~Avon Hints & Tips (Part 8) ~ Please read first post :)

MarsdenCuckoo

dean72 wrote: »

Hi
have not been on for a while and spent passed two days catching up on this thread as the is weathers bad.
I started with Avon last august as a rep and week later sales leader.
made advance campaign 17 with 3 sales leaders on board up and running but lost it in one as two sales leaders left (debt) so building up again I am going to make advanced sales leader in campaign 5
and really buzzing to see what this year brings.
I am hoping to learn how to prospect online most of mine is spending 2-3 hours on one high street then moving to another until:rotfl: I have got 5 leads a day I really only expect to sign one up
going up to newcastle to the seminar hoping to learn alot more.
the funny thing about Avon that I have found is i have learnt alot more from this site (rather then connects)

so a very BIG THANKYOU to you all.

Welcome back, Dean (I don't need a reply to my PM now! :rotfl:)

Maintaining your status over Christmas/New Year/quickie campaigns is very difficult so don't give up.

You're not alone preferring this thread to AC either - we have a great support network here. Long may it continue. :T

trinity_enigma

Hi everyone. Hope the avoning is going well. One of my good friends, who also happens to be my sl, is giving up Avon as she just doesn't have the time for it. She has offered to give me the addresses of her customers if I want them- just wondering how 'legal' this is in Avon terms? (obviously this isn't for y financial benefit, she just doesn't want these people to live without a rep lol). She did offer to transfer all her streets to me before she leaves but I just don't have the time to properly canvass them- is it terrible to cherry pick the customers?

MarsdenCuckoo

trinity_enigma wrote: »

Hi everyone. Hope the avoning is going well. One of my good friends, who also happens to be my sl, is giving up Avon as she just doesn't have the time for it. She has offered to give me the addresses of her customers if I want them- just wondering how 'legal' this is in Avon terms? (obviously this isn't for y financial benefit, she just doesn't want these people to live without a rep lol). She did offer to transfer all her streets to me before she leaves but I just don't have the time to properly canvass them- is it terrible to cherry pick the customers?

Depends what side of the coin you are on.....

1) Avon would prefer all streets to be thoroughly canvassed so would like a new rep to be appointed to look after an ex-rep's territory i.e. chances are there will be new customers on those streets waiting to be offered a book.

2) We do get attached to customers and want to make sure they are looked after so reps quite often do pass details across. Reverting to Avon's viewpoint though, it's soul-destroying for a new rep to be allocated territory if all the customers have been cherry-picked/passed across to another 'F&F' rep.

Playing Devil's Advocate here..... am wondering why your friend is resigning as SL and rep? SLship does take a lot of time (depending how you do it) but if she has customers worth cherry picking, that doesn't take long for a rep to look after at all. A few hours every three weeks.....

As for her offer to transfer her streets to you, she can't do that anyway; she can ask your ASM but only if your average sales warrant the extra territory.

Hope that helps rather than confuses....

trinity_enigma

She hasn't really been doing anything extra on the sl side for a while and has only just been treading water with being a rep. She's just got too much on her plate and something has had to give unfortunately.

MarsdenCuckoo

Sorry to hear that.... hope your friend copes with whatever life is throwing at her.

Another thought - have you considered SLship yourself? If so, you could legitimately ask your ASM to take over your friend's territory in the hope that you will find a new rep (or two) to look after it? It really is only a matter of showing others how to do what you already know and, of course, you'd get lots of help/support from here.

Dick_here

I can see both sides here but tend to agree with MC. The next time someone comes on here complaining that they've been given territory only to find that another Rep already has customers on it, this is why.

trinity_enigma

I guess that's true !!!!!!, I just wasn't sure if it was any different to her giving up her territory and keeping friends and family. She wasn't planning on giving me her entire list of everyone who orders. Just her neighbourswho she knows (the road she lives on is part of her territory) and her friends and family (most of the friends are my friends too and probably would end up with me anyway). I'm not going to take everyone who has ever ordered in all of her territory, I think in total there's about 10 people. I know I'm trying to justify myself, but just dont want you thinking I'm taking a whole territory without any of the effort iyswim?

I'm not really sl material, I don't want to put in that much effort, or make a career out of this, it's just some extra pocket money and a discount to me lol.

An don't worry about my friend, nothing terribles happened to her it's just that she fosters, works and volunteers as well as trying to hae a social life- she just like to do everything lol! She brought it on herself!

I,_Geek

MarsdenCuckoo wrote: »

Depends what side of the coin you are on.....

1) Avon would prefer all streets to be thoroughly canvassed so would like a new rep to be appointed to look after an ex-rep's territory i.e. chances are there will be new customers on those streets waiting to be offered a book.

2) We do get attached to customers and want to make sure they are looked after so reps quite often do pass details across. Reverting to Avon's viewpoint though, it's soul-destroying for a new rep to be allocated territory if all the customers have been cherry-picked/passed across to another 'F&F' rep.

I'm torn on this issue, too. At the moment Avon's focus seems to be on recruiting reps, rather than making sure every single street/customer is covered. For example, if a rep leaves there doesn't seem to be a proactive effort made to get their streets covered by someone else asap. A SL has to ask where free streets are to prospect on, and who knows whether the efforts of a SL and ASM to recruit someone to cover the street will pay off? If someone's found how long will they last? Reps can leave and sometimes their upline asks for a customer list but some uplines don't. The mindset seems to be "we need to find a new rep" rather than "we need to make sure customers' service isn't interrupted".

A move in the right direction happened to me recently when I was asking about a specific street to see if it was free. It wasn't, but without having to ask about anywhere else my ASM mentioned a couple that were. I've taken on one of them and I know it's lost its rep over the past month or two.

As a rep, if I was leaving and knew a local reliable rep I'd rather my customers be served by them than whoever else comes along later (who knows how long later). Statistically, a new sign-up isn't expected to last long so I'd rather not take the risk and know customers are being given to someone I trust. Plus, if I knew the rep and knew they worked hard at their business I'd want them to benefit from the extra custom.

MarsdenCuckoo

Could be wrong on this but I wonder if the option to add our customers' details to our orders is in some way connected to this issue? Seems logical to me. It was mentioned at a recent SL Seminar that whilst reps are self-employed, Avon do consider the end consumer as 'their customer' (which actually I did dispute but I lost the argument! :rotfl:) Obviously, the more details Avon are given about customers, the easier it would be for them to pass those customers across to a new rep when they are appointed.

Personally, when one of my reps gives up I tend to keep those customers 'warm' until I can find a new rep to look after that street. It does help a new rep if they have a ready-made customer base - especially if it's their own street, which is what I aim for.

nicki_2

I was just wondering whether it would be really cheeky to give up the rest of my territory and ask for some in the opposite direction?

My territory that was allocated to me was the even side of my road then heading "east" I have an estate, 2 roads which I currently cover and then the next road is just the odd side and the majority but not all of the side roads, maybe 20 houses tops in each one. These roads are awkward for me due to the weight of books/deliveries as I do my territory on foot. :eek: Even a shopping trolley doesn't help. It took me 3 hours plus 5 seperate trips last night to make deliveries as it is, and thats not including the deliveries I did the night before or earlier in the day!

I also keep getting orders from friends/families of current customers who live to the "west" of me. So I already deliver to some people there! I'm guessing they're not covered by a rep or have been cherry picked (which I don't blame people for doing - there's lots of people moving in and out around here!). I know of two other reps on the odd side of my road - one does F&F and the other only ever seems to get 1 maybe 2 boxes delivered

I also know that I can cover the roads easily and I'd be giving up 175 houses for however many I could be allocated

Just wondered whether this would be frowned upon?