Redefine Your Future

Lori Manning – Family Values Posted by Rodan + Fields on Wednesday, March 5th, 2014                                 Lori Manning was ready to give back, and Rodan + Fields helped show her how   Lori Manning has been a stay-at-home mom for most of her adult life, and she has enjoyed every moment of it. She has joyfully and thoughtfully brought up her children to be the kind and successful adults they are today, and family has always been the most important part of her life. She is thankful that she got to be there for her children as they grew up, applauding their accomplishments and cheering them on in all of their endeavors. All the little things that every mom wants to be around for, from first steps to new best friends and first loves, she has been able to share in their lives.   She jokingly refers to her family of eight as the “Brady Bunch,” having three of her own biological children and three by marriage. The years have been full of love and excitement, and even in the more difficult times, she wouldn’t have traded motherhood, with all of its triumphs and challenges, for anything. Lori Manning and her husband. When Lori’s two youngest children went away to college, she began exploring the idea of finding work outside of her home life. She wasn’t quite sure what she was looking for, but she knew she craved something fun and interesting that would leave her with the flexibility she was used to having. She didn’t find anything that appealed to her until one day, a little over four years ago, a friend of her daughter’s met a stranger on an airplane who shared the Rodan + Fields® business opportunity with her. That friend passed along the information, and Lori soon found herself researching and learning about Rodan + Fields, and how she could start her own business as an Independent Consultant from home. Impressed by the dermatologists and the brand reputation, she didn’t hesitate to sign up. “It was exactly what I had been looking for without realizing it. Here was something I could do that interested me, that I could feel good about, and that would leave me the option to work whenever I had time. I saw it as a business model that allows family to be my top priority, and that was the most important factor for me.” As an Independent Consultant for Rodan + Fields, Lori has been able to build something of her own while enjoying her family in ways she hadn’t planned on having the freedom to do. Four years after launching her business, she has earned enough income to be able to travel to see her kids, and she has the funds in place so that she never has to worry about missing out on any of her children’s lives, or her grandchildren’s. And equally as important, her husband can share all of that with her. “The greatest gift my business has given me is the ability for my husband to retire from his business, so that we can spend time together, travel together, and be with our family together. That is something I could never put a price tag on.” Lori with her Rodan and Fields team. Her business and the many ways it has nurtured her family values is very dear to Lori’s heart. When her mother passed away from ovarian cancer, the loss reinforced how precious time with family really is, and added another layer of meaning to her work. She feels fortunate to be able to use part of her Rodan + Fields earnings to help fund causes for cancer research. Lori devotes twenty hours a week to her business, and the rest of her time she is enjoying her family, traveling to see her kids and her grandkids, and appreciating every moment with her husband. Feeling completely happy with her life, her wish now is for others to be able to live their lives in complete freedom. “My business has done so much for me and my family that it is only right that I want to share the opportunity with other people. I feel like the sky is the limit, and if someone out there is actively looking for a way to arrange their life around the people they love, this is that opportunity.” For information regarding earnings under the R+F Compensation Plan, see the Income Disclosure Statement.

 

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Vitamin C + Retinol = Crazy Good Skin

Skincare products you have to mix before using aren't gimmicks—it means you're getting potent, powerful results.

By Grace Gold |

January 20th, 2014

 

 

Your routine is about to get a whole lot more active. No, we’re not talking squats at the gym (we’re still working on those holiday pounds, too), but stronger potency skincare for faster and better results. New anti-aging launches from major skincare brands are now requiring that you mix together ingredients to prime the product for use. But while it’s certainly great fun to feel a bit like a mad scientist in your own bathroom, is the chemistry play really accomplishing anything significant?

Experts say yes; it’s not just clever marketing. In fact, the process could be a game changer when it involves two ingredients in particular: vitamin C and retinol. Heralded as the gold standard in anti-aging skincare today, these two elements are volatile when active, and therefore difficult to blend into preparations without sacrificing efficacy.“Formulating products with finicky vitamin C that is actually active when it reaches the skin is especially challenging since it needs an acidic pH base and to be kept away from UV light,” explains Joshua Zeichner, M.D., Director of Cosmetic and Clinical Dermatology Research at New York’s Mount Sinai Medical Center. “By mixing the product right before you use it, you can help ensure that the active is more potent.”

Additionally, San Francisco dermatologist Kathy Fields, M.D., co-founder of Rodan + Fields, a brand that has recently launched mixing technology, says that formulating retinol with vitamin C can cause both otherwise powerful anti-agers to degrade in the presence of one another. “You need active ingredients in the most potent dose and applied the right way, to give you a dramatic difference in the quality of skin,” says Fields.We found a few good ways to get in on the action.


