A New Direction For A New Year

Since our official launch in 2012, we have had so many wonderful Stylists join Vessel and have the opportunity to become part of a new wave in fragrance and fashion, to be part of a team of like-minded, entrepreneurial women, and to earn money sharing our fabulous products.

Many of the Stylists who have joined Vessel are essential oil users, and therefore a majority of our Stylists are also involved with other direct sales companies – typically an essential oil company. A trend we are seeing is that these Stylists are first and foremost building their oil business and using Vessel as a complementary product line, instead of joining Vessel as their primary direct sales company and really growing their Vessel business through recruiting and team building. As a result, our Vessel business has increasingly become an opportunity to focus on retail sales and earn retail commission instead of earning team building or leadership commissions.

While we definitely continue to see the popularity of our own Vessel pure perfume fragrances as a beautiful scent option for those who don’t use essential oils, we see a large part our future as being able to reach more and more essential oil users. To do this, starting in 2016 we will be changing our sales method from Direct Sales (or Home Party) to a retail sales model.

One of the retail avenues that we will participate in, and that will remain an entrepreneurial and income-generating opportunity for our Stylists, is a new Affiliate Partner Program. For those Stylists who are also with another direct sales company, this Affiliate model is not in direct competition with any other direct sales company, because we will no longer be a direct sales company.  As you switch over to the Affiliate Program, for the majority of you, your Vessel earning opportunity will not really change – you’ll still receive a retail commission on sales through your own website, blog, social media accounts, email or text messages.

We invite all of you as current Vessel Stylists to transition over to, and join our Affiliate Program.  Tonight we want to give you a brief overview of how this new program will work. We’ll follow up with more detailed information through email and on our Facebook page. Through the end of January, we will offer our current Stylists the opportunity to continue to do business as usual. Through January, we will continue to pay retail and team commission on your existing team. However, as of now, we will not be accepting new Stylists into our Home Party model. Our current website will become inaccessible while undergoing construction to reflect the new retail and Affiliate model, but our current online store will remain active until the new site is up and running. For now, when you go to vesselscentsofstyle.com you’ll be taken to a landing page for the new website. There will be a link to our existing store, or you can continue to access the current store at store.vesselscentsofstyle.com

With the new Affiliate Program, Vessel will be working with an Affiliate Network called ShareASale. When our new website is up and running, we’ll have a link where you can join ShareASale as an Affiliate. This will be free of charge for anyone to join. And we sincerely hope that each of our Stylists chooses to join as an Affiliate. Once you join, you’ll have access to Vessel banner links or text links that you can post on your own website or blog, or share on your social media accounts, or through email or text messages. When your customers or contacts click on one of these links, they will be taken directly to the new Vessel Store. Clicking through your link identifies them as your customer, so that when they place an order, the retail commission is credited to you.

A typical jewelry merchant with an Affiliate Program offers anywhere from 2% to 12% retail commission. For all new Affiliates who join Vessel starting in February, they will earn a 12% retail commission. We will not automatically transfer, or enroll any current Stylists into the new program. You, yourself can follow the link on the new website to join as an Affiliate. We will also be adjusting our pricing – many of our chains and lockets will have a slightly lower price point with this new program, hopefully appealing to a broader consumer group. There will no longer be recruiting into Vessel as a direct sales company, but in addition to retail commission you will still be earning, in the new Affiliate Program we will also pay a $10 referral bonus to any Affiliate who refers a new Affiliate to Vessel. Your commission payments, will come directly through ShareASale once a month under the new program.

As part of this change, our National Sales Director, Tracy Ralph, and our Director of Stylist Services, Dioni Morales, will no longer be part of the Vessel corporate staff. We'd like to thank Tracy and Dioni for all they have done for Vessel and for our Stylists over the years. We appreciate and love you. We’re excited to continue our relationship with you under our new Affiliate Program.

