Articles by Joann Tyson
Posted on Tuesday, September 28th, 2010
To help celebrate our 20 years in business, founder and CEO decided to donate money to charity throughout the year in a variety of ways. One way was to have a contest among her most valued customers and choose the person with the birthday closest to her own and donate $250 to their choice of charity.
Two clients had the same exact birth date – August 31st- so Cosmetic Promotions, Inc donated $250 to the Ronald McDonald house near Chicago and Alzheimer Association in Rhode Island.
Clients still have a chance to participate and get $250 for their charity by sending their birth date and charity to [email protected]. All responses will be entered into a 2nd chance drawing on 10/15.
Cosmetic Promotions began as a one gal show back in 1990 and now has 12 full time employees, 2 warehouses and over 1000 makeup artists listed with the CosPro
Agency which was founded about 11 years ago. They have beauty marketing programs at Walgreens, Rite Aid and CVS and customize programs and events for every major mass cosmetic company in the United States.
Tags: Alzheimer, charity, CVS, donation, Rite Aid, Ronald McDonald, Walgreens
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Posted on Wednesday, July 7th, 2010
As the owner of a beauty promotional company, I am lucky to get to try a variety of products all the time. It is one of the best perks of my job but also proves that sampling is still the best marketing tool out there.
Over the years, I have sampled hundreds of products and many of those are products I would have never dreamed of buying. I work hard for my money and don’t want to buy something without knowing it works. I prefer to hear from a friend or a review on the product but I really want to try it myself for FREE.
Because of all the sampling, I now have a bunch of items I can’t live without. Here are my top 10 …
1. Neutrogena Microdermbrasion Cleansing pads – Unfortunately this one is discontinued by JNJ but I scour the internet finding leftovers. Again, I would have been very skeptical about buying these but we were doing some instore demo’s a few years ago and we all got to sample them. All the females in our group over a certain age LOVE this product and it is not unusual for us to notify one another when we find a stash of it somewhere. Please, JNJ, bring this back or if anyone out there cares to send me a box, I will be forever grateful.
2. Skin Doctors Zit Zapper – I d never even heard of Skin Doctors before we were commissioned to do some instore events. Somehow we ended up with an extra one of these wands and I was lucky enough to get it. I still get occasional breakouts (yes, even with my wrinkles) and this little marvel really zaps them and quickly. I used it on my mate’s pimple once and he now calls it the miracle pen. And the darn thing seems to last forever. With my luck they will discontinue this before I have a need to buy a 2nd one.
3. La Roche Effaclar foaming Cleanser – again there was an extra and I thought I would try it, fully expecting to not like it. Well, I was wrong. This creamy cleanser foams up brilliantly and leaves my face feeling very smooth and you only need literally a pea size drop. Since I can’t find it locally, I order it on line or stock up when I am in NYC but one tube lasts me at least 6 months.
4. Garnier Eye Roller – Like millions of other women, I have made this a staple in my daily routine. I love the roller, I love the way it makes my eyes feel refreshed and I think it does reduce my puffiness. Actually, I was the most skeptical about Garnier Nutritioniste line of skincare products. I would have never thought these would be effective but I find the whole line one of the most effective brands I have ever used. I really see results and have had people comment on my skin when I am using the products.
5. Physician’s Formula Talc Free foundation – it took me years to find out that I am allergic to talc – I can’t thank PF enough for this fabulous foundation that covers well and stays on all day. I also love their talc free powders. I wish they would make that new bronzer talc free.
6. Loreal Everpure Sulfate Free Shampoo and Conditioner – My hair has always had what I call performance anxiety. The more important it is for my hair to look good is in direct proportion on how bad it will look. The day I am home washing the dogs, it looks and behaves brilliantly. On the day of my big gala event, it is limp and awful. Anyway, I have gotten some relief by using these new products. Even my hairdresser noticed how much stronger and easy to manage it has been since I started using it.
7. Revlon Tourmaline Ionic Ceramic Hair Dryer – My friend swears by those $300 hair dryers and I am not about to pay $300 to dry my hair. But this past spring, our trainers (and I) were trained on the Revlon Hair Dryers sold at Walgreens for $29.99 and each of us was given one. I also got to see a segment of GMA where good housekeeping rated this hair dryer BETTER than the $300 one my friend uses to dry her hair. And I was also given instructions on how to use it and now I feel like a professional! Remember that when setting your next demo event; people need to be educated on how to use the product and WHY to use YOUR product.
8. CoverGirl Lash Exact Mascara – I torture my lashes – I curl them and use waterproof mascara so they stay curled. I hate thick clumpy lashes, I want mine to look like those beautiful false eyelashes – long and silky. Well, Lash Exact (and I love the eye brightening ones) is the best one I have tried. And I have tried just about all of them – Lash Blast, Stiletto, Telescopic, you name it – nothing else does the trick.
