What to do when you have zero bookings in your diary?

What to do when your diary is empty, and you have zero bookings? The first thing is not to panic. The second thing is not to give up because this situation is temporary!

How you deal with a zero bookings situation depends on how long you’ve been in your direct sales business. I’ve got two options, and if you do the first option, nothing stops you from moving on to the second option to boost your business even further!

The Re-Launch Option

The re-launch works well if you’ve been in business for a while. The first thing to do is to get excited because it’s a fresh start!

Now, in your diary, set two party dates within three days of each other—for example, a Friday night and a Sunday afternoon in the same week. Next, grab a FRANK worksheet and think of anybody and everybody you can call.

When you call the people on your list, ask them to host a party for you. If they can’t do that or are uncomfortable doing that, only invite them to attend one of your parties. (“That’s okay, I have a party at my place. Which is better for you, Friday night or Sunday afternoon next week?”). If they can’t host a party and they can’t attend your party, ask if you can send them a catalog. Always start with the biggest ask (hosting a party), not with the catalog option!

Ensure all your party dates are close to getting momentum and your business going again. Also, don’t invite people hosting a party for you to your party because they will stop the booking momentum. When one or two people say, “I’ve already booked a party with you…” other guests are less likely to book with you thinking you’ve already got a full diary.

Also, you don’t want to drive your friends and family crazy with your business 🙂

Find New Networks

Perhaps you’ve only recently hosted your party. Or maybe you’re new in your party plan business and launched not long ago. If the Re-Launch Option doesn’t work, you must find new networks with new people!

The trick with branching out into new networks is to cast your net wide and try many different things. Don’t pre-judge the ideas. Start trying them out.

Survey Boxes

Use surveys to get fresh leads for bookings or recruits. Create a survey related to your type of direct sales business (e.g., health, fashion, home decor). Ask a couple of questions and collect details to follow people up. Anybody who fills out a survey goes in the draw for a prize.

You can leave your surveys at businesses in your town.

Read this article for more details on using surveys to get new leads, and grab the two survey examples to get started.

Letterbox Drop

Create a special promotion for party bookings and staple a bright flyer to your catalog. When planning your letterbox, drop it’s better to target the same house three times than to deliver as many catalogs as you can in your town. People need to see something more than once before they take action (that’s why TV ads get repeated so often). For example, if you can afford 60 catalogs or flyers, deliver them to the same 20 houses over ten days rather than to 60 houses. My results from letterbox drops have been mixed. Sometimes it worked well, and I had no phone calls other times. But it’s about casting that wide net!

Posters

In most neighborhoods, you can find a noticeboard to put up a poster to advertise your business. I use posters with tear-off tabs with my contact details. Put at least five posters in different locations such as your local library, university, cafe, laundromat, supermarket, lunch rooms at large offices, community notice boards, etc. Don’t forget to check back and replace posters if needed. This is a tremendously low-effort method.

Party Swap

Do you know a consultant in a different party plan business? Arrange a party swap: you’ll be hosting a party for her, and she’ll be hosting a party for you. It’s a fun way to get a booking as you’ll have an evening of fun with your friends and you’ll have a chance to watch another consultant at work and see if you can pick up some ideas from them.

Business Box

If you have spare products or testers gathering dust at home, put them together in a nice box or basket and drop them at a local business. Ensure to include some catalogs, order forms, and the host offers for parties. It’s a good idea to have a special gift or incentive to bribe someone to be ‘in charge’ of the box at the business (e.g., the receptionist). Leave the box at the company for a few days, and then retrieve your box or basket and any orders.

Market or Fete

Are there any markets or events coming up in your local area? Booking a site at a local event is a great way to spread the word about what you offer and pick up new bookings. Also, consider creating a special booking incentive to entice people to book a party with you.

Read this article to learn more about these ideas.

Maximizing Bookings Once you Have a Party

Once you’ve cast that wide net, you’ll get at least a few bookings.

Now you need to make the most of those parties to get more bookings and get your business rolling again.

