Toronto Star
CAREER SHIFT
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JIM RANKIN/TORONTO STAR
Lawyer Jennifer Maron, mother of three, is quickly climbing the ladder at Arbonne, a skin-care line that’s marketed like Tupperware.
Ditching courtrooms for cosmetics, lawyer embraces direct marketing
Aug 29, 2009 04:30 AM
David Graham
Fashion Editor
Bay Street lawyer Jennifer Maron worried how her colleagues might react to the news she was abandoning the rough-and-tumble world of the courtroom to sell skin-care products.
The 43-year-old mother of three was turning her back on a successful career to become an independent consultant for Arbonne International Inc. – a little-known line of beauty and nutrition products sold through a direct marketing program similar to Tupperware.
She took the plunge into direct sales in March, but the decision was a struggle.
"I'm a litigator, a trained professional and a health law specialist," she recalls thinking at the time.
Maron had trouble shaking the cliché of the annoying aunt who pressures beleaguered relatives and friends into purchasing things they don't particularly want or need.
"As a lawyer, I always felt I was in a prestige occupation. But there's a stigma associated with direct sales."
The transition began a year-and-a-half ago. While on maternity leave with her third child, someone introduced her to Arbonne. Until then, she used expensive, designer brands. "I thought I'd get better results if I spent more money," Maron says.
She was impressed with the product's natural and botanical properties as well as its environmentally conscious packaging.
But she never imagined herself in sales.
When the recession hit and news of budget cuts and layoffs dominated headlines, Maron wanted to help her family by going back to work. The same friend who got her using Arbonne suggested she come on board as a consultant.
"I was very critical in the beginning. I wasn't going to do parties."
Maron organized her first party in March, then a second and a third. Turns out, she's a natural.
Her success also benefits the friend who recruited her. Generally speaking, direct sales representatives earn commissions on the sales of those they recruit. At some companies, the levels are infinite, and that's when the earnings of those at the top reach astronomical numbers.
In her book The Women's Millionaire Club, Maureen Mulvaney chronicles the success of 21 women who earn as much as $20 million (U.S.) annually through home-based businesses. Maron says three of those women are associated with Arbonne.
Hard times are good for direct marketing companies to swell their sales staff. Apparently, in a depersonalized world of big box merchandisers and e-tailing, there's still room for Old School salesmanship.
And companies like Mary Kay, Avon, Tupperware and Pampered Chef are actively recruiting.
Lured by the potential income, flexible hours and the promise they will be their own boss, some men and (mostly) women are trying their hands at direct sales. Like Maron, they struggle to get past the embarrassment factor – the fear they will annoy people with their persistent pitches.
Certainly, in the beginning, family and friends will buy something because they feel obliged, says Ross Creber, president of the Direct Sellers Association of Canada.
But you have to get past the first hurdle and make the leap that turns an amateur into a professional.
The trick, Creber says, is to keep going.
According to the association, 81 per cent of direct sellers are married and 88 per cent are women, though Creber says more men are getting in on the action.
"There are no entry restrictions in this business – no age or education requirement. It's open to anyone who wants to give it a try. You get out what you put into it. If you treat it like a hobby, you will earn a hobbyist's income."
Of the 64 million direct sellers in the world, he says, 600,000 are in Canada.
Creber says 54 four per cent of the companies in his association report an increase in sales in 2009 over last year as well as an increase in recruitment, although direct marketing sales in the U.S. are reportedly down.
"Canada is a good market for direct sellers, particularly in rural areas."
Pampered Chef, the 30-year-old kitchen product direct marketer owned since 2002 by Warren Buffet, has new recruits host a 30-minute cooking show in which they prepare and cook an "easy but wow" dish and showcase the Pampered Chef tools used in its execution.
As well, they must buy starter kits of products to launch their careers, says Janice Gerol, vice-president and general manager of Canada and Mexico for the company.
"This is not a get-rich-quick scheme," she says.
Because earning potential is directly related to the effort put in, she says her company has a formula – "two shows a week will earn you $1,000 a month, four shows a week will earn you $4,000 a month."
It works out to about $25 an hour, she says, but concedes that four shows a week is a lot of work.
Creber admits that only very committed, ambitious people make six figures. Most people who enter the direct sales arena do not treat it like a serious business, he says.
"About 10 to 15 per cent of direct sellers are involved on a full-time basis."
Maron says she has what it takes.
She went into law because she wanted to make a difference. She stayed for the money. Likewise, now she's selling Arbonne because she believes in the product – and, like in her law career, she expects a solid return.
But she won't specify. All Maron will say about her income as a lawyer is that she was very successful.
Arbonne's appeal, she says, it that the products have to be replenished, so the potential for return customers is enormous.
She is networking aggressively and has already signed up a few spas. She participated in an Arbonne kiosk at the Rogers Cup and at the CNE, giving out free hand massages, samples and, of course, a follow-up phone call.
Maron is an executive district manager and wants to be an area manager by October, all of which means she is earning a small percentage of the sales of those under her.
By March, a year after giving her first party, she wants to be a regional vice-president. That would mean an expensive perk.
Regional vice-presidents in the Arbonne world drive white Mercedes Benz – any model, any year, buy or lease, as long as the cars are white – for which the company ponies up $1,000 a month.
Maron is keeping an eye trained on the recent dealings of none other than Donald Trump, who has said publicly that, if he had to do it all over again, he would not waste his time on real estate and instead go directly into direct sales.
His new Trump television network launches this fall, with a beauty line that Maron suggests is remarkably similar to Arbonne.
