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Vondell McKenzie was steadfast in her faith and turned her Leadership dreams into an $8.2 million enterprise.

Few people saw Leadership as a big-ticket earning opportunity when it was introduced in 1991. But Vondell McKenzie, from Los Banos, California, saw a great future ahead for those brave enough to make the leap.

Vondell may have been new to Avon, but that didn’t stop her from telling those who would listen that Leadership was the perfect way “to turn a pocket-change operation into a six-figure business.” It was hardly an easy sell. “There simply wasn’t the organization, the support staff, and tools that we have today,” says Vondell, now a Play Executive Unit Leader. “And you had no examples to inspire you or people to show you the ropes.”

Vondell is a very persuasive person, with unshakable faith in her own instincts, even when they go against common wisdom. Those instincts, honed through years of sales experience, plus her willingness to take risks and, above all, her commitment to her Downline, have made Vondell a bona fide Avon success story — and an inspiration. The Honor Society member is one of Avon’s most successful Leadership Representatives. Her 30-year-old business generated over $8.2 million in annual sales.

Perseverance in the face of setbacks has fueled Vondell’s success. Even personal tragedy has not deterred her. When she was 8 years old and growing up in Statesboro, Georgia, she saw her father’s auto repair shop burn to the ground. Undeterred by the setback, her father simply built a new shop, and soon it was business as usual.

When Vondell was a young girl of 15, her mother died. Twenty years later, herself a mother of three small children, she saw her home in Cincinnati go up in flames, taking with it many of the family’s worldly possessions. “I realized most acutely that anything material can be replaced, but the people who are close to you, you can’t replace them,” she says. “I still had my husband and my children, and that’s really what mattered.”

In 1991, having moved to California, she started an Avon business with her husband, Terry, who was then an engineer with IBM. She approached it with the seriousness of a full-time business: She set goals for herself, met them and then raised the sales bar — all the while building up her Downline.

“What I always tell anybody interested in Avon is that you have to be consistent, set goals and then meet them,” she says. “Even if you can only work two days a week, then you have to follow that schedule to achieve your goals.” Furthermore, anyone interested in earning six figures, she continues, “must approach Avon as a serious full-time business, one that will require sacrifices, late nights, total support from your family, and a willingness to take risks.”

Terry and Vondell worked together for more than five years until he was diagnosed with cancer. Vondell then had to divide her time between her Avon business and caring for her husband. It has been 10 years since Terry’s death, and Vondell still feels the loss. “Not only did I lose someone dear to me, but I lost a business partner who helped me every step of the way to make this business thrive.”

Still, the family tradition continues. All three of her children have developed Avon businesses, while one of her grandsons, 31-year-old Adisa, is the newest member of the clan to start his own business.

But then Vondell looks upon her Downline, which is known as the Nova Group, as a kind of extended family. With thousands of Representatives in her “family,” Vondell is affectionately known as “Mom” and “Grandma” by many of those in her Downline.

Vondell emphasizes to new Recruits that Leadership is really the best way for earnings to increase exponentially. “One thing for sure is that if Representatives are having high sales, then they’ll have lots of Customers, and inevitably they will want to turn those Customers into Representatives,” says Vondell. ”You can’t build the kind of business like I have by myself. You need a team of people who share your goals in order to be successful.”

But then to Vondell, Avon means much more than just selling a product. “I really don’t like to say that I’m selling Avon per se,” she says. “What I’m doing is building a business enterprise, and that’s the way I prefer to put it.”