ORLANDO, Fla. — This Avon rep wears a hard hat and carries a pile of company catalogs to his day job on a construction site, encouraging the men to buy their ladies a little something.
Perfume and lingerie are his top sellers. Oh, and he won’t go a day without the women’s wrinkle cream.
Meet Bobby McKinney. Your local Avon man.
“Forget the product, forget it’s Avon. This is a very viable business,” says the 58-year-old fire code inspector from Winter Haven, Fla. He made about $800,000 in sales last year along with his wife and oversees about 170 sales reps.
McKinney is one of a growing number of men selling products from the New York-based beauty company. It’s also part of a strategic move by Avon to broaden its appeal.
Sales to men and an increasing number of products for them has helped Avon’s bottom line, with sales growing from about $6.2 billion in 2002 to $8.7 billion in 2006.
Yankees star Derek Jeter partnered with the company to create his own line of products, called Driven, which includes cleansers, cologne, aftershave and deodorant. His cologne became Avon’s best-selling men’s fragrance of all time, and its second best-selling fragrance overall.
Avon recently produced its first men’s catalog, which features a PROExtreme skin care line, boxer shorts and power tools. New recruiting brochures also picture both men and women.
“Anti-aging is very intriguing to (men),” said Regina Dinisio, public relations manager of Avon fragrance. “They want no-hassle products, but they want to see the real benefits.”
Industry experts say the men’s market is ripe, though still in its early stages.
“We have seen that men are more interested in pampering themselves and taking better care of themselves overall,” said Karen Grant, senior beauty industry analyst at the market research firm NPD Group Inc.
She’s seen an increase in sales in the men’s beauty market, along with a host of new products since 2003.
U.S. sales of men’s skin care products totaled $68.9 million in 2006, up from $45.8 million in 2000. In comparison, women’s skin care sold about $2.1 billion in 2006 and $1.7 billion in 2000, according to NPD.
Fewer than 13,000 of Avon’s 650,000 representatives in the U.S. are male, though that figure is rough because applicants are not required to state their gender. Competitor Mary Kay says 5,738 of its 700,000 sales reps are men.
McKinney entered the Avon world three years ago when he realized his wife, Joy, a 20-year Avon veteran, was doing six figures a year in sales. With some experience in network marketing already, McKinney started teaching sales courses to new reps, passing out brochures and filling orders. Today, about 80 percent of his clients are men.
Jovial and stocky with a blond goatee, McKinney is a Marine Corps vet who says he twice took shrapnel hits in Vietnam and wrestled professionally under the name “Cowboy Bobby Steel.” He’s no David Beckham-styled metrosexual.
Neither is Sal D’Amico, a 34-year-old corrections lieutenant in Levittown, Pa., who finds a way to work Avon into every conversation — at the gym between bicep curls, at his kid’s soccer games, standing in line at the bank.
Sure, he gets a little razzing from his fellow officers, but he shrugs it off.
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