Philosophy Time In A Bottle ($74) works by pouring vividly tangerine-colored vitamin C into a serum powered with retinyl palmitate (a form of vitamin A related to retinol), lactic acid and coffee bean extract. The brand claims the renewal complex supports healthy DNA function by aiding skin’s natural rejuvenation process for brighter skin with less visible wrinkles.




Rodan + Fields is offering a vitamin C and retinol lotion duo that comes in two different tubes. Instructions say to combine a dab from each tube in the palm of your hand before mixing together to release the actives as you apply to your face. These Dual Active Brightening Complex 3C and 3R Formulas ($93 for both) are the latest installments of the brand’s Reverse Regimen that targets wrinkles and discoloration




Arbonne Intelligence Genius ($95) pairs textured night pads with an intensive retinoid serum that you pour over to saturate the cotton rounds. Ingredients activated include two versions of plant and scientific retinoids, mandelic acid and bitter orange oil for sun spot and fine wrinkle reduction and overall radiance.





Finally, Wilma Schumann Lipo C Plus ($68) is a straight-up vitamin C emulsion for the purists. Before using the product for the first time, the pink cap is pressed to release a fresh surge of skin-brightening vitamin C that helps illuminate the complexion and fend off environmental aggressors.






MORE: How to Layer Your Skincare Products for Maximum Results

Read more: http://www.youbeauty.com/skin/skincare-mixing#ixzz2rZY9V5sx
Follow us: @youbeauty on Twitter
 

Fine In R&D But Not In The Boardroom: How Rodan + Fields Grew 10-Fold By Avoiding Top-Level Tinkering

Robert Sher, Contributor

I write about how CEOs lead mid-market businesses.

 

11/04/2013 @ 10:35AM |28,965 views

 

In theory, working for an entrepreneurial CEO is a dream. What executive wouldn’t want a boss who gets excited about good new ideas and is willing to back them? But in reality, an entrepreneurial CEO can be a nightmare, especially at midsized companies. They simply lack the resources that a Forbes 400 company has to experiment with multiple strategies at once. In fact, as I’ll explain, a CEO of a midsized company who continually tinkers with the company’s strategy can be a disaster, as one online publishing firm found out. Conversely, the story of skin care products company Rodan + Fields shows the benefits of a CEO who resists the tendency to tinker with the core direction. I’ll tell that story too, and it’s a happy one: nearly 10-fold revenue growth since 2010 to a $200 million run rate this year.

 

But let’s start with a story that shows the downside of strategic tinkerers. Consider an online publisher whose CEO was highly innovative and very in tune with his market. Every month, he would dream up two or more “fantastic” ideas (as he referred to them). He’d walk in all wound-up, ordering the team to give his ideas top priority. When his staff would ask him about his previous month’s priorities, he gave them no guidance. He just jumped up and down about his new ones.

This forced his team to steer from guardrail to guardrail as they focused on what he told them last. Of course, they couldn’t implement any of the new ideas. About once a quarter, the CEO realized nothing was bearing fruit and would get angry, demanding explanations. They suffered from strategy tinkering. The team was demoralized, and the CEO’s most talented executives fled. The firm stagnated.

Some of his “fantastic” ideas were in fact fantastic. Too bad they never got executed. But no-one – not the board, the management team, or investors — should ever try and stop the CEO from generating ideas. Instead, create a process to select the best ideas from the CEO and test them without diverting the business’s operating team from their core mission.

Strategy tinkering becomes traumatic when the company and its leadership are driving hard toward a specific goal or mission. Complete focus on execution is required. Hard decisions must be made on allocating resources to the primary goal. Then comes talk of a different objective. Of a new competitive threat. Or a new opportunity. Some of the teams scatter to reconnoiter the new strategy. Another team thinks the core goal has already been replaced, so begins work on the new one. Everyone feels upset about all his or her hard work being wasted. Progress toward the core objective is slowed or stopped, and significant effort will be required to get everyone reoriented in the proper direction.

Such CEO strategy tinkering can be a bad habit, perhaps product of an overactive urge to chase squirrels or pick up shiny objects. In addition, it may be a reaction to seemingly intractable problems like inconsistent revenue generation or low profitability. The story of Rodan + Fields shows the right way to balance new strategies with existing ones.

