nail company representative: doing nails or just selling?

[cro-mari]

Hi everyone, sorry if this has been asked before, I'm new here but:

Recently I got an offer from one company to become their educator (they have everything for artificial nails). First, I would have to go through their complete training to get an educator certificate, which is ok and free, btw.
But apart from educating, that would also mean that I would have to be a distributor for their products in my area.

I have a registered business, paying taxes and all, but I work alone and can't afford to hire someone else, and the last thing I want is to end up answering phones and writing invoices all day and such things because all people and salons from my area who would want to buy this products would be directed to me. Also, considering their terms for distributors, I wouldn't earn THAT much and I'm affraid that this would take my time away from my clients for nothing, and my clients are the most important. Am I wrong?

I want to do nails, teaching someone to do that is fine also, but I think sales is a full time job... and by sales I don't mean retail stuff for my clients, but large salon orders. So I would like to hear your thoughts and experiences...

 

[annemac]

You are right your clients are the most important, you have to do what makes you happy. I am sorry I can't give you more advice but I am still learning myself. But I was always told be true to yourself.

 

[Doorie]

in my opinion, your best bet is to see with the brand what they can offer you for this issue.

true it is great to train ppl too, but your clients are important, so you have to balance each thing in order to decide fully. also ask them how much time you'll have to "give" them as an educator, on what basis they will send ppl to you, and how much you can be paid for that.

 

[cro-mari]

Thank you, good points... as I said, I have to think this through before I sign something... they said I'd have to do at least one education per month, which is not much and surely there would be more of them. For one education (few days) i would be payed cca amount of my 5 sets of gel nails. But I'm not worried about that, sales is the thing that worries me...

 

[Gina Silvestro]

I too was in the same situation as you, wondering if I could do all it entailed. I thought it over for a whole year, and finally decided I could do it if I had a business partner to share the responsibilities. We became distributors 1 1/2 ago, best decision I ever made It IS alot of work though. I could not have done it on my own, I still do nails full time but I'm trying to cut back a little so I can concentrate more on education. I love it!

I also think its important to continue servicing cients if you are an educator/distributor. To keep up your skills so you can pass them on to your students. And to be able to troubleshoot. Thats the advantage of having nail techs BE the distributor. For customer support.

Its a new business when you first get sta,rted, but you can grow along with it. We started out doing it all ourselves, we now have 5 nail techs working for us, a book keeper and a shipper/receiver. That way we can still do what we love best. Nails

 

[cro-mari]

hehey, I was just watching your tutorials, Gina! :wink2:
so thank you for both of your advice :hug:

I needed to hear from someone who already went through all of that... and I think I'm gonna wait for awhile before I sign something, because I'm alone in this.

But thank you all :hug:

 

[Doorie]

yeah, it's important to have someone, or even a team if you can. I work for a distributor and we all work as a team so it's really great.