Get the party started
Friday, March 23, 2007
Forgive the title but Pink was on the radio as I was driving back to the office after a meeting and now that song seems to be the soundtrack for my day!
A lot of growth in direct selling has come from party plan companies. In fact, you can buy everything from food and wine to purses and clothing through social selling or party-plan companies.
Our business has traditionally been person-to-person marketing -- an IBO selling to his or her customer one-on-one. But we've recently dipped our toe into the party pond with the No Tox Party featuring Artistry Time Defiance and the NAO Party in a Purse.
To me, social selling makes a lot of sense. I have a neighbor who hosts parties at her home every month or so as favors to friends (this year alone she's had Taste of Home and Silpada parties.) I like to go to some parties to see how other companies present product and their business opportunity -- call it my social competitive business intelligence!
The understanding, when you accept an invitation, is that you're there to sample or try products and buy something. It seems to be a good use of time to invite 10 women to your home, ply them with food and drink, and walk out with 10 customers and the retail profit and volume from their sales.
For example, if I invite 10 friends over for a No Tox Party and sell two complete Time Defiance systems, one Intensive Repair Serum, one DermaErase pen, a Wild Yam and Vitamin C treatment, two microdermabrasion kits and one Skin Refininishing Lotion (one of my faves) I've pocketed over $250 in retail profit alone and generated over 200 PV. And that's even if two of my guests manage to get away without buying anything. In fact the No Tox training guide makes hosting a party pretty foolproof -- when the guide was being developed our beauty editor asked me to take a look to see if the team had missed anything. It was so comprehensive I was convinced just about anyone could pull off a successful party from creating the invitation list to bestowing the parting hostess gift.
So if I'm building my Artistry business, I might do this twice a month and make over $500 in retail profit alone plus my bonus volume. And, I'd be following up the next month to see how the customers like the products and to see if it's time to reorder. Our Wild Yam and Vitamin C product is only fresh for 30 days after mixing so that's a great reorder opportunity. And I know a Skin Refinishing Lotion doesn't last me very long because I can't resist using it on my hands!
Are we becoming a party plan company? No. We're just looking for ways for IBOs to earn more money faster. And to me, the idea of selling products in a party environment to a group of people at once seems to be a way to get a lot of sales in a short period of time.