Natura creates a enterprise faculty to extend the earnings of 1.3 million consultants and franchises

The project will have courses developed by the consultants themselves and by internal and market professionals. First phase helped increase female entrepreneurs’ productivity by 148%

THE nature recently aired a business School specific to the more than 1.3 million enterprising who work with direct sale in your ecosystem. Of these, 558 are franchisees from the stores Here’s Nature. Named “Ciranda Natura, Business School with Affection”, the project aims to professionalize resellers and franchisees in a more personalized way, meeting the specific needs of each one. The novelty was brought forward to Small Businesses & Big Businesses.

The project is an evolution of the Training Consultants, announced last year, and which aims to build horizontal education, with material developed and applied by the consultants themselves teaching sales techniques to their colleagues. According to Natura, there are already more than 100 training consultants, who earn to participate in this action, with the potential to reach 400.

In the first year of the project, the consultants and franchisees who participated in the training had an average increase in productivity of 148% and even doubled their earnings, according to the company. Between January and August of this year alone, 406,000 female entrepreneurs accessed the training.

The focus of the new phase of the project, for which the investment was not disclosed, is to increase the professionalization of the consultants and, consequently, the sales and the average ticket of each one. “Obviously we had more demand in the pandemic for direct sales, but our focus is not to increase the channel – even because we have a proportion of demand with consumers – but to strengthen the sales of those within our network, to make them grow”, explains Agenor Leão, vice president of business at Natura.

The guidelines for this strategy have been two indices developed by the company. The first analyzes the quality of life of the entrepreneur during the partnership with Natura: the HDI-CN (Human Development Index of Natura Consultants) was created in 2014, inspired by the UNDP (United Nations Development Program) and analyzes the dimensions of health, knowledge and work. Based on the results, the company defines strategies to build social solutions according to their needs. Five HDI measurements have already been carried out in Brazil and one in Hispanic America, the last being in 2019, which recorded an advance of 3.1%.

The second index is the IP&L (Integrated Profits and Losses), which measures and reports the socio-environmental effects of the operation. “One of the things we measure is the consultant’s income, and we have experienced an increase”, says Leão.

The courses developed by the consultants will be part of Ciranda Natura, but the project will also have content made by specialists in development and training, both internally and externally. Classes can be accessed in person or virtually, through a digital platform.

Among the topics are introduction to entrepreneurship, digital world, trails of digital influence and specific knowledge in products and brand treatment lines. Some certify consultations with diplomas. “Consultants who start to undertake as owners of deductibles demand for even more complete materials in terms of business management”, he explains. The Aqui tem Natura franchise is managed by consultants who have gone through direct sales and are invited to open stores to supply other representatives in their regions.

Leão says that, more than teaching techniques, the objective is to improve behavioral, social and self-knowledge skills. “In addition to leveraging new talents and offering conditions for our network to boost their business, our goal is to teach these women to recognize themselves as entrepreneurs and assume the role and social space they deserve,” she says.

Like Natura, several companies that work with direct sales have reinforced the training and financial education of their consultants. O Boticário, Quem Said, Berenice? and Hinode have also invested in their own platforms or in hiring external content for the application of these trainings.

According to the Brazilian Association of Direct Sales Companies (ABEVD), in 2021, there were four million direct sales consultants in Brazil. Of them, 52% worked with cosmetics and personal care; more than half (57.8%) were women; and 35.8% were between 30 and 40 years old. Almost half (49.6%) had completed high school or incomplete higher education.

According to the World Federation of Direct Selling Associations (WFDSA), Brazil is the seventh largest world market in the sector, representing more than US$ 7 billion.

Source: PEGN Magazine