Tech Powerhouse to Lip Gloss Maven!

Growing up, Elizabeth Demas wasn’t exactly a ‘girly girl.’

‘I remember my third-grade birthday,’ she said. ‘I got a pink jewelry box, a pink watch, Strawberry Shortcake doll and her sidekick, Lemon Meringue. I cried.’

She would have much preferred … …a science kit, an ant farm or a make-your-own radio set. In the gifted program at school, she loved calculus and physics. At Fort Hays State she earned a bachelor’s degree in computer networking and an MBA with an emphasis in information technology. That’s why it’s so hard for some people to understand how she can now make her living as an Avon lady.

Did we say ‘make a living’? Make that a very good living. The 33-year-old Gardner woman owns her own Avon store in Overland Park — one of only two in the area. She has been featured on the cover of the company’s magazine and won trips and cruises. And out of the 675,000 Avon representatives nationwide, she ranks in the top half of 1 percent.

Not bad for a woman who got laid off from her job at Sprint less than five years ago.

But let’s back up.

Knocked on doors

Demas liked her job at Sprint. She had friends and made good money. But after she had survived several rounds of layoffs at the company, her boss called her into his office on a cold day in January of 2003, several days before her 30th birthday. His hands were shaking as he read the words off an index card. Your services, he told her, are no longer needed.

A lot of other Sprint employees had been laid off, too. She heard stories of people losing their houses and being grateful for jobs that paid less than half of what they had been making. In May she got married to a man at Sprint and moved into his house in Gardner with her two children from a previous marriage. He got laid off as well.

By October her unemployment checks were running out. Not knowing what else to do, she turned to Avon. She had sold it part time in college to make some spending money. But if she worked hard enough, she thought, she could turn it into a career.

And so it was that Elizabeth Demas, poor, desperate and motivated, began to sell Avon in Gardner in Johnson County.

‘I did it the old-fashioned way,’ the cheery Demas said. ‘I just knocked on doors and talked to people.’

With George, the Avon guy

A lot of doors. It was slow at first, but she stuck with it. Eventually she not only made sales but also recruited others to sell under her. That’s the key in Avon. If you can get a lot of people in your ‘downline,’ as it’s called, you cannot only make money off of your own sales, but you also can take a small percentage of theirs. In five months of near nonstop selling and recruitment, the curly redhead with the copper fashion glasses had nearly 100 people in her downline.

After only six months she had done so well the company flew her to New York, where it put her on the cover of Avon’s Dreams magazine with five other high achievers.

Other perks followed — free trips to Cozumel, Cancun, Key West, British Columbia and the Bahamas. In April of 2005 she opened up her own Avon store at College Boulevard and Quivira Road in Overland Park. Her husband works there with her. He sometimes identifies himself as ‘George, the Avon Guy.’

Together they make a meaty six-figure income.

‘In this last (business) cycle, we made inner circle, the highest sales level in Avon,’ she said. ‘You have to sell more than $272,000 to make inner circle.’

A lot of people can’t figure out how she has done it.

‘People said, ‘She’s just lucky,’ or that I knew lots of people in Gardner,’ Demas said. ‘No. I didn’t know anybody, and it wasn’t luck. I just tried twice as hard.’ *