Here are some ideas to do just that:

Use referral vouchers. This is an easy and low-effort method, so add it to your repertoire! Please read this article on how to do it well and grab the free printables.
Check this article to learn about booking boxes, party bags, star dates, and wish lists.
And for three more booking enticements check this article too.

Want to learn all my secrets to growing a direct sales team? This book has everything I have learned from the industry in the last 20 years. I’ve tried and tested many methods to arrive at my winning formula!

Order your copy here

5 Ways to Maximize Valentine’s Day

Valentine’s Day is a fabulous opportunity for your party plan or direct sales business.

I’ve listed five ideas that you can swipe to maximize your February!

Shower your customers with love

Declare February “The Month Of Love.” This month, pamper your customers and show them how much you appreciate them. Perhaps you can offer a gift with every order, free shipping, or a discount.

The gift doesn’t have to be big or expensive. For example, I recently made an online purchase and received a small heart-shaped soap as a gift. How cute is that for February? Another option is adding chocolates to every order to make your customers feel special.

Declaring February as your “Month of Love” allows you to promote your special deal all month, not just for Valentine’s Day.

I’ve created some tiles you can use to promote your Month of Love on Social Media. Please scroll down to grab them.

Shower your leaders with love

If you have a party plan or direct sales team, you can use Valentine’s Day as the inspiration for a “Share the Love” recruiting incentive.

Encourage your team to focus on promoting the business opportunity during February by sharing their love for their business. For example, leaders can offer heart-shaped jewelry, luxury gift boxes of chocolates, or other Valentine’s Day-appropriate incentives to teamies who recruit.

Bonus tip: wait until after Valentine’s Day to buy your incentive prizes when they’re on sale!

The direct sales opportunity is a gift. Please share it with as many people as possible in February.

Make Buying Easy

Make buying gifts super easy for your customers by creating gift bundles.

Gather a few of your products that make an excellent set, and add a gift that complements your bundle. Think of gift items like a bottle of wine, a tea towel, a candle, etc.

The best way to promote this is to buy some nice boxes or baskets and create a few different bundles at various prices. Use gift wrap, cellophane, and ribbons to make your gift look stunningly attractive.

The benefit of pre-purchasing and preparing your gift bundles is that you can offer last-minute gifts (as you don’t have to wait for the stock to arrive) and have something physical and pretty to promote.

Start taking them to your in-home parties a few weeks before Valentine’s Day to promote your bundles. Also, take some photographs and share your bundles on social media focusing on the men in your customers’ lives.

Depending on your products, you could even take these gifts to workplaces and offer men these gift packs for their loved ones.

Add Valentine’s to your display.

A great way to promote Valentine’s Day and spark the gift-purchasing impulse at your in-home parties or vendor events is to add some Valentine’s Day-themed items to your display.

Just as a window display is designed to entice people to enter the shop, your display attracts people to purchase products or book an event.

In the lead-up to Valentine’s Day, add some lovely heart-themed props to your display to promote gifts.

Don’t forget Self-Love.

I want to expand the meaning of Valentine’s Day to include self-love. At your events and on your social media, encourage your customers to treat themselves to something special.

Self-care is vital for our mental health, so let’s make sure that people treat themselves in February, so they feel fabulous!

I hope these ideas sparked your creativity to make the most of Valentine’s Day. And I’m curious to hear what you’re doing in February to maximize the special occasion!

How to kickstart your direct sales business in the new year

If you plan ahead during the busy Christmas season, you can ensure an awesome start to your direct sales or party plan business in the New Year.

To get you off to a great start, you want to fill your January diary with bookings. And to help you with that, I have two tips and a kick-ass printable you can grab by filling in the form below.

Simply ask

The first way you can plan ahead for an awesome January is to re-book parties with your hosts from the holiday trade season. Simply put, you ask for another booking!

Most direct sales companies have either a new range released or extra special deals for January that you can use as a draw card for a new party. I encourage all my hosts from October to December to host another gathering in January.

I remind hosts that it’s a more relaxed time in January to catch up with friends after the silly season. And to help with that, I offer some party themes that work well with relaxing and catching up. I usually get a good response by asking that way, coupled with the new products or January specials.

Offer January coupons

The second method you can use to fill your January diary is by offering coupons or discount certificates.

