If you have been looking at Watkins Products such as the Vanilla, Black Pepper, and or Cinnamon, but you’re just not sure about trying them out, try this: Send me an email at smi@foxvalley.net including your name and address, and we will send you out the Gold Medal Assortment consisting of the full-size Original Double-Strength Vanilla 11oz, Black Pepper 6oz, and Cinnamon 6oz.  We will send you an invoice and you can do one of two things: Pay us within 30 days or return the containers and you owe nothing.  The price for the Gold Medal Assortment is only $32.99 and we will charge $4.99 for shipping.  Again, you don’t have to pay up front and you can return the containers if you are not blown away by the vanilla, black pepper, and cinnamon.

The Gold Medal Assortment is called that because Watkins won gold medals for each of these products during the World’s Fair in the 1920′s.  The Vanilla is bake proof and freeze proof, double strength so that you only use half of what your recipe calls for, low alcohol, and made with the finest bourbon vanilla beans in the world!  The black pepper is made from the best parts of the peppercorn and is sneeze proof.  The cinnamon is granulated rather than ground and produces much less cinnamon dust than what you’ll find in other cinnamons.  These are all great products!

The opportunity to get the Gold Medal Assortment for trial is only available during May 2012, and only for residents of the lower 48 states, so request yours soon!

Why in the world would you want to join Watkins as an Associate, if you aren’t interested in running a home-based business?

1. You get a 25% discount.  When you buy from Watkins Incorporated as an Associate, you get a 25% discount from dollar one.  Even if you only buy $100 per month, that is $300 per year in savings over the suggested retail price.

2. Your product arrives fresh.  While we do everything possible to sell the freshest product, Watkins ships it to us, we store it, then ship it to our customers.  We watch the best if used by dates and such… but the only way to get the freshest Watkins Products is to purchase them from the factory.  You can also purchase from Watkins Incorporated as a customer using our id, #085682, but you don’t get the 25% discount unless you are a Watkins Associate.

3. Watkins Products are worth buying at full retail price.  If you compare prices to the supermarket, you aren’t getting the full picture.  Watkins Products are the highest possible quality, well worth the asking price, and they come with an unconditional 100% money-back guarantee.

4. Watkins collects sales taxes for you.  There is no need to worry about filing with state agencies because as long as you are just buying for yourself, Watkins takes care of the taxes.

5. Paperwork is not needed.  You only need to fill out your International Agreement or sign up online, then just visit watkinsonline.com to order.

6. Watkins ships UPS ground in most cases.  Expect your products to arrive in good shape… if not, Watkins will take care of you.

7. It only costs $39.95 plus applicable taxes to become a Watkins Associate.  (remember when I said you would save around $300 per year?)  Unlike other programs, most Watkins Associates renew their memberships every year because they just love the products!

8. Did I mention that Watkins Products are worth buying, and come with a 100% unconditional money-back guarantee?  Contact us if you are unhappy for any reason.

9. Maybe you do really want to start a business?  Ok, just thought I’d throw this in there.  If Watkins Products are so good, you can make at least 25%, and you have a 100% unconditional money-back guarantee for your purchases and your customers’ purchases, why wouldn’t you want to make this your business?

10. We do not pressure.  We are here to support you and your goals, whatever they may be… not to pressure you to do things that make no sense for you.  You want to just buy for yourself, that’s ok with us.

Remember that if you sign up during the month of April, you qualify for a free $50 Watkins gift certificate…

We have just found out that the samples we have been sending out in the past week cannot take the pressure of the U.S. Mail. Unfortunately, we are not sure who got which samples. If your samples didn’t survive the mail and leaked all over the literature, please feel free to either request the information again or email me at smi@foxvalley.net. We are so sorry for the inconvenience.

An update: Apparently the samples only exploded on one information packet. Everyone else is telling me the information and samples arrived in good shape.

Based on the tsgnet.com website, we were #29 in group volume for March. That is down a bit from February, but still respectable. We wound up over $4,000 in group volume for our third month in a row. We may or may not make #1 for personal sales again, only time will tell. But we were pretty close to February. (These results are Summit Group only)

In March we sponsored two associates personally, which is much better than the last few months before. We are going to try to do better with follow up in the coming months as Chris will be working for the business full time beginning April 2nd. We are currently following up with postcards, but we expect to make calls, at least to Summit Group co-op leads. By the way, we have sponsored all but one new associate with the Summit Co-op. It has been a really good source of leads for new associates.

I never really thought we could maintain volume over $4,000, but we just keep selling more and finding new places to sell. Watkins Products have a really good demand among customers who know them, and we are introducing new customers to the products. As a whole, Watkins could be looking at a complete rebirth. With the economy growing again, opportunities abound!

