Internet Advertising Begins to Pay Off

I know it can take some time for internet advertising to really kick in.  I have been building websites for nearly 20 years and I tend to say to clients not to expect too much from a website within the first six months.

I cannot say that I get a huge volume of hits to my website www.essex-reps.com - but since I did the map recruitment pages and have been advertising for jobs in specific areas of Essex on other people's more established free advertising sites I have been waiting for someone to sign up this way.

Sure enough - tonight - that has happened!! I have an appointment tomorrow from an online advert that I put up just two weeks ago.  I have put up about 12 more tonight and will continue to grow this number - "work it if it works !!!".

Prospecting with the '5 Day Challenge'

Out prospecting today and within one hour managed a sign up, gave out four '5 Day Challenge' bags (which might mean some appointments on Monday) and another lady's number who might join when she is back from her holiday.  A very productive hour!

The 5 day challenge consists of an AVON carrier bag containing 5 brochures, some order forms and a prospecting card with my details on it.

Ask the prospective Rep (basically any likely looking female) if she would be interested in earning some extra money selling beauty and make-up products?  Do the usual sales talk including the ultimate line "Would you like to take the 5 day challenge?".  Then continue to explain you'll give them the bag to work with, 5 days to get as many orders as you can and you'll give them a call on Monday to see how they are getting along and to sign them up.  There is no obligation to join Avon, but they will have had a taste of how it is.  It may be worth adding that this is probably going to be the hardest they will have to work to get the orders because a) they'll only have 5 days, normally you get 3 weeks b) when they are officially signed on they will have an online brochure to use as well to share on facebook, email, text etc and c) it may be possible to assign them some territory, a street or area that they can drop books to.

It works - it really does - the 5 day challenge proved to be good today - if just one of the four signs on, it will have been worthwhile :)

Great idea from my new Area Sales Manager - whom I met today and she's lovely.

10,000 Hits to the BLOGS!!

WOW
Since I joined AVON, 133 days ago, I have been blogging as a Rep and then as a Sales Leader and today, the combined hits to my blog have topped 10,000!!  Keep reading and I will keep writing about my AVON journey.

AVON Wall of Fame

On achieving Sales Leader status, you receive a pin badge to wear stating you are an AVON Sales Leader, a certificate - AND you get your name listed on the Wall of Fame!

Essex-Reps Website update with Essex Map

Today I have updated the Essex-Reps recruitment website with a fabulous clickable map of Essex and a recruitment page for each main area (64 in total phew!).

Here's a screenshot of the map page - you can view the whole thing at:

http://www.essex-reps.com/avon-jobs-in-essex.html

Keeping in contact with my Team

As i grow into my role of Sales Leader and strive for the next level, I would say that 80% of the role is about communicating with my team, talking to them, motivating, being there to answer questions and generally keeping in touch.

Today I will call my new Rep that I took on on Thursday last week, and another who I haven't had a chance to get a good catch up with for a few weeks except by text - I will also call done if my leads, confirm an appointment to sign on a rep tomorrow and have coffee with another lady who is interested to join later this month.

So it us all about the communication, building those bonds and strengthening my own teams communication with myself and their customers.

Sales Leader - Training and Development

WOW - A morning of training with my Area Manager...

Macdonalds, Coffee, Laptop, Sales Leader Report and a lot of listening. Cannot blog tonight all the useful things that I have learned and been shown today - must say a huge THANKS!

And to reiterate (mainly to myself) that one of the main things I learned today was to LISTEN!

We talked about a lot of things, which I could explain in detail, (and will at some point) but I am a bit tired to do it tonight - here are some of the topics we touched on:

Daily Plan Template
Sales Leader Training Academy Tracking
Keeping in contact with my Reps
TSL Checklist
Business Development Bonus
PATD (prospecting, appointing, training, development)
Q&A Documents
Sales Kit
Order form idea
Sales Leader Dev Tool
ALM
Time Management
Coaching
Listening
Achieve Meetings - 48hrs
Promoting Demos
Brochures in advance

And a lot more too.....

First Real Campaign as a Sales Leader

Tonight I've watched and waited, waited and watched as a dozen representatives in my team put their orders online.

I have kept in close contact with all of them over the past five days leading up to "order due date", just to check and help them to reach their targets, to make sure that they will be placing qualifying orders.  I want them to make money, I want them to be happy and stay with AVON in my team.  Me earning commission from their sales is secondary to this, as without enough Representatives in my team I won't remain a Sales Leader.

I have worked hard to get to this level, its the first rung on a pretty long ladder that I intend to climb up - I will work as hard as it takes to stay in touch with my new representatives, keep growing my team over the next few campaigns and achieve the next level ASAP!

Sales Leader Badge and Certificate

I have received my Sales Leader status and with it a Certificate and Badge have arrived in the post - pictures to follow...

Plan a "Planning Day"

Today, as directed by my Area Manager (who has in fact taught me nearly everything I know about AVON)...  I had a "planning day".

This has been superb, a chance to put my business in order and work SMART.

I've caught up with all the active Representatives on my team and the newbies.  As well as asking how they are getting on and if I can offer any help, I have asked them quite directly:

2 new recruits all by myself!

Yes, I feel like a sales leader now!  Flying SOLO as it were!

Last week I sat in the park for half an hour and spoke to three people about AVON, took two of their numbers and followed up with a phone call to arrange appointments.

Today I met both of them - separately, they're not in the same area and they don't know eachother (yet!).
I signed them both up!

Feel quite chuffed - thats two new members to my ever growing team and I am really proud because:
- I got the leads
- I chased them up
- I recruited them

Back on Track - Boost Recruitment

YEP - A four day week after the May Bank Holiday and this week, in fact tomorrow, I really would like to recruit 4 new Sales Reps.  I have a couple of pre-bank holiday weekend leads to follow up, one refer a friend and also a customer who is interested in joining, it is just a question of whether I can sell it to them to commit tomorrow, or even this week!

My Sales Leadership skills still need to be perfected into a winning formula and I really need to get my time-management skills into play also, to allow myself the right amount of time on the street, following up leads on the phone and actually doing appointments.  It doesn't tale long to do any of these things but I need to get into some better planning habits!

Well..... thats it, the night before the recruitment boost and I am all set, flyers with my information on them, my notebook with the leads phone numbers, and a pen to take some more, the boot is full of brochures and recruitment packs... I FEEL READY!  Bring it on!

Puncture Postpones Play!

They say that bad things come in threes - well that's what happened - left this morning with 2 sign up appointments booked for 9am and 11am and 2 string leads...

8.30 - text came to cancel the 11am (might rearrange after the weekend)
8.45 - confirmation call for the 9am proved a non starter as she can't join my team until the end of June
9.00 - decided to go into town and do a bit if recruitment regardless - and got a blinkin puncture!!!

So that was the three (hoping today can get better from now on!)
Called RAC, got a spare on, currently at the tyre garage replacing it - should be back on the road by 11am.

Think I might need a coffee stop off now lol! One good thing was it has given me a chance to check my brochure supply whilst emptying the boot!!

Prospecting with the Area Manager (s)

Today was great, my Area Manager picked me up from our usual place and we went out prospecting.  She was training another Area Manager too today, so we had extra company.

First stop, Maldon, parked in the high street and the first young lady we approached was interested in becoming a rep, so we all went to Costa to talk about it further, signed her on and dropped her home with her books!