You give these coupons to every customer you meet during the Christmas selling season! Make sure that the offer is only valid during January – this creates some urgency and helps you to fill your diary! (I have some samples for you to download below.)

Kickstart your direct sales biz in the New Year

To really make this work for you, create a list with every person you’ve given a coupon. At the start of January, you send them an SMS or Facebook message to remind them of the offer.

A great way to encourage your customers to use their vouchers in time is to invite them to an open home or an online party hosted by you.

Never fear if you didn’t get organized with coupons during the Christmas season! You can create the coupons in January and contact your customers and hosts with the offer as a belated thank you for shopping with you during the Christmas season. It’s the perfect reason to get back in touch!

Are you missing out on bookings?

For my entire first year in direct sales, I missed many opportunities to get bookings at my parties… With this article, I want to save you from making the same mistakes as I did!

Assumptions can cost you bookings

The big mistake I made was that I made an assumption. I assumed that someone would only want to book a party or event to qualify for free and discounted products.

This led me to only focus on this when promoting future bookings.

Later I realized that I was missing out on a huge opportunity. There are lots of people who aren’t only interested in the host rewards. For many people, the host rewards are a nice extra but not their main reason for booking.

It took me a while to learn that many hosts book for fun, the connections, or simply because they like you.

Connection & Themes Are Key

When I started to relax more, connect better with the guests, and talk about all the reasons for having a party, my business exploded.

Some of the things you might want to highlight when talking about bookings are the opportunity to catch up with friends, how easy it is to shop for gifts (especially around Christmas), and the different themes you offer.

You do offer themed parties or events, right?

One of the best things I ever did for my business was to start offering distinctly themed events and parties. The more thematic your parties are, the better. You’ll get more repeat business, and guests will enjoy coming to party after party because each one is different.

Offering themes also helps you to cater to a variety of different interests and personality types, which expands the appeal of your business.

Don’t be a product dumper

Avoid being a “product dumper” – don’t show every single product at every party. You want to keep something up your sleeve for different themes. You want people to return to you repeatedly, and if you show all you’ve got at a party, there’s no reason to return. Well, other than the host rewards, that is!

I’ve written the kind of book I would have loved someone to give me when I started out —it’s the HOW-TO OF RECRUITING.

Choctober Theme

Almost everyone loves chocolate.

I love a good bit of chocolate, but I love “Choctober” even more. Choctober is my secret weapon to fill the October month with parties.

And the best part is that the Choctober theme works with almost any direct sales business. That, and chocolate, of course.

I want to fill my October month with parties to set myself up for a profitable holiday trade.

Run your own Choctober month

I promote special chocolate dates for October, where anyone who books a party on those particular dates will receive a box of chocolates from me as a special gift.

That way I can control my diary to suit me.

I take 3 or 4 varieties of gift boxes with chocolates to my parties, so there’s bound to be at least one that appeals to the guests.

I also promote Choctober in my VIP customer groups through Facebook Live.

Online promotion tip: Show only 1 box of chocolates each variety (3-4 in total) and make clear that when they're gone, they're gone! You want to create a little bit of urgency and a sense of scarcity to nudge people to act. 

(I've created some tiles and a Facebook cover image for you too to help you promote Choctober, download them below.)

Now you have your booking incentive all set, but the fun doesn’t stop there!

Choctober Themed Parties

I recommend you add a chocolate flavor to your parties by running the Chocolate Game. I’ve explained how to play the game here

Using the Chocolate Extravaganza game, you can also incorporate chocolate into your host coaching. Check the article on how to play and grab the free printables here

Finally, I also use Smarties to promote my parties. I’ve created these cute Smartie packs by printing up a bunch of stickers (I used the ‘address label’ size on VistaPrint) and putting them on little Smartie boxes.

I hand them out at parties as prizes, pop them in the delivery bags or use them as an alternative to my business card during Choctober. People are always excited to receive them, and they work well with the Choctober theme.