In 2010 Lori Bush, CEO of the San Francisco-based skin care company, worried about revenue. The

company’s growth programs in some U.S. regions were highly successful, while others were struggling–without a clear reason. This discrepancy endangered plans to invest heavily in scaling the business first nationally, then globally. It had only just launched in 2008 in the direct selling channel—like Mary-Kay, Avon or Herbalife—and was founded by Dr. Katie Rodan and Dr. Kathy Fields, the dermatologists who developed and had great commercial success with Proactiv, the leading anti-acne regimen. These doctors had long held as their mission “changing skin and changing lives”. As a direct selling company, that meant enabling tens of thousands of independent businesspeople (mostly women and called “consultants”) to change their lives by selling skin care products that would supplement, and in some cases replace their household income. Yet while many consultants loved the products, too high a percentage of them seemed unable to sell enough product to make a difference to them, or to Rodan + Fields.

Tinkering with the underlying strategy of a business is bad. But even worse is chasing ideas or opportunities that are outside the original company vision, which do not support the mission of the organization. When Chairman Amnon Rodan negotiated the buy back of the company from Estée Lauder in 2008, pulled out of department stores and chose direct selling as their go-to-market strategy, the company created a vision and mission that would remind the organization that it is about delivering value by changing lives and changing skin—not about taking shortcuts to quick, but unsustainable profits.

Some direct selling companies (also known as multi-level marketing—“MLM” companies) address the challenge of finding many high performance consultants by creating rich monetary bonuses for their sales teams that derive more from the recruitment of more salespeople and from self-consumption of product by those salespeople, rather than focusing on selling product. This attracts serial multi-level salespeople who care more about their own income than the products they sell, who tend to jump from company to company, always looking for a more lucrative host. A common management practice for MLM companies is to reward and coach only the highest performers, and to discourage the high number of consultants who can’t scale—but who sell product to a small circle of friends and family—since they become a distraction and management burden.

Yet this industry-wide conventional wisdom seemed contrary to the values laid down by Rodan + Fields. In 2009 the company had more than doubled to $10 million in revenues, but it still needed a cash infusion from its founders. By 2010, Lori faced a dilemma: Should they sweeten up their compensation plans to attract the direct-sales mercenaries, or should they be content to work with the product ambassadors who sell retail to friends and family?

Lori didn’t like the choice. Her team was in favor of sticking to common industry practices and adjusting the compensation plan. Though reluctant, she allowed some testing of compensation changes in the way of short-term incentive bonuses to see if they could spur sales in a sustainable fashion.

But Lori and industry advisor Oran Arazi-Gamliel had a theory based on behavioral training, a novel approach to helping low performers improve and to identifying future high performers. They had noticed a few first time consultants excelling on their own, so they investigated to uncover the behaviors leading to the success of these individuals. The Rodan + Fields sales team was concerned about this approach, arguing that it was a distraction. But Lori, with Amnon’s support and encouragement, saw how this concept, if it worked, would keep them more aligned with their mission of changing lives (of their consultants who could earn more supplemental income) and changing skin (with more people focused on selling great products).

An important indicator of CEO strategic tinkering is resistance from the executive team. Hard headed, passionate CEOs often struggle to listen to the counsel of those around them—usually to their detriment. But in this case, Lori listened, and found a way to minimize the financial risk and the distraction factor.

She along with Oran decided to create a behavioral training pilot program in the summer of 2010 to test these ideal behaviors in one city, and they chose Atlanta, GA. This had minimal impact on the core organization, and Oran, an outside advisor, ran the program.

By YE 2010, the top line had grown to $22 million, some of it due to the compensation plan experimentation. But heady bonuses weren’t sustainable due to cost and the top line progress gained fell away as soon as they moved the compensation plan back to normal. With an ownership and management team committed to “changing lives and changing skin”, this compensation-bonus approach wasn’t tenable and was wound down. However, the behavioral training program tested in Atlanta had been a clear success, turning a stubbornly underdeveloped market into the top region in the US. Sales leapt 300% in Georgia in the fall of 2010, and the gains kept accelerating into 2011. The company has since replicated the process in numerous geographies across the U.S. including California,, Texas and Washington D.C.

Had Lori launched the behavioral training campaign nationwide without testing, she surely would have been guilty of CEO strategy tinkering. Even if she’d had her line management team drive the pilot, she would have been guilty as well. Likewise, if she’d allowed the team to fully implement the rich compensation program, that would have been tinkering too. Testing carefully selected hypotheses in a low risk manner—with minimal involvement of the core team—is good business practice for mid-sized companies.

