How DOES an Avon lady earn £170,000 for a 20-hour week? Answer: With 2,500 underlings and a very special Avon man!

Ding dong! Avon Lady Gail Reynolds, 43, with her Mercedes, which has a personalised number plate?

In the past year, Mrs Reynolds, it was 報告（する）／憶測d, has earned £170,000 for working a 20-hour week.

That’s more than the 総理大臣, the headlines shrieked, and for a 職業 that didn’t 伴う／関わる running the country or even the World Bank. No, Gail was a mere flogger of lipsticks and 泡 bath ― but enough of them to make a turnover of, gulp, £7.5 million.

明白に there’s going to be some number crunching necessary here, but 率直に, on her doorstep I’m not so much 捜し出すing an interview with Gail as a masterclass. 特に when she 迎える／歓迎するs me in her slippers, which 追加するs a whole 層 of envy. That’s £170,000 a year, for 20 hours’ work, which you do at home in your slippers?

Surely the first question here has to be: ‘Do you need an 見習い工?’

式のs, it seems she already has one. As I am 勧めるd into her office (aka her living room), she sends her daughter Libby to make coffee.

Next month, when she turns 18, Libby will start working as an Avon rep, though she will have to wear shoes because she is ‘starting at the 底（に届く）’, which will 伴う／関わる much door-to-door schlepping. Like many teens, Libby has expensive tastes in shoes ― but that’s 承認する, because Mum is pretty 確かな she’ll be able to afford Manolos sooner than most.

Gail says: ‘She’s done a 商売／仕事 計画（する）, worked it all out. She reckons she’ll make £40,000 in the first year, building up to £100,000 the year after, and £250,000 by year three.’

Mr and Mrs Avon: Gail with her hard-working husband Brian, who やめる his 職業 to join her Avon adventure

Eh? What comes after that? A 私的な jet by the time she is 25? ‘No, she’ll use the money to open her own dog grooming 商売／仕事,’ says Gail.

‘It’s not a 麻薬を吸う dream, it’s a proper 商売／仕事 計画（する）. I’ve been over the 人物／姿／数字s with her. She knows what she is doing. She’s grown up watching me and Brian. She knows 正確に／まさに what is possible.’

Oh yes, Brian. Something that didn’t receive as much hoopla in this week’s ニュース報道 was the fact Gail hasn’t 達成するd her 抱擁する Avon success 選び出す／独身-handedly. She started selling 製品s door-to-door 13 years ago, but within a year, her husband Brian ― who had been working in a 最高の- market― had やめる his 職業 and joined her.

Where is Brian today? ‘Oh, he’s working. He’s at a training 会合 today. He goes all over the country.’ How many hours a week does Brian work, then? ‘Oh it 変化させるs, but at the minute he’s doing about 60.’

Aha! The penny 減少（する）s. The secret of 存在 a £170,000 a year Avon lady, it seems, is to have an Avon gentleman that you send out to do the hard slog.

Can men sell lipstick, though?

‘Oh yes. Some of the best Avon reps are men. I find that the ones who used to sell 二塁打 glazing are the best. Anyway, it’s not about selling 製品s ― the Avon 製品s sell themselves ― it’s about selling yourself.’

I catch up with Brian on the phone. He says he assumed, like many do, that his wife was going to be 収入 pin money when she 調印するd up for Avon. When she was （疑いを）晴らすing £1,000 a month, though, he started to think again.

‘I remember thinking: “If she is doing this part-time, imagine what we could do together if I gave up my 職業.” So I did.’

Did he know the first thing about make-up?

‘No, 絶対 nothing,’ he 収容する／認めるs. ‘If anyone asked about it on the doorstep, I’d have to say: “Let me phone my wife.” ’

Is he an 専門家 now? ‘井戸／弁護士席, I wouldn’t say that. But I do know the difference between mascara and eyeliner.’

The mother of three started selling 製品s door-to-door 13 years ago but now has 2,500 underlings

Then there is the 残り／休憩（する） of the team. For those of you 急ぐing to 調印する up as Avon ladies in the hope of instant millionaire status, here is some disappointing news: that staggering £7.5 million turnover was 達成するd by Team Gail, rather than the lady herself.

Her underlings ― the Avon foot 兵士s she 新採用するd, taking a 削減（する） of their 収入s (anything up to 14 pc) ― number a staggering 2,500.

If there is a simple answer to the question of how one woman sells so much lipstick, it is this: she doesn’t, but she is in 告発（する），告訴（する）／料金 of a lot of women (and men) who do.

Still, whatever way you look at it, Gail is something of a 現象. Just 15 years ago, she was a 選び出す／独身 mum, having had two children to two men, neither of whom were any longer on the scene.

She was on 利益s, living in a 地階 flat in an area so rough that ‘you didn’t go out after 6pm’.

‘I couldn’t afford anything else,’ she says. ‘There were 強姦s and 殺人s on my street. I remember when the lady （機の）カム to 新採用する me for Avon. She said she only had 15 minutes because she didn’t want to b e walking 負かす／撃墜する the street too late. I said: “I’ll walk you out.”