With these tips, you can run a fabulous Choctober and set yourself up for a sensational peak season. However, some direct sellers can make Choctober even bigger and better with these ideas:

If you sell cooking products, you could demonstrate chocolate-related dishes.
If your company has brown-colored products (think make-up, nail products, clothing, etc.), you can highlight those products during Choctober.
If your product range includes products with a scent, you could highlight scents that you could relate back to chocolate (mint, orange, caramel, etc.).

I just love Choctober because I’m already getting excited about peak trade, and this way, I get a running start!

Are you looking for games? Have a look at the Ultimate Games Bundle for Direct Sellers. It comes with 26 done-for-you games for in-home and Facebook parties. Check it out now.

Boost your booking behaviors

Do you want more bookings in your diary? Most direct sellers do, so I’m guessing you said ‘yes’ to that question.

If you’re not sure what to do to get more bookings or if you find yourself making a start on getting bookings but then fizzling out, I’ve got just the thing for you!

I’ve designed a series of practical actions that you can do that will lead to more bookings. I’ve called them ‘booking behaviors.’ Using the printable below, you can keep yourself accountable and set yourself a challenge to keep doing these booking behaviors month after month.

You want to be doing these actions consistently to keep your diary full. Because your business is growing with more parties, you’ll have more sales and opportunities to recruit or sponsor, your business is growing!

Your business will be in good shape if you do 100 of these booking behaviors in a month. So I want you to grab the printable worksheet below and see if you can reach that magic goal of 100 actions towards bookings this month.

What are booking behaviors?

Booking behaviors are the practical things you do that tend to lead to more bookings. These actions include:

Asking everyone at a party (individually) to book a party
Posting three catalogs each week to past hosts, good customers, friends
Mailing the guest or host offer to past hosts, good customers, or friends
Reading a chapter of a self-development or party-plan book each week (ideas here)
Revisiting your FRANK list (download here)
Posting quality content on your biz page or in your customer group (download ideas here)
Texting or phoning hosts that have postponed parties with a follow-up and new offers at the start of the month
Texting new guests offers to past good guests
Putting up a poster on community notice boards to promote your business
Using old catalogs with a personal note to letter drop in your neighborhood
Setting a booking incentive and promoting it at parties and your social media
Proposing a fundraiser for a local sports club or church
Attending a fair, expo, vendor event
Trading a party with a consultant from another party plan
Updating your referral vouchers
Creating a survey box

Boost your booking behaviors and keep yourself accountable in your direct sales biz with this FREE printable.

On the worksheet, you’ll also find some space to make notes or set goals and a space to write down some booking behaviors that are specific to your direct sales business.

You color in a square or add a tick or gold star every time you complete an action. It’s psychologically very satisfying and motivating to watch your chart fill up. Every time you record your success (completing an action), you get a little dopamine in your brain’s reward system. And this helps you to train your brain to keep doing these behaviors. This is how you train your brain for success.

There’s a lot of psychological accountability science backing the effectiveness of a practice like this. Add a reward for reaching the 100, and you’re on to a winner!

Overcome objections to booking parties

Have you ever been in a situation where you offered party guests a booking with you, but they had all kinds of reasons to turn you down?

Let me teach you some strategies to turn those objections into parties! Then, next time someone brings up why they can’t have a party, you’ll be ready to help them find a solution!

Many people are busy and worry that hosting a party would take too much time. To this person, I say something like: “Parties only take a couple of hours and are perfect for busy people who don’t want the hassle of going to the store! And besides, you get to catch up with friends at the same time.”

You can also offer an “express” party at the office during lunch or a Facebook party.

You can help this busy host to have a fun and successful party by making everything super easy for her!

Understandably, people don’t want to ‘double up’ on party plan parties! This is why you want to offer some different themes and have plenty of other games in your stash. That way, you can offer something fresh and new to repeat guests.

So you can say something like: “When you invite people, ask them to bring a friend. That way, the group is a little different, with some new people in the mix. We’ll also choose one of these fun themes that your friends haven’t seen before!”

In my many years in business, I’ve never found this a problem! So when I hear this objection, I say something like: “I prefer it that way! So many of my best parties are in small homes and offices. It seems more intimate.”

