Avon allowed Diane to run a thriving business and care for her son challenged by an illness requiring hours of love and therapy.

Diane Carlson
Thirteen years ago, Diane Carlson’s son Christopher was born with partial agenesis of the corpus callosum, a problem with the nerve bundle that links the right and left hemispheres of his brain. It’s a serious condition that affects both Christopher’s mind and body.

The Carlsons learned of it when Chris was 2, and they also learned that their insurance didn’t cover the therapy he would need. Money became an issue, but “I couldn’t work,” says Diane, “because I had to stay home with Christopher and take him to and from his therapy sessions and early intervention classes — which meant hours of driving every day to and from our home in Villa Park, Illinois. You can’t have a regular job and do that.”

But you can become an Avon Representative. Within weeks of becoming a Representative in 1996, Diane was able to hire private therapists to come to her home; within months, she built a special therapy room in her basement. “I started with 30 brochures,” she says, “and it wasn't hard to get at least 30 to 35 percent in earnings.” She made President’s Club in two years. Thanks to the extra therapy, Christopher has come a long way. In fact, Christopher, who has trouble forming even the simplest words, clearly said “Mommy” after seeing the photograph of the two of them in Avon Dreams magazine.

Since attaining Leadership in 1998, Diane has hired a part-time maid and bought herself a new Movado watch and a Ford Explorer (paying in full, with cash) because “I couldn’t fit my kids and my Avon products into my old car at the same time.” Also, she and her husband, Scott, set their sights on a larger home and accomplished that goal in 2004.

For Diane, Avon started as a way to make ends meet, but she soon turned it into a way to make dreams come true. Diane recalls her first Leadership Opportunity meeting in Willowbrook, Illinois, when her Division Sales Manager told her, ‘If you have a goal and you think about the goal, you will always achieve the goal. But if you don’t make another goal once you’ve achieved the first one, you’ll be stuck there,’ ” she recalls. “I decided that since I had met my goal for Christopher’s therapy needs, I was going to do Leadership.”

Early on, one of her Division Sales Managers, Sharon Bychowski, saw that Diane would achieve great things. “She doesn’t see obstacles,” Sharon says. “She sees opportunities.” Diane, an Executive Unit Leader, now has 155 in her Downline. Last cycle, her Unit sales totaled over $550,000 while her personal sales were over $31,000. Diane frequently goes out with her people to recruit and find new selling opportunities. Along with the added income, the Honor Society member enjoys the ability to hand off the markets she can’t serve efficiently to her Downline. “You often wind up with Customers three towns over,” she says, “so you give those markets to the Downline. Now my whole Customer base is close to my house, and my Downline has extra business. It really helps them and me.”

In 2003, Diane’s next goal was to buy Scott a present, a new sports car, "for being such a great support." Thanks to her excellent sales, he, and of course Diane, now travel in a 1982 antique teal Mercedes 380SL Roadster.