Finding Customers

Now How Am I Going To Do That? Finding the Customers

Who Will Be My Customers?

Now that you have made a commitment to do this, where in the world do you start? Well you do a number of things:

You begin to make lists. List the family and friends whom you will contact to get your business launched. These will become known as the “mercy purchases,” those customers you can depend upon initially.

You build a warm list. This list will contain those people who will be your first contacts outside of your intimate friends and family whom you will contact with AVON literature and an invitation to purchase.

You build a cold list. This list will contain the names of those people with whom you come into infrequent contact. The businesses where you have relationships will fall into this area. Your doctor, lawyer, hairdresser, grocer, day care provider, convenience store clerk, and gas station attendant should all be on this list. In essence, you will sit down and think out where you will be moving around town and prepare to talk with them about this new business venture in which you have involved yourself.

You develop plans to attract more people to your business. This, plus the lists you have developed above, will involve the purchase of sales literature. These are known as Campaign Brochures and they are customarily issued for campaigns that operate on a two-week cycle, commencing just before Christmas with Campaign 1 and ending 50 weeks later with Campaign 26. About once every ten years you’ll see a Campaign 27 (we did in 2000). Your brochures come in bundles of 10, and get less expensive as you purchase more. If you’re scared to do this, you’ll get 10 and they’ll cost you 56 cents each. If you’re willing to be bold, get a hundred or more, and they will cost you less than 20 cents each. You’ll find, as you move along, that if you’re going to do this, you should do it in a big way and get many, many brochures to distribute. Understand that this is a cost of doing business. If you want this business to succeed, get a lot of books and hand them out liberally.

And in simple terms, recognize that opportunity knows no office hours. Ask everybody you meet!

Where Can You Find More Customers?

Here’s a list of places where you can leave books and find new Customers. Are 60 enough?

Doctors’ or dentists’ offices
Park and rides

Bank Tellers
Mechanics’ waiting rooms
Shoe stores
Laundromats
Resale shops
College campuses
Hospitals
Backs of door in public restroom stalls
Temporary staff offices
Library, newsstands, or bookstores
Flower shops
Beauty parlors / nail or tanning salons
Bus/train seat
Tax preparation offices
Pet stores
Lobbies: church, theater, hotel, bank
Dance studios
Insurance offices
Mortgage offices
Dry cleaners
Computer stores
Delicatessens and other food shops
School offices
Hand to anyone who comes to your door
Fabric stores
Furniture stores (right on the recliners!)
Bakeries
Phone booths and ATMs
Print shops
Anywhere people play BINGO
Lodges and union halls
Apt. or mobile home park laundry room
Vacant houses for sale
Campground restrooms
Vitamin and health food stores
Day care centers
Sales people anywhere
Retirement homes
Senior centers
Fitness clubs and gyms
Model home centers / apt. mgr. Office
Clinic waiting rooms
Real estate agents offices
Government offices / courthouses
7-11’s or other corner stores
Beauty supply stores
Grocery stores: cashiers, baggers
Park/playground benches
With tip or payment when dining out
Bus stop benches / enclosures
Toll booth collectors
Pharmacies
Community centers
Bowling alleys
Video stores (even in return slots!)
Post office clerks
Dressing rooms
Gas pumps and clerks

No, 60 aren’t enough? Then add the following: stand outside the mall or grocery store (for at least a half-hour or until they run you off – it happens); leave one behind everywhere you go, Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, women’s clubs, choir practice, bus or taxi driver, airline counter, travel agents, drive-up windows, parking attendants, sororities, fraternities, eye glass shops, bars, military bases, fire/police/paramedic stations, Welcome Wagon/greeting services, hardware stores, feed stores. Leave a few when you go for jury duty. Hand them out along the street when there is a parade. Walk up and down the aisle of the bus. Give them out at the movie, concert, rodeo, or at an amusement park or sporting event. Give them to every man who has a wife, girlfriend, or mother. And give them also to every woman who has a father, boyfriend, or husband.

Has the question been answered? All you need to do is to plan to do it, prepare to do it, move to do it, and then do it! What’s the worst anybody can say? “I don’t want it?” OK, so the next person does. just do it! It is time that pays dividends. That’s how a business is built. The fear will go away; you must begin somewhere. And even if somebody asks you not to do it, you can just go somewhere else and do it.

Anxiety does not empty us of its concerns, but it does empty today of its strength. But only if you let it. That thought is a paraphrase of an old-time preacher, Charles Spurgeon.

Seldom, if ever, will you have instant success. Ambition, followed by action, coupled with persistence and control are the things that make a business successful. When you decide to stop thinking of your AVON business as an interesting diversion and begin to think where that business could take you, then you will have taken the first steps to not only a successful business, but also an outstanding one.