I then offer a ‘workshop style’ party and limit attendance to 5 or 6 people to ensure everybody gets personal attention and makes the most of the workshop.

Make sure you also help the hostess collect some orders before the party from people who can’t make it, so she has an excellent chance to earn host rewards.

The last objection I want to mention is this one that I sometimes hear: “I loved this party, but my friends may not be interested in something like this!”

I reassure this person that she only needs a few people to have a successful party. You can offer the same type of workshop-style party as above.

I say something like: “That’s fine, you only need a handful of people at your party. I like to keep my parties small, so I can give each guest personalized attention.”

Now that you have some solutions for these common objections, I’m sure you’ll book more parties! And if they don’t book with you, don’t take it personally. They may be all partied out.

Are you ready for direct sales success?

Take the next step and learn what to say at your parties, what to display, games to play, conversion strategies, follow-ups, and more!

Get even more bookings from parties

The better you become at securing bookings from parties, the faster your business will grow and the easier it will be.

And suppose you don’t have wild dreams of becoming a hugely successful businesswoman, but you want your direct selling business to supplement your family’s income consistently. In that case, it’s super helpful to keep your business ticking over efficiently by securing new bookings at every party.

Why am I giving you so many ideas?

Different strategies work for different personality types. You don’t always know what will work for you (with your personality, company, and products). So keep trying out new ideas until you find a few techniques that work well for you. Then get really good at those!

Don’t stop once you’ve found one thing that works for you. For example, you want to mix it up so that guests who’ve seen you at one party won’t get bored with you. If you work through the same “script” every time, you’ll bore the pants of people who’ve seen you at multiple parties. Also, when you present the hosting opportunity in a new way, you may resonate with someone who didn’t respond before.

So that’s why I like to give you as many ideas to try as I can.

Bribery Basket

This method is a fun and exciting way to entice guests to book a party. I take a pretty basket with a good range of different products (wine, chocolates, candles, etc.). Anyone who books a party within the next few weeks can choose a product from the basket. This is one of my most popular booking enticements. Some of my regular hosts actually ask me to bring the basket to their party.

Deal or No Deal

This method is a great way to turn the subject of bookings into a game. I use two different versions:

Put six pretty boxes on display. Three contain an instant gift, and 3 include a gift AND a party booking. So they have a 50% chance of getting a booking with their prize. Anyone who’d like to can pick a box and open it.

This game is a lot of fun, and I find that anyone willing to try their luck on an envelope or box usually goes ahead to book a party whether they “win” one or not.

The trick to making this game work well for you is to pay a lot of attention to the presentation. The prettier the boxes or envelopes are, the more guests want to open them.

Pay the Date

This strategy will front-load your month with plenty of parties. People who book a party can are offered a special price.
For example, you can offer them a special product at the price of the calendar date. So if they book on the 1st of the month, they pay $1. Booking on the 10th will cost them $10.

Many of my booking strategies or recruitment strategies use product incentives. The way I make this work for me is by using every opportunity at my disposal for free or cheap products.

Many direct sales companies offer opportunities to win products or get extra discounts on products. I use these opportunities to get some high-value items for Pay the Date, and I also get a range of low-to-medium value items for Deal or No Deal.

Keep your incentives in mind when you have an opportunity to get free or cheap products.

Have fun with these strategies. I’d love to hear which you have tried!

Learn more!

Overcoming (more) booking objections in your direct sales business

Title: Overcoming (more) booking objections in your direct sales biz

Hosting a direct sales party is amazing: you earn free or discounted products, you get to have a fun catch-up with friends or family and you get to shop leisurely.

I certainly can’t imagine walking into a normal retail store with eight friends and three bottles of bubbly and expect a staff member to spend two hours exclusively with us. Can you imagine the response if we demanded to sample as many products as we wanted and then expect free and discounted products at the end? I suspect we’d be invited never to return…

What we have to offer in our industry is very special. The best way to overcome booking objections is to be confident with the fact that you are in fact offering something fabulous. If you anticipate objections and are prepared with an answer, you’ll have a full diary!

I’ve written about common booking objections such as no time, house too small, and the worry that friends aren’t interested. You can read about that here.