I know it’s not always easy to get started, I mean it took us nearly 20 years to take off… But when you consider that we’ve only put our full effort into the business the past two, it’s really not that bad. If you become an associate, put your entire self into the business. Become a Watkins Associate, don’t just join. Be willing to put yourself out there and talk about what you do. Carry business cards. Give away a bit of product. Be excited about what you’re doing. Ignore the negative… because people will be negative, thinking they are doing you a favor.

If you are a Watkins Associate in any group, I urge you to comment about your experiences with Watkins.

While we were #1 in February, we probably will not repeat in March, just letting you know. By the way, this is not #1 in all of Watkins, just within the 6,000 Summit Group members. I am not sure what personal sales looks like for other Watkins Associates, it’s possible that some do beat us.

We are actually redirecting our company to slowly build on our sales, but to focus more on bringing new associates aboard. We have proven, though, that Watkins Products can be sold.

Sales have been fairly steady… I keep waiting to see if we made #1 in sales volume again in February, but the numbers have not yet been posted by Summit. We did ship another gallon of vanilla and a gallon of the foaming hand soap. We sponsored a new associate in March. Chris is quitting her job (gave notice) and is going to be the VP of Operations for Satterlee Marketing full time beginning April 2. This will get orders out of the door sooner and have somebody manning the phones during the day. She will have many other duties also, will probably keep her very busy and allow me to focus more on consulting.

Watkins has been selling surprisingly well in March. We raised our prices online and lost a bit of volume, but not much. When people want the product, they want the product. One place has been better than the rest but we have made a couple of sales in various marketplaces. We have also gotten telephone orders this month.

I had a prospect from the Manager Lead program that seems to be very excited to get going, so maybe he will be a signup in the near future. Hoping for more good leads as magazine advertisements roll out. Yes, we have classifieds in various places such as Entrepreneur and Inc magazines.

We are starting to look at making the web site better and producing some new videos. I have been talking to my son about some ideas. He has been doing background work for various TV shows in LA but does have some time to work on video or website projects. If you wonder, he has been doing a lot of Glee, GCB, House, Hart of Dixie, and various other places. He is in the GCB commercial that shows the back of the cheerleader when her top pops open, he is in the stands wearing a blue shirt.

That’s about it for now. I will let you know ASAP how we ranked in the Summit Group once the stats are posted.

Among our orders was one for a gallon sized double-strength vanilla.  I never really expected I would sell one but I’ve been stocking it.  It really is amazing what has been selling.

We had been slow for the prior week because of pricing changes but people are really buying now.  I figured we would have a light March but we might just exceed $2000 in sales.  I guess we will see.

I have been working hard to get more items listed.  I’ve found several more websites that do marketplace type listings… I may not expand any more though, I’ll just let others do that for me.  I probably know of at least 5 more websites that should pull some sales that we are not listed on.

Summit has not yet listed February sales results but we are hoping for a good placement.  What we need now is help!

Here we are in March, and February was really good. I mean really, really good. We topped our January personal sales numbers. So are we still #1 for central sales in February? Only time will tell…

We have been starting to see more prospects ask for free information from us. Three yesterday, one today so far. Probably 2 – 5 per day would be good. There are plenty of people out there that are looking to start a business now, with the economy getting better. We have had a hard time reaching business people until recently… it seems like we’re doing pretty well now.

We expect sales to be slower in March than February as we have become less competitive on pricing… our direct sales have always been at suggested retail but we often shipped without a shipping fee. We now charge $4.99. Our online sales were competitive with others on price, now we price at least at suggested retail. Ebay has been a little hotter recently but the majority of our sales comes from somewhere else.

We are trying to expand our sales efforts but are struggling to do so. It takes a lot of work to setup a new place and there are so many online.

My question in the title of this post is not referring to whether Watkins Products are allowed to be sold in retail establishments, but whether the products actually sell when being sold in a retail environment.  The answer: probably, to some degree.  For the general consumer, who sees Watkins 6oz Black Pepper next to another black pepper, probably not.  Why?  Because Watkins costs more and when they don’t know the difference, they will choose lower priced.

That’s where Associates come in.  We are here to sell the product.  Not to peddle items that people wouldn’t normally buy, but to demonstrate the products and give the customer good reasons to buy.  We are here to answer objections.  We are here to offer insight.  In a retail environment, the product stands alone.  When you buy from an Associate, they can give you tips and recipes.  They can tell you what they like and what they don’t.  They can help the customer make a decision about which product they should try.  We are also the biggest advocate for our unconditional 100% money-back guarantee.  You don’t like an item, return it.  Heck, I’ll take it back fully used in a year.

Watkins Products are sold by Watkins Associates, who dearly love the products.  Watkins Products, and only a few, are offered in some grocery stores just to get the Watkins name out there.  But we are the ones who sell them.

Just wanted to share with you all that we were able to reach the top of the Summit Group list for personal sales for January 2012, and we achieved manager level. For February, we may even top those sales numbers and earn our $500 bonus. Wonder how we do it? Join our group and find out!

We also have some growing associates in our group that are doing very well. I am excited by your accomplishments!