Finding New Customers And Getting To No

The following is an adaptation of messages posted by Roberta Dunaway and Barbara Krueziger on the AVON Internet discussion loops:

Use the power of 3 to expand your business. Talk to 3 different people every day about AVON and get their names and phone numbers for following up. And then, try doing the 100 NO's to give you incentive to make the phone calls, knock on doors, approach people. Make it a game to get those 100 NO's in a month, week, or day depending on how much time you have.

Why are some people more successful than others? It’s a one-word answer. The word is NO. Some people have a really tough time accepting the fact that they are going to hear the word NO fairly often. They get discouraged and feel rejected because they look at the word NO as a negative. Nothing could be further from the truth! The word NO simply means that nothing changes. Think about it. You approach your neighbor and ask her to be your customer. She says “NO.” What changed? Is she still your neighbor? Yes. Did your income go up or down? No. Nothing changed. It can’t be a negative; to be negative things would have had to get worse. They didn’t. Everything remained exactly the same.

On the other hand, suppose she had said, “YES.” Now, there are some positive changes! She receives personal AVON service (a positive); you gain a customer (another positive); and you earn money (another positive). There are no negatives in our business, only positives and times when nothing changes.

When someone tells you NO, they are not rejecting you or our products. They are simply telling you that they are unable or unwilling to make any changes at the moment. Once you understand this, doing this business becomes a lot more fun. So, why not look for a way to make the word NO fun? Take a lined tablet and write the word NO on it 100 times. Each time someone tells you NO, cross out one of the NO's on the sheet. Set yourself a goal of getting all 100 NO's crossed out within the next 30 days.

If you want to see your business explode with growth, take this little exercise seriously. Here’s a hint that will make this easier. Triple up. Ask someone to:

	become a representative- If they say No, cross a NO off and ask them to …
	become a customer- If they say No, cross a second NO off and ask them to …
	give a customer referral- If they say No again, you have your three NO's!

You’ll never be better at getting NO than you are right now. The more you do this, the tougher it will become to get those 100 NO's. You’ll find that a YES will creep in here every once in awhile. Don’t let the occasional YES distract you from your primary goal of 100 NO's. Imagine the look on your neighbor’s face when she tells you NO and you respond, “Gee thanks. I’ve only got a few more NO's to go and I’m finished for the month. I was afraid you were going to say YES there for a minute.”

You will get NO’s until you give the prospect something to say YES to. For instance, "Do you want to SELL AVON?" is much easier to say NO to than "Could you use some extra money?” OR "Do you need an AVON lady?" is easier to say NO to than "Would you like a FREE sample and brochure?" Try this: go to the door and say "Hi! When's the last time an AVON lady knocked on your door?" Open-ended questions don't offer "NO" as an option! Get those NO's now while it is still easy for you to do so. Don’t wait until it becomes difficult for people to tell you NO! That time will come soon enough!

And when you begin to get YES answers, then may be the time to be happy, but get a goodly number of them before you begin to celebrate.

Finding Customers By Canvassing

Let’s establish right here and now that the absolute best way to acquire customers is with a face-to-face encounter. It’s more emotionally risky, that is true. But you can expect more new customers by doing that than by any other means.

Some representatives like to do what they call roll and toss, where they literally roll slowly along a street and toss the brochure into a driveway. I’ve not ever heard of anyone who got outstanding results that way. And the down sides from that method may be negative, ranging from customer annoyance for having to pick up your literature (and the sometime nasty phone calls) to violation of littering laws.

Bulk mail is another way to do your canvassing. In bulk mail you must acquire a mailing list, get those names onto mailing labels, and affixed to the brochure in such a way that they can be mailed. In order to do bulk mail, you’ll have to pay some monies to the US Postal Service and you will have to mail at least 200 pieces at a time. Some folks insert the brochures into mailing envelopes; some merely tape the label over the pages. You can obtain a mailing list by (1) developing it from other lists available to you, (2) digging in a community publication, such as Cole’s Directory, for the addresses that interest you, (3) digging in an automated reverse telephone directory, such as www.555-1212.com, www.anywho.com, or www.infospace.com. In these directories you will enter the phone number and get the address, if it’s not blocked. You will then have the option to select other residences on that street. A fourth option is the purchase of a mailing list from a list broker or a local mailing house. Check your yellow pages for such a listing.

Take out an advertisement in a local newspaper. The largest local daily may be prohibitively expensive, but there will be plenty of regional options, penny saver newspapers, and the like. Be certain to check your documents from AVON for permissible wording. Such wording as Buy or Sell AVON, call 111-1111 will pretty much fill the bill. I also add my e-mail address.

