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

Brown.Owl_2

Only area managers can add territory to a rep after the initial batch. Maybe the area manager isn't replying to her or needs reminding, or is even on holiday. If you know who s/he is I'd give her a shout, just to hurry up a response if nothing else.

I,_Geek

I know you want to avoid awkwardness because they're someone you could run into, but it's completely fine to go straight to the ASM. Most reps will do this even if they have a good SL and like Brown Owl says the ASM's the only person who can sort this out for you anyway.

If your SL has a problem with this they can be a bit huffy about it but that's it. Despite their claims they can:
- judge your customer rate and sales
- decide whether or not you can have extra streets
In truth they can do nothing. So the worst case outcome from you going to the ASM is that you've got the extra streets (hopefully extra income) you want and your SL is in a mood about it. Considering their behaviour that wouldn't bother me at all! You going to the ASM should teach them they can't lie to their reps and prevent them from growing their business.

diluvsdiscounts

Message sent to ASM!!
Thanks for your support folks, I'll let you know the outcome.

diluvsdiscounts

And this is her reply
Hi Diane,

Many thanks for your e-mail.

H***p has been in touch with me regarding the additional roads for you and we can look at that for you but there is still extra potential on the roads you have at present as the estimated order value for C5 is £427 just from the roads and then your friends and family on top. These estimates are generally quite accurate if roads are canvassed in full.

We just need an up to date customer list please so if you can let me know the house numbers of your customers on each road that would be great please.

The short campaigns which we have just finished can be very tricky for us to canvass in full and we generally find Representatives will just serve their existing customers which is absolutely fine but when we come back into the 3 week campaigns with effect from C5 the brochures tend to be very strong so we do recommend all Representatives recanvass in full as this will gain us new customers. (if someone has specifically asked you not to post a brochure it's fine to mark your calling book as Not Interested). There were a good few extra customers on Highfield so hopefully you should gain some additional customers with the recanvass.

There are a total of 284 homes allocated to you at present and I notice you are just ordering 25 brochures. It's generally much easier (and more successful) to work with more brochures. Each extra pack of brochures is just 50p so you could have 40 brochures for just £1.50 extra. We find Representatives who work with 40 brochures (and they may also use their back brochures too) will gain more customers.

ASM stands for Area Sales Manager and I can assist anyone in the 2 areas I manage *** or *** and SL stands for Sales Leader - it is fine to contact your Sales Leader but generally they will ask for a customer list before contacting me as they know it will be the first thing I ask for. :-)

Many thanks and I look forward to hearing from you.

So she wants the house numbers aswell!!

hotpot1000

I joined avon in oct saying I wanted local roads which I got. SL asked if i was interested in more as she signed me up, i said yes.

after a couple wks the asm rang me to say hello, etc as she'd been away and said SL had said I asked for more streets & if I did then she would have a look.
I said I was happy as I was at the minute and would ask as & when.
I was given 117 houses initially, SL gave me 50 books, ive whittled it down to 25 books, i put them out 3 times or 4.

the reply you received reads that they expect you to recanvass every house with a 3 wks campaign but dont expect it on a 2 wk one.
I will recanvass when and if I see it warrants it
Avon is supposed to be for you to run your own business, theyre control freaks it seems.

no doubt the more experienced posters will advise you how to play it but I would say dont give them your customers, which is what theyre asking for.
If you do and they still believe you are under achieving then can they take your streets off you and re-allocate? I hope not.

best of luck

lozza1985

I still wouldn't give house numbers just x amount of customers on x street. If you've had a lot of people saying no to a brochure pass on those figures as well, same if you've had people say they order from someone else. Also if there's any properties that aren't accessible let them know. Plus the fact that as you use the previous campaigns brochures that you use 50 each time not just 25.