Below I’ve listed 3 more common objections to hosting a party with suggestions on how to respond.

“My husband won’t like the idea”

Perhaps their husband is tired and just wants to watch television and decompress in the evening. Perhaps their husband likes peace and quiet when at home because he sees enough people through their work. Either way, there are several things you can offer this person.

First of all, you can offer to work around the husband’s schedule. Perhaps you can offer a party or workshop on a morning or afternoon when the husband is not home.

Remember that you can also offer different party formats. Perhaps this host is more comfortable with a couple of friends around the kitchen table, or perhaps she would actually love to have 10 of her friends over. Make sure she knows you can accommodate her.

If your company offers men’s products, it might be nice for this host to shop for a few things for her husband so he gets something out of it too.

“We are tired of parties”

Oh dear, your potential hostess is all partied out! Again, make sure she knows you can offer different party formats and different themes to accommodate her tastes.

Also explain that a direct sales party isn’t just a party, it’s an interactive and fun shopping experience. Tell her you are her boutique retailer and you bring the shop to her and some friends. Sometimes reframing what it is that you offer will make all the difference.

My friends don’t have extra money

Explain the different payment methods you accept. You can also point out that hosting a party is the best way to get free or discounted products. If you have any guest offers going as well, make sure to mention them.

Direct Sales Tip: How to overcome booking objections and fill your diary with direct sales parties.

Remember that practice is key. The more you attempt to overcome objections, the easier it will be become and the more confidence you gain.

I’m curious to hear if you’ve come across any other objections to booking an in-home party. Be sure to leave a comment below to share your experiences with the community.

Ready to unlock the secrets to overcoming objections?

Across 8 modules, you’ll learn how to spark interest at your parties, find new team members and overcome objections.

The Magic of Themes for your Direct Sales Business

Title: The Magic of Themes in your Direct Sales Biz

If you’re not offering themes in your direct sales business, you might be missing out on lots of bookings. If you don’t offer a variety of different parties, why would someone book their own party? Been to one party, been to them all….right?

Themes help you to cater to more people

But when you offer themes, you’ve always got something different and new to offer. Themes also allow you to cater to a variety of different interests and personality types. Different people, after all, like different things!

When I first started running all my parties as themed events, I noticed that my bookings skyrocketed. Guests would work out among themselves who would host the next party so they could try another theme! It was also easier to re-book the same host because I could entice them with an entirely new party.

I put a lot of effort into making sure all my parties are distinctly different because I don’t want people to think they are going to get the ‘same old’ party with me because that will dry up bookings fast!

You can find an example of how to run a themed party in the Choctober article. You don’t have to wait until October to do this themed party, call it the “Chocoholics” party and away you go. This particular theme is suitable for almost all party plans too, you don’t have to sell chocolate!

The Devil is in the details

Wherever possible try to match your games to the theme you’re running. I take it even further and make sure my display, my towels and ribbons, etc. to match my 5 most popular themes. I store each set with relevant products – creating a little theme kit that’s easy to grab.

You also want to think about the prizes you might be using at your party and the booking incentive, if you’re using one. Make sure it all matches your theme!

As they say, the devil is in the details. If you theme your parties and make sure the details are also appropriately matched, you’ll see that guests have a whole new experience even if they’ve been to a party with you before.

Advertise your themes

Make sure you have an eye catching display to advertise your other themes. Create a list of all your themes to make it easy for people to choose from. I sometimes display my list in a frame and sometimes I pass around a laminated copy. I’ve also attached a printed list with the order form at parties.

The Magic of Themes for your Direct Sales Biz

You don’t have to create a massive list of theme options – in fact it’s better if you don’t so people don’t get overwhelmed. I recommend choosing 5 or 6 themes that you put a lot of thought into to make them awesome and really different from each other.

To add some variety to your themes, you can add seasonal themes. Make sure you advertise themes on your social media (do a Live and talk up your seasonal theme) and display it at your parties.

To help you brainstorm themes, I’ve got a big list you can download. It’s got theme ideas and some notes on how to implement them.

Want more party theme ideas?

Check out the Ultimate Party Games Bundle!