Patricia Kagwiria Makhulo asked:


Dear Home Party Consultant, Direct Sales Rep., & Direct Selling Business Owner,

In my last article, An Open Letter To : Direct Sales Consultant, Direct Selling Business Owners On How To Triple Home Party Sales we laid the foundation for improving direct selling ratios. Today we are going to focus our minds of increasing and improving home party sales ratios. This will lead to more home party sales and direct sales profit!

There are 5 ratios that will factor into your tracking:

1. Dialing/Contact Ratio : How may dials and/or contacts to do you make a week?

2. The Home Party Booking & Appointment Ratio — Of the people you do connect with or have a conversation with, how many of them book an at home party?

3. The Hosting/At Home Party Show Ratio — Of those who make the appointment to host an in home show party, how many actually showed.

4. The Closing Ratio — Of those who showed, how many of those resulted in home party sales? In other words how many people made a purchase? These sales do not have to be limited to your in home party demonstration. Did you send out catalog to your hostess to hand out to those who are unable to attend home parties?

5. Follow Up & Follow Through Ratio — How often to you follow up with those have expressed an interest but haven’t nailed a time or place? What about those that show up to a home party and don’t purchase? What about catalog sales? The are sales waiting to happen. Don’t drop the ball because you got a no or a not now.

The most powerful direct sales training tips I ever got were from a man name Jeffery Zalweski “the power of 45”.

To get on the right track you must first set some benchmarks. For example, depending on what you are selling and how frequently people buy what you’re selling, set a target amount of people to speak to per day this is what we call a benchmark!

I recommend a 10 a day regimen. Most people will tell you that sales is a numbers game and they are right about that. Problem is what numbers count? Make it about quality not quantity! Make 10 dials/per day or 10 -15 contacts/day

Then, set a benchmark for the number of people you want to make an appointment to host a home party. Finally set a bench mark for the number or amount of home party sales you would like.

Start each day by tabulating/documenting exactly what happens. That will give you a rough idea of what your ratios look like.

The Appointment Ratio – 40% (If you speak to 10 people, 4 people will book home parties)

The Show Ratio – 60% (If you make an appointment with 10 people, 6 will show/attend the in home party)

The Close Ratio 50% – (If you do a home party demo/presentation to 10 people 5 will buy).

Based on these ratios, to get 3 sales per day, you would need to contact 40 people per day. Of those 40, 12 would make an appointment, 6 would show and 3 would buy.

As you put this process in place, you will see what your true ratios are, but it’s at the very least a starting point. As time goes on, you will also begin to figure out how many calls you need to make each day to reach your estimated goals. This right here is the key to home party plan success, knowing that it takes to get you to the next level.

Here is the best news ever, with time you will notice an interesting phenomenon, that once you improve your booking ratio, you will need to speak to less people to make the same amount of money. Or you could speak to the same amount of people and make more money.

In either case, you will be in a better position to be successful in direct sales, once you start learning direct selling ratios and managing your home party business based on real time numbers and not hear-say or upline advice.

Myself, and Ann Sieg, the Renegade Network Marketer, top notch sales people and others who are successful have been using these strategies for years.

Here’s to a more profitable home party business.

Party Plan Pat



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Patricia Kagwiria Makhulo asked:


Direct sales and home party businesses are booming. Direct selling is definitely the wave of the future as the world goes the current economic restructuring. With party plan companies blooming on every street corner how do you pick the right home party plan company for you? Do you like jewelry? How about make-up? Perhaps food is your thing, no fashion! Skin-care, that’s it! Seems as long as there are products being made, there is a party plan company selling it. The following are the 7 Pillars & Tips For Direct Sales Home Party Consultants for the success to consider when selecting a party plan company.

1) You, The Home Party Consultant: As an independent direct sales home consultant you are the company representative. People will judge the company by how you conduct yourself and your direct selling business. If you find people are a little resistant to what you have to say, don’t take it personally. I can guarantee they had a bad experience with another direct sales consultant. Now is your chance to build a new relationship.

Home Parties Tip: A home party business is not about the party plan company. A home party business is about the home party consultant.

2). Home Party Plan Company Leadership: Does your company of choice have proven MLM/Network Marketing/Direct Sales Experience? How long have they been in business? Are they ethical? –What about their integrity? Is the company privately held or publicly traded? (If the home party company of choice is publicly traded I hope it is one that Warren Buffet owns e.g., Pampered Chef) Have you actually read their Policies & Procedures? How Many pages? (Less is usually better.) WHY? Because the more paper work the less creativity and options you have. It means your every move will be monitored by the party plan company gate-keepers. You might as well get a job! Who does it protect? Comp plan set up to favor/protect distributors or company? Allow ‘walk away’ income? Loopholes to steal your commissions someday?