Business cards are absolutely the least expensive form of advertising and canvassing you can do. You can give them to everybody and take them with you everywhere conveniently. They are inexpensive to obtain. The AVON logo is available in the printer’s clip art books. Should you wish to obtain some AVON clip art of your own, go to one of these sites:

http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Gallery/9745/index.html

http://members.aol.com/sell4AVON/general.htm

The Power of Three is AVON’s technique for contacting customers. The general concept is that if you give out at least three brochures each day, five days each week, you will have contacted more than sixty potential customers each month. Hand out more, and contact more. You can do this in the parking lot, or at any of the places that have been identified above. John Fleming, who leads AVON West, has told us to go out and give one away after breakfast, come on back and rest – perhaps take in a game show. Then go out and give one away after lunch. Then come back and take a nap. Get out around dinnertime and do the third, and you’ve done it. While I wouldn’t recommend that approach personally, you have to admit that it would work. The problem with that is that you will become so successful you won’t be able to take that nap! The voice of experience speaks.

Another way is with the What’s New doorknob bags (available in your Purchase Order, Business Supplies Section), into which you will insert a brochure, any sale literature you may have, and perhaps one or more samples. You can then hang that bag on a know or on the mailbox frame. Important point: do not insert it into the mailbox. The mailbox is Federal property, and they will collect your mail and charge you First Class postage rates for it. Sometimes there are newspaper tubes into which you may insert your brochures.

Placing brochures in places of business is a very effective way to get customers. Find a postal outlet and ask to put some on the counter. Find some Laundromats and place them on the reading table. Every apartment complex has laundry facilities and recreation rooms that are outstanding placement locations. Just remember to periodically reward the establishment owners for their kindnesses.

The telephone will be an important business tool for you. Numbers taken from the referenced directories will be useful. You could also simply take a page from the telephone directory and begin calling. We’ll talk later about techniques for doing that. A variation of the telephone is the facsimile, or fax machine. Given a list of fax numbers you can do some broadcast advertising. Many areas have fax broadcasting services, customarily involving businesses rather than residences.

A loop moderator, Diane Ricobene, recently posted this approach to canvassing that has worked well for her:

“Preparation: First, I print out a close up map of the area I want to canvass. You can find a mapmaker online. (Ed: I suggest www.MapQuest.com ).

“Research: Next, I visit my local library. They have current reverse directories. I photocopy the pages of the streets I'm going to canvass. This will tell me whom I can reach by phone and who I can't (important -- this saves on books).

“The actual canvassing: I'm pretty shy so I don't knock on doors. Instead I include a letter introducing myself and saying that I placed the brochures on the door because I didn't want to disturb them. The letter explains everything -- includes a 10% first time customer discount or if they call me with their order today, they will receive a 15% discount. I only deliver to these to the ones who have a phone number.

“Follow-up: I wait a few days and then start making my telephone calls. I basically say, ‘Hello, this is Diane the AVON rep who left the brochure on your door a few days ago and I'm calling to see if there are any questions I can answer about the brochure or if you would like to place an order this campaign.’ Make sure you're smiling when you talk over the phone -- it does enter your voice!!! I think the reason why people are so nice is because they know I'm a neighbor and not some unknown solicitor. I have received tons of orders and for those that didn't order, wanted to be added to my brochure delivery list for future brochures. I very rarely get flat-out no's.

“For the addresses without published telephone numbers, I deliver a different letter that introduces me, but instead of saying I'll call them, it just says that they'll receive a 15% discount if they call me with their order today. It also says that it will be the only brochure they receive unless they call and request to be added to my brochure delivery list.

“This is working out very well for me but it does require a bit of legwork. I think it's worth it though.”

Diane’s system seems to work for her, but I will hold to the statement made at the opening of this section. Personal contact will bring you far more customers than any other means. I would add one note to her statement: if today is an important deadline, ensure that your materials indicate the date. We will be discussing cold calling in the next chapter.

Building Your Business With Helpers

One of the ways to truly enhance your business is to acquire helpers – customers who will represent you to people you would otherwise never see, people at work, in church, at the club, etc. The underlined portion of the previous sentence is a valuable concept, and we’re going to add this very important thought: no matter how much profit you make from those people unknown to you, it is more profit than you had in your pocket before your customer brought them to you. Therefore, it makes sense to be generous to the customer who will take orders from her friends and bring them to you.

There are many schools of thought about how to reward helpers. Some representatives provide a discount on the customer’s own products in exchange for the business, often with some items at cost, based on the size of the order. Some will provide free product of the customer’s choosing. While I’m aware of some feelings against it, my personal feeling is that your helper, while she may welcome a discount on her order, may need something that would be more welcome – cash, especially if school is coming on and her children need new shoes. So the approach I take is to offer a discount, allowing that helper to keep the extra money. If you offer only a discount on the personal order, there will be no incentive to get an order from her co-workers if she has no desire or need for any product for herself during this campaign. Make that incentive money and you fit the helper’s personal life to your pattern where she, if she has a short term need for something that her salary won’t cover, might put forth that extra effort to bring orders to you.

