Top Desk
March 2010
Bringing local communities back to life!
Peter Kindersley has a long association with the direct selling industry. Back in 1990 he launched the children’s publishing company Dorling Kindersley Books and today he is Chairman of award-winning Neal’s Yard Remedies, which offers the UK’s largest range of organic health and beauty products.Here Peter talks about his passion for green issues and why he believes direct selling is helping to breathe new life into local communities.
IN recent years it seems the whole strategy behind the big money supermarkets has somehow resulted in the breaking up of communities. So many small shops have disappeared, unable to compete with the giant retailers. I see direct selling as one way of bringing small businesses back into communities.
With direct selling you don’t have the same overheads you would have if you opened a shop, yet you are able to offer a very similar, one-to-one service. With this in mind, I believe the future is looking really bright for the industry generally.
We need to have more systems out there where people are buying from person to person and where there is less of the monopolistic nature of the big retailers. Direct selling is a fantastic social activity. It’s about building friendships.
It’s not just a one way transaction like when you go to a supermarket. There is a huge amount of benefit from it.
It is a very benign activity where everybody becomes a beneficiary. It’s great for communities.
I first got into direct selling as a publisher when I founded Dorling Kindersley Books. We were operating in the UK, America, India, Russia, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, selling children’s educational books for families. We called the company DK Family Learning and it was just a great, great company.
When I was publishing we produced a lot of books about green issues and I became really dedicated to being an environmentalist. It was the environmental issues that really attracted me to Neal’s Yard Remedies as well as the fact that the company was based in London’s Covent Garden, where Dorling Kindersley was also situated. I also knew the owner and felt Neal’s Yard Remedies was very much an educational brand that was keen to inform people about the world around them and about the benefits of natural systems. As Chairman of Neal’s Yard Remedies, I basically provide the vision for the company and make sure the company sticks to its mission.
Direct selling is an incredibly green method of buying and selling. At Neal’s Yard we have a very strong green agenda and I think, at the moment, we are pushing at an open door. So many people are aware of the big issues.
Organic, natural skin care is the fastest growing area in the cosmetics markets worldwide. It’s a very good place to be. When we walk into people’s homes we are saying ‘look we supply things that don’t have all that toxic rubbish in them and we can show you how we make all our products ourselves, from scratch!’ With many other cosmetics on the market you are completely in the dark about what’s in them. Transparency is really important to us. We take a lot of our sellers to our factory so they can see the products they are selling being made, bottled and formulated.
Direct selling is a very environmentally friendly way of doing business. The carbon footprint is much smaller because people can work from home. At Neal’s Yard we grow our own herbs on a 2,000 acre farm in Berkshire and we know the whole history of our products from start to finish.
I think the most significant change in direct selling in recent years has been the internet. Today people can place an order no matter where they are and at any time – even if it’s the early hours of the morning. For those unable to get along to parties it is so convenient to use the internet for follow up orders. The internet can also give us access to how business is doing. It has transformed the way we operate for the better but the fact that we still also sell on a one-to-one basis means we have the best of both worlds.
Direct selling is a fantastic social activity. It’s about building friendships. It’s not just a one way transaction like when you go to a supermarket.
We believe the most important aspect of direct selling is belief in the company and its mission. Relationships are also important. You build up fantastic relationships with people through direct selling. It is a very friendly world.
The prospect of being able to provide people with an extra income is also important. For us recession has been a good thing because people have been looking around for ways of earning extra cash and then often go into the business full time.
Our recipe for success is good communications and training and a good partnership with our Consultants. On our farm in Berkshire we have a full conference centre and our Consultants also come to London for training. We listen to our Consultants a lot and do our best to communicate with them as much as possible. Often Consultants are working by themselves and good communication helps them feel less alone. All our Consultants also have a free website.
We believe now is a great time for the direct selling industry generally. It ticks all the boxes. It helps ordinary people to earn money and have better lives. It could well be the best time ever for the industry, with the added convenience of the internet and the efficiency that brings.
In our product area of the green agenda, it is a particularly good time. We have just branched out into America and that is working really well for us. We have people on the West Coast, Alaska, Montana, Chicago, Indiana and Boston and in quite a number of other states.
We have built up very strong relationships within our company with over 1,000 Consultants in the UK alone.
We have some really good experienced leaders but we also have lots of fantastic newcomers, including men who currently make up around 5 per cent of our sales force.
We believe, wholeheartedly, that direct selling regulations are extremely important for the future success of the industry. We are DSA members and welcome strong regulations. We don’t want to be anywhere near unethical methods of selling whatsoever.
One piece of advice I would give to others is that it is essential to be passionate about what you are selling.
Anita Roddick, founder of The Body Shop, was a wonderful example of this. If you believe in what you are selling you are more likely to be successful at it.
Our company philosophy is very much about empowering people with the right information about cosmetics and skin care. The industry itself has been inclined to obscure ingredients in their products. We prefer to have transparency all the way through the company by being as squeaky clean as we possibly can.
At Neal’s Yard we have a very good career plan which really encourages people to build their networks. It is not just about selling products. It’s also about enabling people to build small businesses for themselves. We are happy with any type of Consultant. we have therapists; we have people who do school fairs and we have people who sell through parties. People can sell in whatever way they want to, but the most important thing is to show people how to build a solid business.