LONG TERM focus with a solid foundation, or “get rich quick” mentality? I recently read up on the ‘dead’ Circuit city company. The CEO said that their greatest failure was focusing on short term profits instead of long term value. Is your company of choice has not been in business for 5 years…think again

3) Timing of INDUSTRY and COMPANY: Did you know that jewelry home party plan companies are the hottest thing in the party plan industry? Yes Gold home parties are taking the nation by storm. Bill Gates willingly shares his secrets to success, he says:

1. Recognize the future of an industry

2. Take immediate massive action

3. Be at the right place at the right time!

If you can grasp this, success as a home party consultant is all but guaranteed! That said people will never be too young, too thin, too fashionable, too glamorous or too ****. Any home party plan business surrounding these questions and problems will always be a hit! Run from Startups are to be avoided at all costs. This is what we call trending in the direct sales industry. E.g., once Mary Kay unveiled her company suddenly everyone had a beauty and skin care line you could sell from home. You want to find balance in your choice.

What phase is the Party Plan Company? Formulation? Momentum? Critical Mass? Plateau? Companies in the plateau phase offer more name recognition and less of an opportunity. (Under 5 year or 25 + I’d stay away)!

4). TARGET MARKET for your PRODUCTS: Is there huge demand for the home party products you plan on representing? Is the Future bright? Does the product meet Long Term TRENDS? The BIGGEST mistake people make is by making an emotional decision about their choice to become involved in direct sales. Sure your neighbor who is only a high school graduate jumped into party plan company ABC and made a killing and drives the car of your dreams. That is all well and good. However are you suited to the direct selling business? Is it the right time for you to jump in? More importantly have you identified a market for your product? Want to know why most home party consultants fail? because they found a product but have no one to sell it to. Your first step in succeeding is identifying a market for your product and then finding the right home party company. Trust me on this one, you will save yourself a whole lot of trouble!

5) Flagship PRODUCT(s): Products have to be REMARKABLE Not over-priced CONSUMABLE! Seth Godin, author of the best seller Purple Cow speaks at length on the issue of product remarkability. He talks about the mundane-ness of a regular black and white cow over a purple cow. A purple cow is remarkable. Remarkable incidentally doesn’t mean good or awesome

adjective

worthy of attention; striking

Is your home party product of choice one that will compel other to talk about and thus market for you? This is the essence of word of mouth. Is your product average or top of the line? Your product must be good enough to compel repeat buys and persuade me or any other person to tell a friend or ten about it!

6) Compensation Plan: The comp. plan should be the least of your worries, but I will discuss it for your benefit. The home party, direct sales and direct selling industry are all victims of the recruitment scam. You see you are paid for volume not the number of recruits you get. Look it this way what benefit is it to enroll 100 people who buy nothing? However if you make get 10 customers, and each buy $100 of products then you have a percentage of $1000 home party sales. The compensation needs to pay the average person fair percentage. Party plan companies reward home party consultants for selling products NOT for recruiting reps. Avoid comp. plan that pay on levels. Volume is quantifiable. Levels is cut throat and breeds the scams and failings that network marketing has a bad reputation. Paying on VOLUME not levels – drives BEHAVIOR in the field. Do you have a break-away plan? I would be cautious and careful. Best ’statistics’ to determine comp. plan include

‘TAC’ Total Average Commission? ‘PTV’ Percentage of TOTAL volume ?

7) Training, Education, Experience & Personal Development: Duplication is all well and good. Remember what I said at the beginning a home party plan business is about you. You are the single most important determinant of how successful this home party business. There is no such thing as proven SYSTEMS, UPLINE SUPPORT. The only thing that will help you build a successful business is personal development, training, education and experience. Do you have an Action Plan / Game Plan? It is one that can be taught to others i.e., duplicatable while still leaving room for creativity, innovation and expansion? Times have changed. Some things that worked just a few years ago, do not today. Many companies and TEAMS are using outdated systems and methods. Most people (92+% of population) do not like to sell or be sold. Are you building a home party business using 8 track methods in an iPod world? Don’t get caught in a rut!

Wishing you success,

Party Plan Pat



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Patricia Kagwiria Makhulo asked:


As a Home Party Consultant, I see and hear the stress and pressure to increase cash flow in your home party business. Many of you are questioning not only your skills, but also your decision to get involved with a party plan company. Other direct sales consultants who were really raking in the money are now feeling as though they lost the touch!

What separates the struggling, frustrated, heartbroken, cash-poor Home Party Plan Business Owner and direct sales consultants…from the confident, pink Cadillac driving, white Mercedes Benz owning, obviously clued-in home party plans marketers pulling in huge numbers and results EVEN in this chaotic, soul-sucking economy?

(No, wait ESPECIALLY in this chaotic, soul-sucking economy). While average home party business owners are cowering in bed with the covers pulled over their head the top home party sales representatives are still fearlessly bringing home the bacon, even as everyone else panics and freaks out.

People are still buying, the only question is – are they buying from you?