The main thing they are probably basing it on is your sales figures, as that's a better reflection of what you 'should' get from an area - even pc reps can and do re-use there brochures many times to avoid buying too many. You could ask what your expected sales are for your area to see how far away you are from those figures. It is worth keeping on re-canvassing, even after how long I've been doing avon I still get new customers as people change their mind, move (and if its rented you don't always realise if there hasn't been a sign up), loose their rep at work etc. of course there does also reach a point where the amount of new customers you'll get levels off. The only thing I can suggest is to keep working with what you have at the moment, 284 is a lot of houses and many asms won't allocate more than that to any one rep - for one thing of they leave its a lot of customers left with no rep. It is up to the asms discretion and as frustrating as it is that's about all that can be done. However - worth advertising on
Facebook for new customers as I pick up a lot that way, it's far less effort and usually they are big spenders as they've had to make an effort to contact you

Of course what could also be the case is that there isn't any streets vacant nearby but they just don't want to say so!

diluvsdiscounts

Thank you hotpot and Lozza for your replies.

I totally agree with what you said Lozza and 284 houses is a lot but down one street there are about 40 houses and no matter how hard I tried I could only get 2 customers.
And to get back to the initial point I contacted them about was the 10 houses I walked past anyway not that I wanted to massively increase my area.
I emailed her back last night asking for the reason she needed specific house numbers rather than the number of houses per street.
Her reply started Hi Helen!!! (who is Helen?)
She then went on to reassure me that they needed to compare house numbers to postcodes and whilst I remain a rep they will not be contacted.
I really wish I had never asked because I was really happy doing Avon but now I feel that everyone has there own agenda to get ahead just like the rest of the world, I wish I'd stayed in my little bubble.
don't include any of you lot in that comment haha

I,_Geek

"These estimates are generally quite accurate if roads are canvassed in full." - :rotfl: Not to mention that the customer rate is always 1 in 3 houses. Not much thought/actual statistics gone into that one.

If you can get a screenshot of the comment on Facebook I'd send that to her, saying this is the reason why you don't want to give over details.

Plus, how does giving full addresses make sure they check out against the postcode - I'm confused by their reasoning on that one? That information is available online (Mouseprice.com and the royal mail's postcode finder). Basically, you could generate a list of house numbers and their postcodes in 5 minutes by going online. No evidence whatsoever that they're your customers.

The DSM (who is above the ASM) is also an option. You could send the Facebook screenshot to them saying that you're not happy to be asked for full details because this is what they're going to do with them.

To get a screenshot:
- press "print screen" button on your keyboard
- open a Word document.
- Press Ctrl and V to paste.
- You can crop the image and then enlarge it if you need to see the text more clearly.
- then just save the whole Word doc and attach it to an email.

Oh and they got their brochure pricing wrong. 40 extra brochures will cost you £4 extra (once you've already ordered 15).

That's the only thing I agree with them on. Ordering more brochures is useful more because it cuts down on your workload (fewer trips in and out) and stress (less worry about running out). But they far from guarantee more orders, especially in a difficult area.

If you're having trouble with the screenshot (working with the image once it's in Word) send me the Word doc in an email and I'll sort it out. I'd like to help because it doesn't half annoy me that people are more concerned with signing up more and more reps (that have a high drop-out rate) rather than supporting the ones who haven't dropped out and are prepared to work.

diluvsdiscounts

Thanks I,Geek. The comment was seen by my daughter quite a while ago,certainly before Christmas because that was when my SL was asking for my customer list so not sure if you can still find it ( I am clueless when it comes to facebook (by choice haha))
To be honest I wish I hadn't asked them. I only started doing Avon because my daughter wanted to do it and I thought the extra money would be good for her, I was then actually surprised how many people ordered, so when she said her school work (A levels) were getting too much and she wanted to stop doing it I decided to keep going on her behalf until school work,light nights etc got better.
We walk the dog down these roads everyday anyway so may as well be delivering,collecting brochures as we go.
And they can tell me I am under achieving but my SL text me 2 weeks ago telling me I was 49 out of 500 in our area. I will have a go at recanvassing because I agree you never know who and when will want Avon!!

Money_maker

How ridiculous, where on earth do they get their figures? Surely it must be from previous reps orders but those would include friends and family.

This is YOUR business and its very unhelpful for then to suggest you are not maximising the potential of that street. Do not give them house numbers, you have acquired these through your hard work.

So glad my ASM is not halfway so much up herself as yours!