Rodan + Fields had seen two useful results—one was negative (changing the compensation model) and one positive. Through the behavioral training, many consultants who might not have sold enough to stick with the program are now successful enough to noticeably boost family income. The program has also identified regional standouts with the capability to grow into high performing regional leaders, a critical group for growth. The company now has two tracks – the high performance track for consultants who started with a passion for changing skin and had desire to build a sizeable business—and a second track for consultants who want to bring skin care products to their network, but aren’t striving to scale their own business.

Fast 100: Meet the Bay Area's fastest-growing private companies 2013

San Francisco Business Times

Oct 16, 2013, 3:54pm PDT

Emily Fancher

Senior Editor- San Francisco Business Time

We live in what is arguably the center of the entrepreneurial universe. Sure, we can be self-satisfied about our region’s status as the capital of innovation. But as we worked on putting together the list and publication of the Bay Area’s 100 Fastest-Growing Private Companies, it only reinforced the idea that this is a special place and time for entrepreneurs. (To see the top 100 fastest-growing private companies in the Bay Area, please click) The 100 Bay Area companies, which range from mushroom kit manufacturers to construction firms and organic baby food makers to digital marketing agencies, have an astounding combined revenue of $3.5 billion. The top company on the list grew a whopping 4,696.8 percent and four other firms grew more than 1,000 percent. From 2010 to 2012, those 100 companies created 4,942 jobs. The 100 companies say that they are hiring several hundred more Bay Area employees by the end of the year. The economic impact of these companies is real and impressive — and they are the kinds of firms that have made the Bay Area ground zero for entrepreneurs with good ideas, passion and perseverance. Here’s congratulating our Fast Class of 2013!

Tracy Willard: A Working Mom Builds a Foundation for Success

Tracy Willard: A Working Mom Builds a Foundation for Success

Posted by Rodan + Fields on Friday, August 30th, 2013

In 2007, Tracy Willard was living the American dream. She drove away from her beautiful Montana home each morning to a rewarding job, and at the end of the day, returned to her husband and two little girls. A educator of fifteen years, she had recently landed a position in the department of education at Montana State University, which is a dream come true for a passionate teacher. She looked forward to her days at school and evenings at home, secure in the comforts of sauce simmering on the stove, her daughters’ laughter, and stories at bedtime.  She and her family lived a charmed life, filled with dinner parties, summer vacations, and ski resorts. There were warm summer nights with friends and cocktails, and long peaceful walks through the beauty of Montana’s grasslands. Tracy had everything she had ever wished for herself when she was a little girl, dreaming.



Then, in 2008 the U.S. economy began its downturn, and its fall became worse as 2009 approached. Like many Americans, the economic downturn hit Tracy’s family hard. As her husband’s company struggled with significant losses, the Willard family was challenged financially in ways they had never experienced. Their home went under notice of foreclosure, and all of their credit cards had reached their limits. Suddenly, the idyllic life they had known was shattered, leaving them struggling to survive. Instead of hosting dinner parties, Tracy found herself in line at the food bank- a place she used to visit to help, not to seek help. Familiar eyes cast questioning looks, now seeing her on the other side of the table. In this humbling experience, she began to feel lonely, isolated from the world she once knew. Many of her friends didn’t know what she was going through, because outwardly, all appeared calm. She drove the same car, and the family was still living in their foreclosed home. But the house, the car, and the Blackberry had changed from luxury items into relics, like ancient artifacts from a happier time. Tracy existed in the ruin, like a ghost within the walls of a decaying castle. Its structure all but demolished; its foundation shaken.

That foundation is what really matters, and Tracy’s foundation is her family. Her marriage suffered underneath the collapse around them, and she painfully recalls those dark, silent nights. “We had nothing positive to talk about, and I was worried about keeping my marriage together. I didn’t blame him for what happened, but I found myself having these critical thoughts.” She recalls that in her heartbreak, alone with those negative voices, she promised herself she was not going to let something like money ruin her marriage and break up her family. 

Tracy despaired over how to go forward, and how to put the pieces back together again. She struggled to keep her emotions calm, her children stable, her marriage together. She said a prayer through her tears, begging God to show her a way out of this destruction. She remembers the day she said that prayer, and relates, “I sat on the floor of my closet and prayed for God to get us out of this downward spiral we were in. I prayed with all my heart for that, and then I went on a walk.” That walk turned out to be the beginning of her answered prayer.