Here are 5 simple, yet powerful tips to help you and me to sell our way out of this ‘crisis’ and become a SIX-FIGURE home party success!

1) Selling is About Behavior

Success in our home party business is not about being a certain type of personality. When I talk to other home party and direct selling consultants, their biggest concern is they do not want to be the pushy car salespersons. I am often told I do not want to sell. Problem is this is the direct sales industry. There is a reason it is called home party sales and direct selling. Because of this fear of selling, there is a common catch phrase we have been taught “you are not selling, you are sharing!” Might then suggest that with that approach you are not building a successful home bases business, rather you are operating a Non-Profit Organization. Is it any wonder you are frustrated? The BIGGEST myth in the sales is that you have to be a certain type of personality to succeed in sales. Sales is about behavior, ANYONE High Performance.

2) Are You Pursuing Relevant Sales Activity

Many home party consultants are a lot like Alice In Wonderland when she meets the Red Queen. Let me share a little bit about their interactions your sales activity relevant? In Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking-Glass there is an incident involving the Red Queen, a representation of a Queen in chess, and Alice constantly running but remaining in the same spot. The scene is often referred to as The Red Queen’s Race.

The Queen kept crying “Faster!” but Alice felt she could not go faster, though she had no breath to say so. The most curious part of the thing was, that the trees and the other things round them never changed their places at all: however fast they went, they never seemed to pass anything. “I wonder if all the things move along with us?” thought poor puzzled Alice. And the Queen seemed to guess her thoughts, for she cried, “Faster! Don’t try to talk!”

Not that Alice had any idea of doing that. She felt as if she would never be able to talk again, she was getting so out of breath: and still the Queen cried, “Faster! Faster!” and dragged her along. “Are we nearly there?” Alice managed to pant out at last.

“Nearly there!” the Queen repeated. “Why, we passed it ten minutes ago! Faster!” And they ran on for a time in silence, with the wind whistling in Alice’s ears, and almost blowing her hair off her head, she fancied.

“Now! Now!” cried the Queen. “Faster! Faster!” And they went so fast that at last they seemed to skim through the air, hardly touching the ground with their feet, till suddenly, just as Alice was getting quite exhausted, they stopped, and she found herself sitting on the ground, breathless and giddy. The Queen propped her against a tree, and said kindly, “You may rest a little now.”

Alice looked round her in great surprise. “Why, I do believe we’ve been under this tree all the time! Everything’s just as it was!”

“Of course it is,” said the Queen: “what would you have it?”

“Well, in our country,” said Alice, still panting a little, “you’d generally get to somewhere else — if you ran very fast for a long time, as we’ve been doing.”

“A slow sort of country!” said the Queen. “Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!”

Does your daily activity produce desired results? If not, determine which activities (i.e. dials, presentations, networking, etc.) produce results. Develop a sales process that strings together the relevant sales activity.

Being busy does not always mean real work. The object of all work is production or accomplishment and to either of these ends there must be forethought, system, planning, intelligence, and honest purpose, as well as perspiration. Seeming to do is not doing. Thomas A. Edison

In Direct Sales Dials, Contacts, Presentations, Appointments are all relevant sales activities that lead to Sales Conversions.

3) Focus on Action and The Results Will Take Care Of Itself

Pareto’s Law (also known as the ice-berg theory of change) dictates that 80% of your results will come from 20% of your efforts. Your results will naturally continue to be evaluated on the amount of business you bring in. However, without the underlying data on sales activity, results will be inconsistent. Start tracking them and determine accordingly how one influences the other. When I talk to direct sales consultants the question will come up what is your closing ratio? The common pattern that emerges is inconsistency. Inconsistent action leads to inconsistent results. That there is a direct correlation exists between activity and results is not unknown to you.

Home Party Plan Success Tip: An ounce of action, is worth a pound of theorizing – Emerson.

4) Determine Your Biggest Return On Investment For Home Party Sales & Leverage It

If you do not know where you came from, how can you possibly know proceed?

Do you know which of these 6 types of sales approaches – Telephone, Trade fairs, Networking, Hostess training, Home Parties & Home Party Demonstrations and my personal favorite Referrals are giving you the biggest return for your time and money? If your answer is no, we have a problem. For the next six weeks it will be important for you to track your results based on these 6 sales approaches to see where your money and time will be best spent. Why you might ask do I need to do this?

Research and common sense teach us that people enjoy doing what comes natural to them. Use the sales approach that works for YOU.

Experts say it take 21 days for something become habit. For the next 21 days I encourage you to use the information and you will see results.

See, Isn’t Sales is Simple!

If you are tired of building your home party business with dead-beat leads, poorly attended home parties, while barely making any home party sales; Get your own personal copy of The Little Black Book Of Home Party Marketing Secrets TOADY! Now you too can stop struggling as a home party consultant and start on your path to 6-FIGURE home party success!



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