Hopelessly Heather

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Everyone loves getting bonuses and perks with their jobs!  Just because Avon is a side hustle for me doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy achieving incentives to win prizes and getting swag bags at events!  Luckily, Avon is incredibly generous and I’ve gotten loads of prizes and freebies over the years.  The slideshow above only shows a portion of the goodies I’ve received over the past 3 years.  (Prior to that I failed to capture and post photos.  Sorry, my bad.)

Some of my favorites over the past few years have been:

1. Achieving a pair of Bose speakers for being in the top 100 reps for online sales in 2015.
2. Receiving my very first statuette for being #3 in my district’s total sales increase for 2015.
3. Receiving the Spirit of Avon award from my manager for 2016.
4. Achieving the pair of gold plated Avon and Beauty Boss necklaces in 2017.
5. Winning the entire Fall for Paris jewelry collection in 2018.

Some fun facts:

(1) When I received the Bose speakers in the mail, I was angry.  I honestly thought someone had screwed up and that I was going to have to return these things during the holiday season.  I opened up the box and, to my surprise, found the note card telling me I’d won the prize and why in the bottom of the box.  I had no idea!  I went online to confirm that it was true – and was stunned to see my name on the list of winners!

(2) The Spirit of Avon award was given to me by a manager I tended to butt heads with. She had her pets, and I certainly wasn’t one of them.  When she announced my name, I had only been half listening, expecting to hear the name of one of her favorites.  I was stunned.  To make the award even sweeter, my mentor won the Spirit of Avon award from her manager, so we shared a stage…and tears!

(3) I’m sure you’re sensing a pattern here and can guess where this will go, but I didn’t find out I’d won the entire Fall for Paris jewelry collection until after I’d virtually gushed all over one of the other winners.  I’d had a rough day at my day job and finally popped onto Facebook at 4:15 PM for a quick mental break.  I don’t Facebook like normal people.  I tend to scroll through my news feed first to catch up on my favorite peeps, then check my notifications, then check my private messages.  Had I gone about it like a normal person, I’d have seen all the congrats, but I didn’t.  The first post I saw was Bethany’s post about her winning.  I was unbelievably excited for her and was even more thrilled that I knew one of the winners!  After excitedly commenting for a few minutes, I noticed that she’d linked to the winners’ album.  So I clicked it thinking I might know some of the other winners too…and I did!  Imagine my shock when I came across my picture in the winners’ album – I literally got out of my chair and started jumping up and down like a child!  That excitement lingered for well over a month!

What the slideshow doesn’t capture is the ton of free samples and products I’ve received for conquering incentives as well as the cold hard cash I’ve gotten for achieving new leadership titles.  When looking at everything en masse, it’s pretty astonishing to see what I’ve amassed outside of my regular sales commissions and leadership earnings!

When joining a direct sales company, people tend to look at just the bottom line commissions they make.  While that is a legitimate concern, try to keep in mind that there are lots of ways to be compensated.  A regular paycheck may be necessary to receive, but it’s not the most fun!

What freebies, prizes or awards have you received?!