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Great Booking Tips
Direct Sales Booking Tips
What if I told you there is a big market right in your town ready and willing to buy your direct sales products and you are losing money right now by not tapping into this area. Would you be working up some type of booking idea to access this market immediately? This booking idea is great for special occasions and holidays that you can easily target with some tweaking. Let’s look at this market and see how you can access it with your business.
Target Your Bookings towards Men and/or Couples
Men have to shop too and too often being in a female based industry can inhibit our thinking to just women focused parties and bookings. The fact is that guys don’t usually like to shop and most definitely, they don’t like shopping for females. So let’s take a look at how you can use this huge market to your advantage and open the doors to men focused bookings.
First off, when marketing to men for bookings you need a different approach than when marketing to women. You want to offer salsa, BBQ and Beer (not literally, unless you want to) and look at setting up your products as cash and carry. There really aren’t specific items or lines that may work better than others since women love all items that direct sales is built around. Jewelry, food, bath and body, cosmetics, kitchen, home and garden and the list goes on.
One very successful way to book male focused parties is by having it at your home and offering free gift wrapping and cards right there at the party. If a guy is going shopping, remember they are not great at wrapping and would welcome their purchase completed at the time of purchase. The gift is safe from prying eyes when it gets home and they don’t have to stress out when it comes to shopping for daughters, moms, and wives. Basket and set sales would be a good offering for the guys too.
This will also work great for a couple’s party. You can tweak your theme a bit and offer wine and cheese or keep it with your Beer and BBQ for fun. Keep the evening simple and casual with the no pressure approach. A casual evening centered around the holiday buying period can be a welcome change for yourself and your guests.
Start offering this shopping alternative to your hosts and hostess this holiday season. When you focus on booking men for parties, it will make shopping for them a no brainer, and who knows, with all the new Direct Sales opportunities for men you may even turn your host into a new recruit! It will also bring your direct sales business into a new level of service and sales.
Direct Sales Booking Tip: Play Games & Offer Incentives
SEPTEMBER 14, 2011 BY DSTIPSTER LEAVE A COMMENT
When you are in a direct sales party plan, you know that partying is the best and fastest way to make money. Theoretically, what could be easier? Go have a party and earn money while you are doing it! Sounds too easy to be true! Well there is a catch of course, or everyone would be doing it.
The key to making money on a regular basis to keeping your calendar booked. Some folks have a difficult time keeping the bookings flowing or the booking trail dried up. So, let’s chat about some direct sales booking tips.
Like we said earlier the fastest way to make some money is to have a party. This can also be said for keeping your bookings going too. When you need bookings, have a party. When there are no booking on your calendar, it can be tough to get some on there. It is somewhat like the concept that you have to have money to make money. Whether it be a mindset or what, to keep the booking flowing, you got to keep partying.
Many consultants use the guests at their parties as their main booking stream. Guests booking off of their hostess usually help that hostess earn more gifts. In a lot of the direct sales companies, hostesses with 3 or more bookings off of their show, get some nice prizes. So, in a concerted effort to help their hostess and in turn themselves, many guests will book at a show under certain circumstances.
As a consultant, one very effect way to ensure booking and continued business for you is to play booking games. One very popular one is to stuff notes into balloons and then fill them with helium and hand them out to guests when they come in. During the course of the party, the guests are invited to pop a balloon, if they promise to do whatever the note says. Most of the notes will say to book a show. The guests who do pop the balloons also get a great gift to take home too. So it is a double gift. This will also work with envelopes too.
Encouraging your guests to support their hostess by booking a show is a tried and true method of booking parties. You will have to do some talking and many reps also will use the hostess gift demos to re-enforce the rewards too. By using visuals and even a bit of peer pressure, you can usually have a lot of fun keeping your calendar filled with your direct sales party bookings.
Networking & Local Drawings for Direct Sales Booking Success
AUGUST 18, 2011 BY DSTIPSTER LEAVE A COMMENT
In a business such as direct sales it is so important to always keep your eye open for booking opportunities. The term “booking”, in a direct sales lingo, means to look for opportunities where you can meet like-minded people that will be interested in booking a party to be the hostess for your party plan business.
In order to keep your business in the profitable area of two or three parties a week, you need to always be working on your calendar and keeping those spots filled. Here are a few tips that can help spark your imagination on finding hostesses that will book at show with you.
Networking
Look for outside opportunities that take you into the community where you can meet other people that may be perfect for hosting a show for you. Depending on your interests, you can use networking groups found on MeetUp and find several local groups to join. The cost is minimal but meeting new people will open the doors to getting that calendar filled.
The types of group that you will want to look for are ones geared to your personal interests. Moms groups, direct sales groups, business networking, maybe exercise group where you can meet new women while working up a sweat too. If you are a crafter, maybe look for something in the area you enjoy expressing yourself. Any group that you will enjoy spending time will reflect in the amount of time and interest you are willing to put out.
Another great local place is the chamber of commerce in your town. There are usually mixers of some sort held on a monthly basis, if not more often. You will be able to meet and greet with other business owners in your area. As a business owner yourself, getting to know your local community members is a plus. Neighbors want to help neighbors and chamber mixers are a great place for leads.
Local Drawings
Another great local tip you can use for bookings is to set up at a local show like church bazaars or a street fair. Pass out information on your business and offer a drawing for a basket of product. The drawing slip is a great way to be able to talk to the interested party and get to know them for a few minutes.
Using these tips to meet new people is a great way to become known in your community and to offer your services. You never know who people know and you can really get some great leads and new bookings by embracing your local town with your direct sales business.
Book more Parties with This simple Tip
JULY 18, 2011 BY DSTIPSTER LEAVE A COMMENT
If you are in a Party Plan type of direct sales business, most of your sales probably come from holding home shows and parties. One critical piece of this type of business is getting the bookings in the first place.
Here is a solid booking tip that will help you insure that you are continually working and holding your parties; all of which boils down to getting a paycheck.
Offer Booking Incentives
Booking incentives are just that, incentives that are provided to hosts who book a party from you. These incentives start out small and increase in value as the host’s party sales increase.
The majority of direct sales party plan companies offer various booking incentives to party hosts who book a home party. It is your job to make the customer aware of these incentives when you are speaking to them, especially if they change monthly, like many do.
Let your host know how much they earn for free by hosting a home show. Also include the hostess dollars they can earn with various party sale levels. For example, if they have a $400 show, they earn X. Don’t forget to include the items they earn at 1/2 price.
During your show, visually stack product in front of your potential hostesses to show them what their earnings equals in product. This makes a powerful impact. If you don’t carry a lot of product, adding the hostess gifts to your demo product line will make a big difference.
If your company doesn’t offer booking incentives to party hosts, come up with your own to entice more home party bookings. These incentives should include:
a. A free little gift for having 10 or more guests in attendance at the party.
b. A free gift for having $250+ in party sales.
c. A half-price item for reaching a certain dollar amount in party sales.
Next time you are at a home party show, give this tip a try and see if your bookings improve. Visual is usually more powerful than verbal and you can watch your bookings and paycheck increase.
Rising Stars
Top Sellers Month to Date
Angie Goethert
Email: agoethert@mac.com
Website: http://www.mycleverbiz.com/angieg
Location: Knoxville, TN, United States
Phone: 865-300-6281
Facebook: facebook.com/cleverangie
Twitter: @coopcrismom