9. Bliss bath products – I stayed at a W hotel a few years back and was treated to some FREE Bliss products and got hooked. Wish I hadn’t since the stuff is 
so expensive. I love, love the lemon-sage Body Butter and Soapy Sap shower gel. I even like the shampoo and conditioner. I keep trying to find something that smells as good for less money but no luck. Luckily I stay at W Hotels a lot and all my friends know to get me some for birthdays and such.
10. Regenerist Serum – when the line first came out, we were sent about half a million little tubes of the serum. I was able to use them for almost a year before I had to buy a bottle but now I do and continue to do so.
So there you have it, NOT one of these products would I have ever bought if I had not been given the opportunity to try it. And not only I am hooked and a consistent buyer but I have gotten my friends hooked on many of the items as well.
One thing to remember when doing an in-store event is that is very difficult to get a good ROI on the day of the event – you have to factor in the customers that will become fans, tell others and make repeat purchases all because you had someone in the store one day pimping your brands – just make sure that person is educated and a good representative of your brand. Oh yeah, make sure the product actually works!
Tags: beauty sampling, Cover Girl, Garnier, Hair dryer, La Roche, Regenerist
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Posted on Friday, June 4th, 2010
Cosmetic Promotions Donates Money and Time to Different Charities
Winter Park, FL - Cosmetic Promotions Inc, a national marketing company specializing in the beauty industry, is celebrating 20 years in business. As part of the celebration, they are offering quarterly specials and also giving back to the community by donating money to their clients’ favorite charities. The special for August includes a 5% charity “rebate” to the charity of their choice on any 100 (or more) store event the client books. The offer expires July 6th. During Breast Cancer Awareness month in October, they donated 5% of all demo revenue to the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation, raising almost $4,000. They are encouraging their clients to let them know which charities they would like considered for a donation by asking them to fill out a short survey at http://www.cosproagency.com/survey.
Cosmetic Promotions CEO and founder Joann Tyson believes strongly in volunteering. She gives at least 5 hours weekly to her charities in addition to the cash donations. “If every person who COULD volunteer did, charities in this country would need less federal aid and arts organizations would be able to survive,” says Ms. Tyson who is on two city boards, volunteers at the Florida Film Festival, and served as president of the Orlando Shakespeare Theater’s Associate Board for 2 years. She also chaired the Winter Park Library’s 2010 annual fundraiser and was the community liaison for Toys for Tots for 5 years. Her employees are also big on volunteering. Agency Director Kristin Bocox has been delivering Meals on Wheels to local Dallas shut-ins for more than 2 years. Sunny Wilmot, Contest Administrator, went to Africa for 2 weeks last August to help develop a well and a housing project in a village near Naivasha, Kenya. Diane Burge, Teen Event Coordinator, served on the Orlando Shakespeare Theater Associate Board as well. Kate Crockett, Regional Manager, donates time to political campaigns and Ted Bondhus, Art Director, donated many graphic design hours to the Winter Park Library and Orlando Shakespeare Theater projects.
In addition, Cosmetic Promotions frequently donates extra products from events to women’s shelters and local silent auctions to help those charities raise more money. According to Tyson, “We have been so fortunate to be successful in business for 20 years; we feel it is our duty to give back. Plus, it feels so good!”
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Posted on Friday, June 4th, 2010
The other day my oldest and most important client somewhat jokingly said I didn’t “love her” anymore; that she hardly spoke to me these days. Of course, relating to clients is very important and I took her comments to heart. So what am I doing that is so important I don’t have time for clients? The answer is simple — I am running a small business.
The “new” great American dream is to own your own business. More entrepreneurs launched new businesses in 2009 than at any other time in the past 14 years, according to a study released in May from the Kauffman Index of Entrepreneurial Activity report. This could be due to the fact that so many people have been downsized that they feel the only way to earn a living or be secure is to be their own boss.
The problem is that it’s just not that easy! One of my favorite expressions is “you don’t know what you don’t know” and there isn’t one easy source out there that can feed you all the information you need to know in order to stay on top of the laws and intricacies to running a business – you find out when something happens how to handle it.
SO what was I doing last week instead of touching base with my (very important) clients? Well here is a little run down.
On Monday, I had back to back conference calls with my 4 managers so I knew what was going on in their departments that week and update our deadlines. A catch 22 for small business owners: you hire people so you don’t do all the work and then you end up managing people and creating another category of work for yourself. My company has 10 employees — not enough for me truly delegate everything other than working with the clients, but just enough to add a few hours to my workload each week dealing with them. You need to train them, mentor them, talk with them and, of course, manage them. Once you delegate things to them, you have to go over the results with each of them. This is why so many bosses fail to delegate because sometimes it takes the same amount of time to give the task to someone else then to do it yourself. Ongoing tasks can easily be assigned to an employee, but the weird things that pop up daily (and, trust me, they do) have to be handled and usually you are the only person left who can handle it.
