1. Tell us the story behind Color Me Beautiful?
It all started with a book, Color Me Beautiful, a best seller on how to determine an individual’s best colors. The book has sold over 16 million copies and was the New York Times #1 bestseller for 7 consecutive years. Color Me Beautiful uses the seasonal color theory to help women identify their best wardrobe and cosmetic colors and put together a total image. An analysis of one’s skin tone, hair and eye color reveals whether an individual is a Summer, Winter, Autumn or Spring.
By ’88 we thought ‘why not apply the same concept to cosmetics and build a business around it?’ We struggled between ’88-’92. The business took off in’93. By 2003 we had become a significant success. We became suppliers to large department store chains like JC Penney, Sears, Macy’s, The Bay, Bon Ton and others. We were two time winners of the JC Penney Supplier-of-the-Year Award. And, Ernst & Young and CNN named Color Me Beautiful the Entrepreneurial Company of the Year, for the Mid-Atlantic area, in 2000. “We had definitely made a lot of progress since our launch into cosmetics in ’88”.
Today, with Color Me Beautiful, an entrepreneur has the opportunity to sell nationally recognized cosmetic brands including Flori Roberts, Patti LaBelle, Color Me Beautiful, Iman, Gale Haymanof Beverly Hills and Adrien Arpel.
2. What makes Color Me Beautiful unique?
At Color Me Beautiful we promote Adrien Arpel, Iman, Flori Roberts, Patti Labelle, Gale Hayman and Color Me Beautiful – well established brands each with more than 20 years of successful experience within department stores. This is a huge benefit to our Beauty Consultants as they are selling products with name recognition which have been used by women for decades. 82% of women, ages 35 to 65, know the brands.
Up until recently, our cosmetic brands were only sold through department stores. Now entrepreneurs can sell these well-known products to their friends and acquaintances as a direct selling Beauty Consultant or sell as a Kiosk Owner in a busy mall. Because the brands are so well-known, it makes this a unique ground floor opportunity. Where else can you join a ground floor Company, where you already have 20 years or more worth of customers ready to buy your products? That’s what makes us unique.
3. Can you tell us more about the franchising opportunity you have for women?
Well, for Bizymoms who want to earn $500 a month working part-time, I would recommend our Beauty Consultant opportunity. Most of our Consultants start part-time. They commit 3 hours or so a week to sell their products. They can sell to their friends and colleagues in the neighborhood, in the office, at church or social gatherings, etc. Now, if you’re interested in being a leader, helping others be successful, you’ve got ‘sky’s the limit’ potential. We have a number of leaders, only having been in the business six to eight months, earning $5,000 to $8,000 a month in leadership commissions. These women are working their businesses full time. With their profits from selling their cosmetics as well as their leadership commissions, these individuals are taking home $1,000 to $10,000 a month. We also have Kiosks Owners who operate out of their own kiosks in malls. This is for women who love specialty retailing and cosmetics and are ready to dig into their business full time. Many of the Kiosk Owners are earning six-figure incomes operating a single kiosk. Some have multiple kiosks in different malls and some have also opened in-line stores and spas/salons.
4. Describe to me the person who succeeds with a Color Me Beautiful business?
Our most successful Beauty Consultants, involved part-time, work their cosmetic business on a consistent basis week to week. She is someone who loves cosmetics and wants to help women look and feel good.
Those who have built a large organization of Beauty Consultants and are doing Color Me Beautiful full-time are our leaders and are not only good at selling products, they also love to recruit individuals and help them become successful. These women are driven, hard-working and love to work with and mentor others.
Our most successful Kiosk Owners have many of the same traits as our top Beauty Consultant leaders – they have strong personalities, great conviction, love cosmetics and are determined. Kiosk Owners are selling all day, put in a lot of hours and are training and managing staff. They have to have stamina. It’s also a great benefit if they enjoy training and motivating their staff.
5. What tools do you offer to help a woman, with no business experience, succeed?
We are a marketing oriented company and we believe in ongoing training for our Beauty Consultants and Kiosk Owners. Our Beauty Consultants get Getting Started Career Packs, training manuals, participate in face-to-face and conference call trainings. They learn goal setting, selling, and other skills critical to running a successful direct sales business.
