Those who are in a Direct Sales business tend to really work their butts off when it comes to advertising their home business. For those of us in this line of work…we have to work “much” harder than those in big corporation to get the word out about our business.

With that said, we don’t have the advertising budgets that the big guys have so we need to get creative with our advertising campaigns. Today I thought I would share a few “creative” ways I have successfully marketed my business over the years and all of these ideas are super affordable.

T-Shirts: I went to VistaPrint.com and had a dozen T-shirts printed up with my business information on them. I got a variety of sizes and did it when Vista Print was having a deal on them. I then handed these shirts out to friends & family members and had them wear them while running errands in our community. Cost was less than $8.00 a shirt and it’s an advertising campaign that keeps on giving since the shirts can be worn many, many, many times!

Cook Books: Since I was selling products for a kitchen company I would actively seek out print ads in charity cook books in our community. The PTA, local Animal Rescue Groups, Health Groups, Scouting Groups, School Groups, etc. have cook books printed on a yearly basis and then sell them to raise funds. For around $25.00 you can get a 1/2 page print ad with your business info printed in the back of their fundraising cook books.

High School Year Books: Every year I would spend $50 to $75 to have my business ad printed in the back of our local high school year books! These ads are a ‘worthy’ and ‘affordable’ investment and your ad will be seen for many years by hundreds of people.

School Art & Athletic Programs: You can get affordable print ads in your local school’s arts and athletic programs that they hand out at their functions. (plays, sport’s games, etc.) and you can usually get these ads for $25 and up.

Magnetic Car Signs: Many Direct Sellers do invest in magnetic car signs for their vehicles to advertise their home businesses. However, you should purchase several of them and let your family and friends slap them onto their cars when they are out and about doing their errands. You could give them a free gift or a continual discount on their purchases to help you out by keeping it on their cars.

These 5 creative advertising and marketing ideas are all relatively affordable and make for a worthy investment in your business. When it comes to advertising your home business it is time to think “outside” the box and get creative with your marketing campaign.

Shelly Hill has been working from home in Direct Sales for the last 25+ years and is a professional product reviewer and ghostwriter. You can visit Shelly’s home business resource web site at www.workathomebusinessoptions.com/ for FREE home business tips, info and resources. You can visit Shelly’s professional ghostwriting web site at www.twoclassyghostwritingchics.com/ for additional information on the ghostwriting services that she and her partner Chris have to offer.

Home party consultants spend much of their time selling to large audiences of female clients. There are many direct sales tips on how to best sell to an audience of women, but there are a few tips that every consultant should always keep in mind. A good sales professional writes down the best direct sales tips and then alters them each time she learns something new. Women and men have different sales buttons that a good professional learns how to push.

• Eye Contact – Guys listen to words while women experience what you have to say. If you do not make eye contact with your female audience, then you will lose their trust. When making eye contact, it needs to be gradual contact. Avoid jumping from person to person. Your best approach is a slow sweeping look at your audience.
• Know Your Stuff – Women want to know what a product is, how it can be used and even basic maintenance tips for it. Men base buying decisions more on visual stimuli, while women want to feel comfortable with the sales professional as well as the product. You need to know your product and you need to know more than just the basic uses for it. This is especially true for adult product consultants. Women can see what the product is for themselves. They want you to tell them what it is for.
• Multiple Payment Options – Men prefer to use credit cards whenever possible. Women clients require a variety of payment methods to choose from in order to pay for products. When selling to an audience of women, it helps to be able to accept cash, multiple credit cards, debit cards and checks.
• Honesty – Men want what they want and they often do not care who they have to buy it from. It can take a few bad transactions before a man will purposely avoid a sales professional. Women have a low tolerance for incompetent and dishonest sales people. When you sell to an audience of women, always be honest and do not make promises that you cannot keep.

Men and women differ in many ways and that is extremely evident in the direct sales industry. When you are presenting products to an audience of women, you need to treat them differently than a room full of men.

Deb Bixler is a party plan educator and radio show host. Visit http://www.CashFlowShowRadio.com for free training worldwide!

The true secret to home party success, is a happy hostess. A happy hostess is motivated to get people to her party and can be a big help in getting the people at her party to buy your products. It really doesn’t matter if you are holding the party in your hostesses home or having an online party.

A happy hostess means the difference between great sales or mediocre sales. Here are some tips for keeping your hostess happy and excited about her party.

Get Her Excited About Her Own Party – The first thing you should do is get your hostess excited about all the free and discounted products that she can receive by having a fantastic party. Help her become enthusiastic by showing her all the great items that she will
get. She will be thrilled to do what she can to have a great party.

Train Your Hostess How to Have A Great Party – Make sure she knows all the ways to ensure her guests attend her party. (Reminding them before the event, personally touching base with them, advertising, etc.) A printout or checklist can really help you here.

Guarantee contact with everybody that is supposed to come to the party. Get your hostess to give you names and email addresses of all those who are supposed to come to the party and you personally contact them and let them know how excited you are to meet them. Tell them how your hostess is also very excited that they are coming. Now,they know two people are counting on them being there.