Monday afternoon I spent over 3 hours researching the “use tax laws” in Michigan and discussing the inquiry we got from that state with our CPA and internal AP person. We are a service company and we don’t sell products so why would Michigan ask us to pay taxes in a state where we have no office, no sales, no employees? Because we issued some 1099’s to independent contractors to do in-store demonstrations in a few stores in that state. Each state has different tax laws. We can’t afford to go to an attorney on every issue that pops up and, unlike large corporations, have no one person who can deal with these things. So the small business owner ends up handling these issues one by one.
On Tuesday, I was dealing with my warehouse manager’s neck and back problems. We only have one warehouse manager and the fact her doctor put her on light duty meant the warehouse basically shuts down. We had to find a person immediately to go in and do all the heavy lifting plus deal with the insurance issues.
On Wednesday, I was dealing with another legal issue and this one was really fun. When we starting doing a lot of shipping, we began using a ship broker who was referred to us by another company. For the first 3 or 4 years, it was great – no problems and good rates. Then the broker, Doreen Dillon, sent out a change of company name correspondence assuring us that we would still be dealing with her, but she was working for a different company. It seemed to be business as usual, but then things got strange; she was using different shipping companies for each shipment, she was hard to reach, some invoices were coming straight to us saying they were not paid – she always had a plausible excuse for each. Finally, Doreen disappeared (with 2 years worth of payments) and the shipping companies started coming after us for payment. It was and continues to be a nightmare; every few months another shipping company pops up and we have to settle with them. Basically we have paid TWICE for all the shipping that occurred during those couple of years. I put her name in this blog in case anyone reading this is doing business with her! Trust me, there are a lot of people who would love to find her.
Other things I handled last week included managing all our projects; making sure that nothing falls through the cracks and that we get everything done on time. We are also in the middle of redeveloping our website and working on a new part time PR position so we have one person monitoring all our social media, press releases and contact lists (something I pretty much handle alone at this point). I get hundreds of emails each day from clients and associates and make a point to respond quickly to everyone. I also invoice most of the projects myself because I do most of the quotes.
I feel extremely lucky (and proud) that we have been in business for 20 years and keep growing. I hope other entrepreneurs find as much success as I have. But I laugh when someone thinks owning your own business is “freedom” and you can take off whenever you want to. My biggest piece of advice – realize it is going to be twice as hard as any job you ever had and then maybe you won’t be as unprepared for the demands that reaching the great American dream will bring. Oh and yes, stay in touch with your clients because you really do work for them.
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Posted on Sunday, March 29th, 2009
Cosmetic Promotions continues to grow after 20 years in business
Orlando, FL - Where historically less than half of all small businesses survive past four years, Cosmetic Promotions, Inc. (CPI) is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year and continuing to grow in the face of a struggling U.S. economy. The company began in 1989 by producing a newsletter for Revco Beauty Department and today fills the critical marketing and promotional gap between vendors and retailers in the cosmetic and beauty industry. Vendors concentrate on national marketing campaigns and can’t effectively customize marketing programs for each retail chain. Similarly the retailers lack the resources to create individual marketing programs for every product they sell.
CPI fills this role for both the retailer and the vendor, helping both parties meet their business objectives. CPI is the only U.S. marketing company dedicated to improving sell-through for the mass beauty industry that provides complete turnkey services, from creative design to in-store training, talent and support. The company prides itself on being a problem solver and the place that retailers and manufacturers both can turn when they lack the staff or resources to pull off programs that they need.
CPI has its own talent agency which is now expanding its reach to other industries. The CosPro Agency has more than 1,000 makeup artists and models nationwide available for all types of demonstrations for all kinds of manufacturers and venues. CosPro’s demonstrators are not minimum-wage temps like most demo companies use. Following the philosophy that “you get what you pay for,” their demonstrators are trained, attractive, match the demographics of the product, and – importantly – show up as scheduled. The demo industry has a typical 10% or higher no-show rate while CosPro’s is less than 5%. And if a demonstration does not happen on its scheduled weekend, CosPro offers a replacement demonstration at a 25% discount. A recent 400-store fragrance modeling event for JC Penney’s resulted in a 4:1 return on investment for the client, who attributed the outstanding results to the CosPro sales training each promotional artist received prior to the event. CosPro’s three-step training program provides better-informed demonstrators who can help customers make positive buying decisions. To celebrate their 20th anniversary, the company is offering ONE free demo to the first 50 NEW customers who respond to their upcoming email blast.
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