‘I was in the gutter, worrying where the next penny would come from. I’d have to save up for months just to 扱う／治療する my eldest, Ashleigh, to a McDonald’s. I remember thinking: “I don’t want to live like this. I don’t want this for my children.” ’

Avon changed her life ― and if Gail sounds a bit smug about that then you can see why.

She bought her first home, a modest 半分 in Weymouth, Dorset, in 2006 on the 利益（をあげる）s of selling lipstick. ‘I made £7,000 in the first year, £14,000 in the second and £31,000 in the third. The house cost £135,000. It’s only small ― too small for us now, but at the time it was a palace.’

Now, after some 財政上の wheeling-and-取引，協定ing (that home is let, because it made 財政上の sense), she and Brian are renting a palatial pad in her native Midlands while waiting to buy their second home, again in Dorset.

‘The dream is to put a swimming pool in it,’ she says. ‘I’ve been buying a lot of house magazines.’ Gail’s conversation groans with 言及／関連s to holidays earned by hitting Avon 的s. The company is famous for the incentives ― 解放する／自由な holidays and even cars ― 申し込む／申し出d to its 最高の，を越す 販売人s.

Gail and Brian’s cars （機の）カム from Avon, and a third is 推定する／予想するd this year. The model will depend on 会合 sales 的s. Gail walks and 会談 Avon evangelism. Above her desk is a ‘動機づけ board’ with the word BELIEVE in 巨大（な） letters at the 最高の，を越す. She updates it every year, with goals for the 12 months ahead.

Critics of Avon’s modus operandi say that women like Gail get rich at the expense of the millions of ordinary Avon Ladies 世界的な. Stories abound of wide-注目する，もくろむd 希望に満ちたs having to offload unsold 在庫／株 at car boot sales. Why is Gail’s story so different?

‘I worked. I slogged. My first 利益（をあげる） was £5 ― and for that I’d put in maybe ten hours’ work. I wouldn’t have been 収入 anywhere 近づく the 最小限 行う at the start. It didn’t make 財政上の sense. People just give up. I didn’t.’

It’s all a bit more 複雑にするd than that, though. By the time Gail joined Avon in 2003, she had done a 調書をとる／予約する-keeping course and taken accountancy exams.

Depressingly for those of us who want a quick 大勝する to millionairedom, this isn’t one.

Gail may be 普通の／平均（する）ing a 20-hour week now, but her account of her rags-to-riches story 含むs tales of packing up 製品s in the 少しの small hours, having doors slammed in her 直面する, trudging to （弁護士の）依頼人s through the snow and sacrifice.

‘I 行方不明になるd my son’s 16th birthday because I was working. I 行方不明になるd parents’ evenings. To say it has been an 夜通し success, 井戸／弁護士席, no. But it has given me the life I never even dreamed of having.’

So, how does it work? For every £100 of 製品s Gail sells, she gets to keep £25.

But it is in the 新採用するing of other Avon ladies (and gentlemen) that the true 利益（をあげる）s are to be made, because she gets between 10 and 14 per cent of everything her team makes, too.

While she and Brian made £167,500 in the last 財政上の year, Gail explains at least half of that was ploughed 支援する into the 商売／仕事 to cover travel expenses, advertising and staff incentives (holidays, concert tickets, meals out).

Then the taxman (who, as yet, has not agreed to be paid in 泡 bath) must get his 株.

All in all, we are talking of a 逮捕する family income of いっそう少なく than £80,000 ― still putting them in the aff luent bracket, but we are not talking Donald Trump 領土.

‘Is there oodles in the bank? Oh God, no. I wish there was!’ she says. ‘We’ve gone from 存在 the sort of people who had to be careful with every penny to the sort who can spend £200 in Sainsbury’s without 存在 手足を不自由にする／（物事を）損なうd by it. But we shop in Aldi and Lidl mostly.’

Designer 着せる／賦与するs? ‘I bought my first designer outfit recently.’ Prada? Gucci? ‘No, Ted パン職人.’

That second home may be everyone’s dream, but she 収容する／認めるs it is 存在 bought with a 90 per cent mortgage. I also 位置／汚点／見つけ出す a 地位，任命する-It 公式文書，認める above the 動機づけ board on which someone has scrawled: ‘We need to find £6,700 for stamp 義務.’

‘Considering where I’ve come from, I’ve made it,’ says Gail. ‘My children have 貯金 in the bank. The older two have a car each. To me that is everything.’

Are there lessons to learn from Gail? やめる かもしれない, but she does rather seem to be running away with the idea of herself as a 役割 model for others. In the past few years she has 始める，決める herself up as a 商売／仕事 guru and written a motivational 調書をとる／予約する.

What of inspirational people in 商売／仕事? She 特記する／引用するs Alan Sugar as her big hero.

‘I’ve 現実に 適用するd twice to be on The 見習い工, but I think I’m too old for them. I’ve got more ありふれた sense than most of them. Though it wouldn’t be hard.’

So, what’s the 結論? You 明白に don’t have to have your finger on the pulse of 現在の 事件／事情／状勢s to be a successful businesswoman. But you do have t o be a grafter. Oh, and be married to another grafter.

By the time we finish and I traipse 支援する 負かす／撃墜する the gravel 運動, Brian still isn’t home. Which, in hindsight, makes a lot of sense.

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