Add An Extra Incentive – Offer your hostess an extra incentive. Is there a particular piece of jewelry that she is just in love with? Perhaps a set of candles or maybe a bath and body set has caught her eye? Set a goal for her to have a certain amount of guests invited to the online party by a set date. Or you could challenge her to have a set dollar amount of sales made before her party. Offer the hostess the item that she wants if, and when, she meets your challenge.

Games And Fun – Plan some super simple games and giveaways during your hostess’s party. People love to have a chance to win something for free and if they need to make a purchase to enter a drawing all the better for your hostess. Everyone will have fun playing the games that you have set up and your hostess will have a blast racking up sales to put toward getting free items.

Article Written By: Sandy Sopin, a teacher who also works at home helping other work at home moms build their home based businesses. Specializing in Home Party Plan Businesses.

When you are a consultant with one of the Direct Sales companies it is important to keep your booking calendar as full as possible with booked home parties. Now that spring is just around the corner it is time to starting thinking about spring theme’d home parties so today I thought I would share a few ideas with all of you.

• Easter Cookie Exchange Party ~ This is a fun one to do! Have your party host ask each party guest to bring a dozen or more of cookies to the party. At the end of the party let each guest fill up a storage bag or container with a variety of cookies that all of the guests brought to the party.
• Easter Bunny & Egg Coloring Party ~ Often times adults don’t go to a home party because they can’t find a babysitter for the kids. Have your host find 1 or 2 adults (spouses work great for this) to watch the kids while the other adults attend the party. In a separate room have your host set up a table for Easter Egg Painting or other fun Easter theme’d activities that will keep the kids busy while the parents shop. (you will need 1-2 adults to supervise the kids).
• Easter or Spring Open House ~ If your company releases new spring theme’d or Easter theme’d products, now is the time to hold an open house in your own home or at another location to introduce those new products to your current customers and past hostesses. This often times leads to a boost in your sales and bookings that can fill up your spring calendar.
• Backyard Barbecue ~ We all love to break out those bbq grills as soon as the winter weather lifts so why not ask your host about a backyard bbq party! You can set up your displays outdoors or indoors and then after you are done let the host serve her guests some great bbq food. We all love a great backyard bbq & that can be a big draw for guests to attend the party!
• Mother’s Day Party ~ Mother’s Day is also during the spring season so why not offer a Mother’s Day theme’d party to all of your potential party hosts? Guests could come and purchase gifts for their mothers and perhaps you could offer them free gift wrap or a little discount for making a purchase on a gift that will later be presented to their special mom!
• Spring Tea Party ~ Spring is a great season to offer a good old-fashioned girly-girl tea party to all of your party hosts! Tea parties are a really inexpensive party theme because all your hostess needs to do is supply some great tasting tea and a little bit of finger food.
• Backyard Pool Party ~ If your party host has a swimming pool why not do a pool party theme? Let the guests watch your presentation and do their shopping and then afterwards they can enjoy a little swim at the pool party!

Spring is a great time of the year to be booking parties because after being cooped up all winter long…people want to get back outside and have some fun!

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Are you properly filling out your customer’s order form correctly? Are you using the order form to it’s fullest potential?

I see a lot of consultants who just put their name and phone # on the customer’s order form and that’s it. Well…I am here today to tell you that you need to do more!

Every order form that you hand out to the guests at home parties, to direct customers or even if you are just stuffing those order forms into catalogs and handing them out should have a lot more information on them than just your name and phone number!

About 10 years ago I started using my customer order forms as an important sales tool. I made sure that EVERY order form had my full name, my office phone number, my cell phone number, my email address and my consultant web site address on them. Why? Well, sometimes customers don’t want to pick up the phone to call you with an order or a question and some of these customers would rather communicate with you via email or they would rather just go to your web site store and order directly thru that.

If you don’t want to “write” all of that information onto your order forms then get a rubber stamp or self-inking stamper made up with all of your contact information on it. You can then use it to stamp your catalogs and to stamp your order forms so that your customers always have ALL of your contact information.

Just a few weeks ago I attended a party for a candle company and that consultant ONLY had her first name and phone # on the order form and on the catalogs. Later that night I went home and thought about adding something else to my order that I handed to her earlier that day. I would of been “more” inclined to add on to my order if I could of sent her a “quickie” email or I could of went to her web site and just drafted up & placed another order.

In my professional opinion you are doing a disservice to yourself & your business if you do not include ALL of your contact information on both catalogs & customer order forms.

They should have the following (if applicapable)

Name:
Home/Office Phone:
Cell Phone:
Email Address:
Web Site Address:

Matter of fact…every flyer, recruiting brochure, catalog, order form, business cards, etc. should all have more than just your name and one phone number for the contact information. You will find that some people don’t want to call you to ask questions or to place orders…some people would rather just email you or go directly to your consultant site to place their orders.