When Tracy set out on a walk that afternoon, she had no specific direction in mind. She took a remote country path, where she had never seen another person walking. To her surprise, within minutes she ran into a friend. They started talking about Tracy’s situation, and that is how Tracy got introduced to a business opportunity in direct sales. It wasn’t a career she had ever thought of for herself, but she would do anything to save her family, and told herself she could do this. “I had no idea what I was doing when I first started this business. I was a teacher, and knew nothing about this,” she admits. “But life is about change, and if it meant helping my family, I could change, and learn something new. My father learned to cook and speak Italian at age 65, so at 40, I could learn a new business

She did learn, and over time she gradually built up her business. She believed in the products, and she worked hard to learn what she didn’t know. Her family was still barely getting by, but now she and her husband had hope, something to grasp onto as the storms of life raged on around them. Then one day, another act of God fell out of the sky.

 A massive hail storm hit her town that year, sending giant balls of ice down onto the roofs of cars and houses, leaving behind devastating damage. But unlike the avalanche of financial collapse her family suffered under months before, this disaster actually saved the economy. The damage from the hail meant insurance claims all over the area, and jobs were created for roofers, contractors, and mechanics. The economy was regenerated, and Tracy’s husband was able to get work as an insurance claims adjuster. The family was able to do a short sale on their home and move into a rental. The worst was over, and Tracy, her husband, and her two little girls had weathered it all.

Tracy’s family is now thriving under the sunny skies of southern California, where Tracy continues to excel as a Level V Independent  Consultant for Rodan + Fields. She has been rewarded with a supportive team, a new Lexus, and two vacation trips – well deserved, she feels, after what she endured. Free from debt and able to save money now, she has a bigger  vision of setting up an organization that will help teachers have the opportunity to travel, something she knows most teachers can’t afford to do. When she earned her Lexus  through the Rodan + Fields Road to RFX Car Incentive Program, she celebrated by hosting an event to honor her team and raise money for the Orange County Second Harvest Food Bank. “It was a full circle moment,” she says, remembering how wonderful it felt to be able to deliver the check to a food bank, just like the one that had been there for her and her family in their time of need.

 

Looking back on the crisis that befell them in Montana, she reflects on how it made her stronger: “I knew that I had it in me to get through that time, and that belief is what kept me going.”

Life can seem like a whirlwind of change. We can’t always predict the weather, but we can hold onto what matters, and that kind of strength can never be shaken.

For information regarding earnings under the R+F Compensation Plan, see the Income Disclosure Statement.

BANISH BREAKOUTS for BACK TO SCHOOL

It seems earlier and earlier each year that the stores put out their Back to School section, but there's ONE thing you can't pick up for your child with the folders, pencils, and new clothes at the store... CLEAR SKIN!

 

 

 

Imagine your son or daughter heading in to the first day of school with a new found confidence, and not because of their new backpack or cute outfit, but because they are holding their head up high looking friends in the eye, and all because their skin is clear and they are no longer embarrassed by acne, or the marks it left behind!

 

 

Or are you, or someone you know, a TEACHER who still struggles with acne and the physical and emotional scarring that it leaves behind?

It's difficult to stand up in front of others all day, whether kids or adults, when you're not comfortable in your own skin.

 

 

NOW is the perfect time to do some Back-to-School preparation for your SKIN!

Rodan + Fields Dermatologists' UNBLEMISH Regimen works gently to clear up the skin, prevent future breakouts, and protect the skin throughout the day with our incredible oil-control lotion.

Try it RISK FREE. If you don't like it you'll get 100% of your money back...GUARANTEED!

 

 

 

 

 

Dr. Rodan and Dr. Fields (better known as the creators of Proactiv) have formulated the right concentration of Active Ingredients and effective Over-the-Counter (OTC) medications in the right order to produce results that prescriptions fail to do.

Plus all the time and money spent with doctor visits and prescriptions (that teens tend not to use because they are sticky or smelly) winds up wasted. Our Unblemish products work beautifully under any make-up, too!

 

 

Teachers of teens see it all the time; when a child is self-conscious they struggle, and when they are confident, they come ALIVE!  Most of us don't want our children to suffer, but also don't want to risk the serious side effects of the latest pharmaceutical product craze. There IS an OPTION.

 

Give your child (or yourself) a wonderful start to a new year of possibilities...with a confidence that soars...and all from achieving a BREAKOUT FREE BACK TO SCHOOL complexion.

 

To order UNBLEMISH click here

 

I'd love to help you with all of your skincare needs. Contact me for information on how to save 10% off our products and receive FREE shipping too.

 

To view product catalog Click Here

 Diana Perkins 714.323.3226

dianaperkinsrf@gmail.com

 To learn more about our business opportunity click here