We also provide our Beauty Consultants with their own personal website. This is a big marketing tool. A Consultant can demonstrate her products on clients who, in turn, can buy from the Consultant’s website 24/7. The Consultant doesn’t have to carry inventory. Products are shipped directly to the clients by the Company and the Consultant receives a nice commission check. We call this At Your Service. Some Consultants are earning $2,000 a month in commissions from At Your Service product sales.
For new Kiosk Owners, there’s intense training. We bring the prospective Kiosk Owners into our Color Me Beautiful world headquarters for 4 days of training on the products and how to sell and manage their kiosks. Then we help them to find the right mall and negotiate the lease. We’re also at the kiosk for the Owner’s launch to help them get started the right way. After that, there’s ongoing on-site training. This has proven to be very helpful as many of the Kiosk Owners do not start with either sales or management experience. The ongoing training teaches Kiosk Owners how to hire, direct, motivate, and, when necessary, fire staff. They learn how to track their inventory, how to demonstrate and sell the products, and how to approach customers. It’s a process that takes time. We find, over time, the Kiosk Owners are able to dramatically improve their overall sales and management skills. A number of our Kiosk Owners are earning $100,000 or more with one kiosk. Some have evolved to second and even third kiosks. Some have gone on to open other Color Me Beautiful retail establishments including spas, salons and boutiques.
6. Can you tell me about a mom in your business, who others here at Bizymoms can relate to?
Lillie Boyd Jarrott, a Kiosk Owner from South Carolina, was crippled financially at the time she joined Color Me Beautiful. Lillie has had no college education and a job that did not pay much. She was struggling to raise her daughter and was the chief breadwinner of the household. Says Lillie, “I talk about Color Me Beautiful to everyone I meet. When a woman wants to get out of her job and own her own business, I tell her Color Me Beautiful is the place to be. I was at Bell South for 31 years and I’m now making more in one month than I did in 6 months at Bell. They’ll say to me ‘I don’t have a college degree.’ I say, ‘So what?’ If you’re willing to work hard, you can earn six figures…I was poorer than dirt. Now I have a new life.”
Today Lillie has a six-figure income, drives a Mercedes E320, has a new home, put her daughter through college and lives a great life. In Lillie’s case it was perseverance and her desire to give her family a better life that made her succeed. The opportunity was there. She’s making the most of it. There are many success stories such as Lillie’s at Color Me Beautiful - women with great determination and a love for cosmetics and helping others look and feel good.
7. Tell us more about your concept of making 'the beauty consultant the hero'?
We are in the business of helping women improve their self-esteem. Our Beauty Consultants and Kiosk Owners help their clients look and feel good. The Consultants and Kiosk Owners teach clients their best colors, particularly their best makeup colors. They teach makeup application and how to keep skin looking healthy and young. They take pride in giving great advice and giving exceptional customer care. We focus on training.
We believe in exceptional customer service and, at the end of the day, it’s our Beauty Consultants and Kiosk Owners who provide this service. So we equip them to take care of their clients.
We also have exceptional motivational and reward programs for our Beauty Consultants and Kiosk Owners. We give away Caribbean Cruises, Diamond Jewelry, Mercedes Benz etc. We believe in spending every possible, available dollar on our Beauty Consultants and Kiosk Owners – through training and rewards.
8. How does it feel to be a man in a woman's world?
It’s wonderful. What I love the most about Color Me Beautiful is that it is a business that empowers women. We help bring out a woman’s entrepreneurial spirit and be successful in a unique way.
I love it when we write out big checks to our Beauty Consultants or when a Kiosk Owner buys a new home with her Color Me Beautiful earnings. And I love to award the Mercedes to our successful Beauty Consultants and Kiosk Owners. It is an incredible feeling!
9. Any advice for our mompreneurs?
Be focused. And be determined. You need great determination to keep going no matter how many times you fall. That’s what makes a leader and a successful business owner. Don’t stop because you fail once or twice. Learn from your mistakes and use failure as encouragement to keep going till you reach your goals.
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