There Is No Time Like The Present Even when it comes to your home party business, the old expression ‘there is no time like the present’ holds true.
Don’t make the mistake that many sales reps make, and always be looking off into the future. It is true that what you do now will affect your business the most three months down the road. Now is always a perfect time to focus on developing your business.
Ten Techniques to Generate Sales Here are 10 steps or techniques to perform over a period of 10 days that will bring you instant cash flow now, and also a solid business down the road. As a successful home party consultant, these are all techniques or systems that I used when I was actively building my business. A system works the same for everyone who applies it. These systems will work for you, just like they worked for me and other sales professionals who reach their goals.
1. Practice Show: Pick a date (or two) for a show at your home next weekend or not more than a week away. Write out a short script about the new products, the change-over to Summer, or a new theme. Call all of your friends and relatives and tell them you are having a practice show to get ready for the new season. Just say: ‘I am making some snacks and practicing my new tailgate party, would you like to come over and help me practice?’ Or: ‘I am having a Summer outdoor show for practice. Would you like to bring the kids over and help me practice our Summer theme show?’
2. Wedding Shower Show: Pick a date to host a show in your home. As you call your guests for follow up or customer service, offer them an invitation to your Wedding Shower Show. Say something like this: ‘Everyone knows someone who is getting married this year. The XYZ Company has many perfect wedding items. Are you planning a wedding? Are you going to a wedding or shower? I am teaching participants how to create unique wedding favors, pick out gifts for the second marriage, and bridal shower gifts too. Get all your wedding shopping gifts done in one fun afternoon.
3. Tailgate Show: Go to kids’ or relatives’ soccer, baseball or other sports games. Create a kid-friendly theme like ‘Creating Photo Totes’ or ‘Scrapbooking for the Athlete’ or ‘5-Mnute Snacks for Hungry Soccer Players’ or some other theme that fits in with your product line. Go to the game and open the tailgate, set up a card table, pass out catalogs, and provide lemonade and snacks.
4. Pamper the Business Day (aka Secretary Appreciation Day): You can call it what you want. The point is that you are providing a service to the boss to appreciate the employees. Call the dentist, chiropractor, bank or fitness center and tell them that it is Pamper the Staff Day/Month at XYZ Company. You are providing complimentary cookies and lemonade in appreciation for their professional services. Create an appropriate theme based on your products, such as Coffee Break, A Mug of Appreciation, Sweet Tooth for Sweet Staff, etc. Ask the office manager what time you should stop in with the trays. Put the gifts on real dishes and bring catalogs. Ask if it is OK to leave the books and what time you should return to pick up the dishes and any orders.
5. Perform a show or educational workshop at a school, church, sports club, Girl Scout group or library. Create three snappy titles and start calling. You could literally have a couple of these on the calendar within days.
6. Summer Teachers’ Shower: Act quickly on this one before the schools break for the Summer. This is a show to celebrate teachers who are having a baby over the Summer, a Summer birthday or wedding. Call all of the teachers you know and tell them you can come to the school and do an all-purpose shower for them in honor of all the teachers having babies, getting married, or having a birthday over the Summer. This would be an after-school event and you would arrive and set up as the classes let out. Then all the teachers show up, and you do a quick show. They buy for themselves and for the teacher(s) being honored. This is a huge market and can be done every year!
7. Apartment Community Show: Go to an apartment complex or residential development and ask the manager to distribute flyers to all the residents for a show. It could be a regular show in which the manager gets the host benefits for distributing the flyers. Or in most cases I have found that attendance is better if it is a fund-raiser show for the development. Returns from the fund-raiser will build or buy something for the community. The last time I did this, they used the cash back to buy a school bus stop booth for the kids.
8. Residential Development Show: If you can step out of your comfort zone, this works really well. Go around a development and knock on doors and say something like: ‘Hi, I am Deb, with XYZ Parties….some of your neighbors would like to have a XYZ Party show. Are you familiar with XYZ Parties? At XYZ Parties, we have fun, laugh and learn more about creating economical and unique solutions for year-round gift-giving ideas. At this point we are just trying to see if there is enough interest in the neighborhood from enough people to put a ‘get-to-know your neighbors’ party. If we decided to have one, would you be interested in some afternoon fun if you could bring the kids?’ After they say yes, then get the name and number and go on to the rest of the houses. Give each person a catalog or flyer. After you have about 30 or 40 people, then change your script a little bit and say after the lead-in: ‘We have 40 people who definitely want to come. We are looking for a host. Would you be interested in receiving the host benefits and providing the beverages?’ Boom! Pick a date and you have a show!
9. Retirement Home Show: This is not a huge money-maker, yet it works every time and can be a consistent event on a monthly basis. The activities coordinators at local retirement homes and disability or rehab centers are always looking for entertainment for the residents. Offer your services as a presenter. Create themes and economical product packages for the residents. Use catalogs to generate sales with the staff. Usually the activities department needs funds for more activities, so a fund-raiser is a great way to go. Do not expect huge sales from the residents. Some will order if you create packages for gift-giving ideas that are priced rigtht.
10. The Yard Sale Promo Show: This is a cool technique to involve the whole family and create income and leads with your business at the same time you are cleaning out the house and creating income with the annual yard sale. My neighborhood has a community yard sale every year. It’s actually coming up soon. I am not really a yard sale person, so I never would have one on my own, yet I always take advantage of the steady stream of “strangers” coming into the neighborhood, not to mention the neighbors who are mingling around and networking with each other. To take advantage of all the traffic and interest in the neighborhood, you only have to set up a business table within the yard sale activities. Selling product or inventory, taking orders, doing a small demo and collecting leads using prize drawing slips are just some of the things you can do at the Yard Sale Show. Have your family staff the yard sale area and you staff the business show area. Like an expo or fair, you must connect with your customers quickly. Love the Word ‘No’ Successful sales consultants love to hear the word no because they know that you must hear no to get a yes. If you never hear the word no, then you are not asking enough. Get on the phone and start calling.
These ideas can be thrown together within the next 10 days, they do not have to be a futuristic thing.