Shelly Hill has been working in Direct Sales for over 25+ years and owns the popular Work at Home Business Options web site at www.workathomebusinessoptions.com where Direct Sales consultants can get free business tips, read Direct Sales articles and get free business related resources geared towards those in Direct Sales.

How Do I Keep My Parties From Canceling?

The goal of almost every Party Plan consultant is to fill their calendars. After all, the best place to sell your products and book more parties is at a party. But getting those dates filled is only the first step. They only count if they hold.

The best maxim for this situation is “the best defense is a good offense.” And in the case of Party Plan businesses, it’s all in the hostess coaching. Hostesses find all sorts of reasons to cancel. Some are, of course, legitimate. In those cases, she most likely will reschedule. But some just aren’t. I think the most unreasonable one I have ever received was the “I have company coming in, and I have a doctor’s appointment (lucky her to get a doctor’s appointment on a Friday night!).” It would be better to never hear the lame excuses, so how do we avoid them? Why do hostesses cancel? Let’s look at three different reasons hostesses cancel and what we can do about them.

1. She procrastinated sending out invitations. – Although she may never admit it, your hostess will usually cancel if she has not sent out invitations. It is easier to not have you show up then to only have one or two people there. This is actually one of the easier situations to avoid. Many companies train their consultants to send out invitations for their hostess. This is a great service for your hostess and a great marketing tool for you. If you don’t already, offer to send out invitations as a way to save your hostess time and money (the cost of stamps). You can accomplish several things just for the cost of stamps by doing this. First, you know the invitations were sent. Second, you can increase her party attendance. Get the hostess to make her last minute calls by telling her that you numbered five of the invitations. If she finds the people with the numbered invitations, she’ll receive a prize at the party. Third, you can follow up with all the people who didn’t attend and possibly increase your party sales or bookings. Usually only 25% to 50% of invited guests actually attend. If you don’t have the guest list, you’ve missed out on reaching half her guests.

2. She is no longer excited about the party.  – Hostesses can loose their enthusiasm for your party for a couple of reasons. Aside from life just getting in the way, there are usually two main reasons for this. First, the party is just booked too far out. The more time in between her party and the one she attended, the more likely she is to forget why she booked it in the first place. It is usually a good rule of thumb to book your parties no more than three to six weeks out. Keep them close to keep them booked. The second reason she looses her interest is because you are not excited. One of the biggest complaints hostesses have about their party reps is that they were not contacted enough. Of course, when you’re on the rep’s end of the phone, it can sometimes feel like you’re pestering them. But in this case, less is not more. Keeping in contact with your hostess does not mean that you have to call them. Be creative about keeping in touch. Aim to contact her four times before her party date. Send her a thank you note for booking the party (with your business card on a magnet so she doesn’t loose your contact info). Email her to ask for the guest list. Call her to let her know the invitations were sent out. Send her a postcard reminding her of the date and time. Call her the week of her party to remind her to make her last minute phone calls. This scenario is especially important if you have to book the parties farther out. People appreciate good customer service. And the more contact you have with her, the better chance you’ll have of catching a scheduling problem early.

3. She doesn’t respect you as a business. – Although it’s blunt, it’s the truth. Unfortunately, many people view Party Plan businesses as a hobby. It isn’t a real job. You just do it to get free or discounted products. Because they think this way, they don’t see it as being any real problem to cancel on you. This issue can be difficult to tackle because it requires you to change your perspective on your business. First, make sure you treat your business as a business. Nobody can respect you, if you don’t respect yourself. Along the same lines, you must think highly of yourself and what you have to offer. And (hardest of all) you cannot always be available. Oh, I know. Easy for me to say. But consider the psychology behind the statement “you always want what you can’t have.” If you are always available, bending over backwards to meet the needs of your clients’ schedules, how can they possibly respect you. If she knows that she can cancel this weekend’s party and you’ll have another weekend available for her, what is her incentive to keep her party on the original date? You just cannot act desperate no matter how many dates you don’t have on the books. The crazy thing is, the more in demand you appear to be, the more in demand you will be. When a hostess is ready to book her party, offer her a choice of two or three of the next dates you want to fill. If she suggests or even demands something else, simply let her know that date is not available. You don’t have to explain why. Then, to show just how busy you are, you can offer to see if one of your co-workers has that date available. (Can you hear her gasping? Who ever heard of a consultant giving away parties?) Most hostesses will want to book with the rep they know, so they will pick one of your dates. If not, this is a great way to help new recruits fill their calendars. You still benefit from the party. But if you are so booked that you will offer to give away a party, you will be more attractive as a rep. Everyone will want you to do their shows. They will also see you as more successful and will be more interested in joining your team. And soon, you will be as busy as you claim to be.

Cancellations are somewhat inevitable in the direct sales business. These steps can help you to minimize your cancellations, so you can better build an income you can depend on. Please email me with your success stories!

Deanna Mayer is the stay at home mother of two. When she isn’t carting her boys around their Denver suburb, she is busy building her ideal career at www.itvventures.com/dlm . She is currently launching her newest product line, Naked Minerals, the first 100% pure pressed mineral cosmetics.

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