Just to recap some of the important dates, or time frames, mentioned earlier:

Through January

• ·      Vessel business as usual; retail and team commissions paid
• ·      No new Stylists accepted
• ·      Vessel website will become inaccessible (vesselscentsofstyle.com) Going to this address will take you to a landing page with a link to the Vessel store
• ·      Vessel store still accessible (store.vesselscentsofstyle.com)
• ·      Stylist Facebook page will remain active through January

Early February

• ·      New website will be available
• ·      Launch of new Affiliate Program
• ·      Current Stylists can sign up as Affiliates
• ·      New Affiliates can join 

We understand that this new mode of doing business is definitely a change of direction for Vessel.  We truly believe this is a change for the better, and that together we’ll be able to reach a much larger customer base. We also know that this is a lot of new information for you to process, so we’ll be following up over the next several days and weeks with additional information through email and on our Stylist Facebook page.  In the meantime, if you have any specific questions right away, please send those through email to info@vesselscentsofstyle.com. You are also welcome to call and talk with us at 888-966-8775.

We remain committed to Vessel, and to continuing to offer you, our wonderful Vessel Stylists, an entrepreneurial, income-generating opportunity far into the future as Vessel Affiliates. We truly hope that you will all continue with us under our new Affiliate Program, and we look forward to an ongoing relationship with you.

Remembering WHY Vessel Started

Here's a blog post from our early days, about the WHY of Vessel's beginnings, for those who may not know the story of why Vessel was started ...

I have always enjoyed perusing the perfume counters in department stores. Pretty packaging catches my eye, celebrity endorsements are enticing, and fragrance names sound so delightful. But alas, when it comes time for the salesperson to spray my wrist I quickly back off and head for the shoes, or the purses, or the clothes, or anywhere else in the store!

The smell of fragrance on my skin bothers me so much, that on the rare occasion I have bought perfume and actually used it, I'm typically washing it off within minutes of applying it. In fact, the driving force behind my infrequent perfume purchases has usually been how cute I thought the bottle would look on my bathroom counter! I soon realize that a $75 (or higher) bathroom decoration is not worth the money spent.

I don't necessarily have allergies to perfume, although sometimes my nose does get stuffed up if I happen to be in close contact to someone who smells like they just bathed in their favorite fragrance. For me, it is more like a sensitivity to the fragrance on my skin. To be succinct, I just can't stand scent on my skin!

Vessel jewelry is the perfect way for me, and anyone else with allergies or sensitivities, to enjoy fragrance without having to directly apply perfume to the skin. It's such a great solution that now I wear perfume everyday - in my scented jewelry of course - and I can even change fragrance anytime I want to throughout the day or evening.

So to my fellow allergy or sensitivity sufferers out there: you too can now enjoy fragrance without worry. 

Vessel is the answer!

Love,

Karen

Take time to evaluate your Vessel business

by: Dioni Morales, Director of Stylist Services


As this year comes to an end, I can't help but evaluate how this last year went for me in every aspect of my life ... including my career/business.  Then I started to think about how YOU can do the same with your Vessel business. 

When I attended the Go Pro Convention just last month I had the opportunity to hear Eric Worre, author and networking expert. He suggests that you look at your business as if it were a publicly-traded company, one in which you have accountability to your investors.  This means knowing exactly what's going on, what's working, and what's not and needs to change.  You really need to be aware of every detail of your business.

I was thinking of a few points to consider when you sit down to evaluate this past year and begin planning your 2016:


1. How much did your business grow in 2015? 

In 2016, "Stop playing business, Start doing business." You need to think as a business person.  You need to know your numbers.  You need to start tracking your business data, growth, sales, etc.

2. Did you write and follow a business-building strategy in 2015? How did it go?

In 2016, you need to create strategies that line up with your goals. Re-write your goals on paper and in detail.

3. How much did you grow personally in 2015?

My suggestion is that you take a deep look at your habits and your daily methods of operation (DMO's).  As Aristotle said, "We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit."  Make a list of habits that are not helping you.  Change them.  Create an accountability strategy to make those habits hold.

4. What is your Vessel business worth?

What value can you add to your business in 2016 that will make your business worth more?


These are just four aspects of your business that you should really take the time to evaluate.  Design a plan to improve in each area.  Follow through and evaluate every couple of months.  I can assure you that if you do this, and then evaluate again a year from now, you will see a big change in your business and in your life. After all, as I heard Anthony Robbins say recently, "You're not looking for the ultimate business, you're looking of the ultimate life."