, a forum for comments on beauty products, a reviewer complained about Mark’s Good Riddance: “I have under eye circles and it didn’t even come close to covering them.”

Bill Clinton sees the positive view

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_eGbfTPbGY

Tony Blair sees the positive view

"I'm delighted to offer my support to the Direct Selling Association and to point out to you how big a part direct selling is of our domestic market in the sale of goods and services. We've got something like 13% of the entire home shopping market done by direct selling, almost half a million people are involved in direct selling and 40,000 of those are doing it full time. So there are tremendous opportunities for women who want to combine family responsibilities and work. It also shows how, in a changing economy and changing labour market, there are great new opportunities out there. I want to say to you both that this is a good thing to be involved in and that we, as a Government, recognise the tremendous contribution that people who are taking up direct selling opportunities can make to the overall prosperity of the economy. So it is well worth doing, well worth being involved in and I wish those of you who are engaged in it, the very best for the future".

This guy spotted the idea I had for the business and allows you to retire early!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8YMO42FhaQ
Robert Kiyosaki, the Rich Dad Poor Dad guy, speaks on why network marketing is the best vehicle for leveraging your time for financial freedom and retire early.