Think Like the Giants -- Business Ideas You Can Duplicate
- The Avon model. One of the most successful companies in the United States of America is the Avon Company. Their success, although phenomenal, did not happen overnight – it happened after processes of deep thought, and out of such many deep thoughts the idea was born to advance the sales of the company through affiliate distribution of goods. This led them to introduce the system whereby persons (affiliates) can buy their products at a discounted rate and sell them back for a specific price, thereby earning the affiliates upwards of 20%. Presently new affiliates earn 50% profit off their first buy and 20% off successive orders.
This system, although revolutionary and successful, can be improved upon by a system called viral marketing or business networking. The problem with the present Avon system of making sales is that affiliates have to go out there and persuade persons to buy. They will not make a sale otherwise. In this competitive market, making a sale is not easy and persuading persons to spend their hard-earned money is not an easy task. The Avon system can be improved in the following ways:
- Instead of going out there on a one-to-one basis to recruit buyers, invest in an Avon business venture. Rent a small business shop. Spend a certain amount of money per month to buy a fixed amount of goods from all the different offers. Since you’ll have to think about operating costs, you should mark up the price of our goods and sell them at a price where you can earn a significant profit and offer a sizeable discount to your buyers monthly. Buyers can be given a 10% discount on their next purchase of a fixed amount, and/or they can get 20% off their next purchases when they refer 4 or more persons to buy from you.
- The Avon cooperative could be formed. This is a system where persons register with the company and rather than going out to take orders, they will simply refer persons to buy directly from the cooperative. They will earn a fixed income or base salary plus 10 -20% off each of their referrals.
- Another way the cooperative can be run is that each leader in the cooperative could have responsibility for a set number of sales agents. They will then motivate these sales agents to go out and refer a set number of persons per day to buy. The sales agents will go out with a set number of flyers per day with a set discount on it and their names and their team leader’s name on it. When the person off the street comes in to buy, the persons whose name is on the discount papers will earn 10 -20% off every sale.
- Recruit persons to join at a price, ask them to refer at least 4 more persons to join and refer at least 8 persons per month to buy. Give them 10% off every person who joins and 20% off every person who buys, or just give them a percentage off the joining or buying person.
- You could also recruit persons to register with you, buy from you, and refer persons to buy or join and earn a percentage off each referral.
- The Melaleuca model. The Melaleuca model is an excellent model and works similar to the Avon model. The difference with this model is that persons recruited to become referees do not sell and the products are used by the referees. Persons will buy the Melaleuca product to use for themselves, and will then refer 8 persons every 2 months in order to earn 20% off their first referral and 7 percent off successive referrals. This system can be improved in the following ways:
- You can ask persons to register at a fixed price, buy your products and refer 8-10 persons per month for 20% of the first month’s referral and 10% off successive referrals.
- You can offer 20% for every 1st referral and successive referrals.
- You can offer 10% wholesale referral and 10% discount off successive purchases.
- You can ask persons to register for a one-time fee, buy your products once and refer 4-8 persons per month; they will get 20% off every sale. The difference with this model, however, is that rather than getting 20% off successive or return referrals, since they will only be buying your product once, they will get the 20% only of direct 1st referrals. This means that rather than relying on their referees to purchase every month or week, they will have to continually refer that 4-8 persons per month to earn their 20%.
- Replication possibilities - This system can be duplicated or modeled for almost any business.
For example, if you sell books, you could mark-up the prices to ensure against loss and offer a 20% discount for members who buy and refer others to buy. Therefore rather than giving away money every month, you would give away discounts. If you own a clothing store or shoe store, the same model could be adjusted to suit the business focus. If you own a restaurant, you could give discounted food to returnees.
Briony Irving
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Comments
Briony, these are good pointers. But the title is somewhat incomplete; it looks like the 2 businesses you listed are both Direct Sales types and I would have liked to know that before reading the article.

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