How much discount you give is a function of how well you buy. I have, for example, been at this long enough to produce the volume necessary to get a 50% discount. It is my practice to give a 30% discount to my helpers for business up to $200; 35% up to $400; and 40% above that. That means my margin is 10%. If you were to adopt that pattern, you would keep 10% for yourself (to cover the paperwork you do), and provide a scale to your helpers, sweetening the pot as you grow. The advantage of doing this is that it helps you to raise your volume, initially to the President’s Club level -– where you are guaranteed 40% for the next year – and higher. It will create rewards for you for increases over prior periods, and when you rise above that, the rewards increase. At Rose Circle, for example, your guarantee for the next year is 45%. Once you get above that, the President’s points you achieve are convertible to money. We converted, for example, more than $6,000 in the 2000-2001 year – money that I would not have had, had I not had helpers. It’s something to think seriously about. It takes a little extra work, but the rewards are outstanding.

Scratching The “Hot Spot”

As each of you joined, you were given a sheet that demonstrated "hot spots." A hot spot is the point at which you have the opportunity to acquire some additional product at either a savings or at a very small increment. As you begin to climb through the various commission levels (or discount levels, if you will), this information will become very important to you. So it’s useful to explore the concepts of hot spots.

If you are even close to one of the hot spots you should think about ordering up to meet your sales goals and you will have some items that you can cash & carry during your deliveries to unload them. For example, look at the following chart:

Earning % Sales Level Hot Spot What You Get

20% $ 25- 124 $110 $15 extra for $.50 less

30% $ 125- 249 $232 $18 extra for $.10 less

35% $ 250- 399 $370 $30 extra for $.50 less

40% $ 400- 849 $780 $70 extra for $.50 less

45% $ 850-1499 $1365 $135 extra for $.75 less

50% $ 1500+

There are exceptions, of course: items which are fixed-earnings (asterisk-noted in the brochure) will give you less and Breast Cancer items will give you nothing, but both raise your total order volume to the point that on the other products you receive the benefit of that volume.

And it’s Not Too Early To Consider Leadership

Leadership is the way that you will be able to make a career with AVON and make some significant money. AVON Leadership can be a full time job, but you don’t have to start it that way. I encourage you, even at this early stage of your career, to begin to build a downline. Your district manager (DM) or upline (UL) person can help you with this. Once you have taken the additional training, including lots of time with him or her, you can begin to gather the people into your downline and begin to make some money from their efforts. Here’s what you do:

On your purchase order, select the leadership materials. You’ll find it in the business tools section. You will be billed $40 for the package. Order number is: 027-306.

In the package are study materials – audio, video, printed. Once you have reviewed them, we can begin your training: how to approach and interest people; how to determine their needs and goals; how you can show them they are achievable; how to close with the candidate; and how to handle “no.”

Your DM or UL will work with you and your candidate list, setting appointments, making presentations, and seeing just how many the two of you can get started.

And then a plan for you to train them to be successful must be developed. If you’re too new to contemplate that, that’s what UL and DM personnel are for.

But you don’t even have to go through this much to make some leadership money. Here’s how you can do it right now:

Draw up a candidate list. Obtain a list of available dates from the candidate(s).

Establish the appointment with the candidate(s).

Meet with the candidate(s) and your upline (UL), and he or she will make the presentation.

If the candidate signs up, you’ll get $20 from AVON. You will also learn how to make the presentation.

Somewhere here you should decide whether to pursue the leadership option. If you are successful to find candidates and your DM/UL and you are together successful to sign them up, I’m certain that they would much prefer that you derive the benefit of their efforts.

Now How Are You Going To Do That?

Don’t look now – there’s a recruit, a candidate, or customer outside your door; on the other end of the telephone line; at the store where you will next shop. There’s some effort involved in finding customers, but as has been said before, nothing happens until a sale is made. That includes your future with AVON. Go to it, and good luck. We’re going to offer you more skills as we progress.

But there is something you can do for yourself right at this very moment. Take a few moments and outline your presentation – at least the main points.

The greeting – if you can know the potential customer’s name, use it.

The opening – courtesy for her affording you some time. Smiles and pleasantries will be of great benefit here.

Introduction – your name, your location, your purpose.

Presentation body – if the first time, draw her attention to some favorite items in the brochure.

The contact – obtain contact information and confirm a suitable time for the next contact you will make.

The closing – if there is something she’d like, take the order. If not, leave, promising to make contact at the appropriate time.

The parting – smiles and pleasantries, once again.

And now, you have a customer to serve – and you need only to ensure that you do, indeed, serve her and serve her well.