Host Coaching Helpers

Host coaching is critical to the success of your business: the more engaged your host is, the better the results at your parties.

When I was new to direct sales, I deliberately focused on improving my own host coaching, and I noticed a massive increase in attendance, leading to higher sales, bookings, and recruiting leads.

It all flowed from that essential first step: hostess coaching.

You’ll also notice fewer cancellations and no-shows when you do hostess coaching well.

In this article, I present 3 ‘helpers’ to assist you with your host coaching.

Host Coaching Helpers for Direct Sellers

I have 3 host coaching helpers for you:

FRANK
So, first up is FRANK.

Even if you already know FRANK, I’ll teach you a little trick to supercharge its effectiveness.

You want to use FRANK because the most successful parties include guests from the host’s different circles of friends.

By inviting different people from different circles, you gain access to new circles.

It will also reduce the chance invitees decline as they’ve already been at a recent party. Opportunities for multiple bookings are higher as the guests feel they have plenty of friends in their network to invite to their party.

Using the free worksheet (download below), you can help the host develop a list of names. It’s a simple but incredibly effective process to prompt someone to think of all their networks or circles.

However, you can boost the usefulness of the FRANK list even further by using the Friend field to include friends-of-friends. Most of us have met our friends’ connections, but we may not know them well enough to invite them directly.

But what you tell your host to do is to ask her friend to bring this person along: “Don’t you think Chris would like this too?” or “I think Samantha would enjoy this party too, why don’t you bring her along?” A great way to encourage this is to provide the host with written personalized invitations that the friend can then pass along to their connections.

Doing it this way will work much better than telling the invited people to “bring a friend.” That is too broad and open an invitation and too easy to ignore.

Admit it. You have ignored it in the past! We all have. However, if your host asks her friend, “why don’t you invite Jasmine too?” the friend will likely feel obligated to follow through and invite Jasmine.

You want to coach your host to use the FRANK worksheet and name friends-of-friends on the list.

Grab the host coaching bundle to make your direct sales parties a success.

Star Host & Spoil You Rotten Bag
Next up are the Star Host and Spoil You Rotten Bag incentives.

You will need to come up with some incentives: some small prizes or prize packs that you give the host when they’ve achieved the goals that you’ve set. Cheap company products or products you’ve qualified for through incentive programs are ideal.

These are tools to incentivize the host to invite plenty of people, encourage friends to place pre-party orders, and encourage further party bookings.

If you don’t have anything suitable, create your little prize pack with a few luxury chocolates, a pen & notebook, a candle, etc. Place them in an attractive mug or basket and wrap them up with cellophane and a ribbon. It doesn’t have to be hugely expensive. Presentation is vital, though.

The best way to use the Spoil You Rotten Bag is to staple the printable to an actual pretty paper bag and send that to the host as part of their host pack. The idea is that the bag will be filled with the prizes at the party.

As a bonus, the other guests will also see how the host earns gifts, which could lead to more bookings at your party.

The Star Host printable needs to be printed and sent to your host with your host pack before the party. This way, the host knows beforehand what is needed to qualify for their gift and will begin working towards it. And by doing that, she’ll ensure you both have a successful party!

I change over the incentive tool I use each month to keep it fresh. So one month, I’ll be using the Spoil You Rotten Bag, and the next month I’ll change to the Star Host incentive.

How to gamify the recruiting process (and keep yourself in the game)

Sponsoring or recruiting new members to your direct sales team is the way to grow your business.

But many consultants find it hard to follow up with people who’ve shown an interest.

I certainly found it hard in the beginning!

I struggled with this for a while. I wanted to build my team and expand my business. I tried to make progress fast but procrastinated when I had leads. I found it hard to get a “no.” I didn’t make many follow-up calls and didn’t grow my team very much.

Sound familiar?

At some point, I decided I had to get better at following up. The way I did, it was to ‘gamify’ the process. I turned following up into a game with prizes. Who doesn’t like prizes?

How you can learn to enjoy follow-ups in your direct sales biz

First, I switched my focus from worrying about the results to my actions instead.

I started by rewarding myself with $2 in a spending jar for each follow-up phone call, regardless of the outcome. My goal was to get myself moving, overcome procrastination, and reward myself for the doing, not the result.

Once I made enough calls and earned a nice amount of $2 coins, I treated myself and my husband to a night out at the movies. We enjoyed a fabulous night at the Gold Class cinema because I had finally started making regular follow-up calls.

This first step, focusing on the actions and rewarding these actions, massively changed my attitude toward making these follow-up phone calls.

As a result, I started to make lots of calls. So when I happened to reward myself two weeks in a row with a cinema evening, my husband suggested I think of a cheaper reward.

I then moved on to jelly beans as I love jelly beans. I had a jar sitting on my desk, but I could only have one when I made a follow-up phone call.

I had to end that reward when I decided to clean up my eating habits.

So then, my teaching background came in handy, and I made myself a star chart. I put stars on a chart for every call I made, and I promised myself a nice treat when I filled up the chart! And that worked very well for me.

As you can see, I tried a few different reward systems, and they all worked.

Make recruiting easier by making it into a game. Free worksheet for #DirectSellers and #PartyPlan reps. Grab it now >>

I quickly overcame my fear of follow-up calls, overcame that procrastination, and learned to enjoy every call for its own sake.

Don’t get me wrong. I still got lots of “no’s,” but I also started to recruit more than I had before just because I made the calls!

Of course, now that I was making more calls, I was getting more practice. And just by making more follow-up calls, I got better at it. So my success rate improved, and I noticed that I was getting fewer “no’s” to get each “yes.”

And all I did to achieve this was to gamify my follow-up process. As a result, I enjoyed my rewards and learned to enjoy the process.
This is why I want to encourage you to gamify your recruiting actions.

To help you with this, I’ve created a handy printable worksheet that you can use to encourage yourself to make those follow-up calls, which will lead to more practice and, eventually, a higher success rate.

Worksheet notes

Set yourself mini rewards for every ten calls you make. When you’ve earned five mini rewards, you have filled the sheet and can treat yourself to a bigger reward. Remember, the results do not matter – you get a reward for doing so you learn to love the process!

However, it’s still helpful to track your numbers. You’ll see that as you make more calls, you’ll get fewer “no’s” for each “yes.” Seeing such improvement is incredibly motivating.

Not to mention, once you know what your average number of “no’s” is per “yes,” you will become more motivated to make the next call to get closer to that “yes”!

Mini rewards could include indulging in a sumptuous bubble bath, watching a movie, or catching up with friends. Those things that you don’t usually take time to do but that you enjoy doing.

Once you fill out the worksheet, you can treat yourself to something bigger. Perhaps a dinner out, new clothes or shoes, champagne and chocolate, something for your home office, whatever motivates you.

It’s important to celebrate your efforts and your growth in your business. We tend to make it all about results, but to get the results, we need to put in the work, develop, and get better. Then the results will come.

I’d like to hear what you’re rewarding yourself with and how you’re going with the worksheet. Leave a comment below. Let’s build a stockpile of reward ideas!

Host Bingo

One of the things you can do to ensure your direct selling event is a super success, is to coach your host.

If you’re new to direct sales or party plan, this can be challenging. Perhaps you’re not sure where to start or how to tell the hostess how to make her party or showing a success.

That’s where Host Bingo comes in. This is a fun and easy way to give your hostess an incentive AND direction on how to make her party successful.

All you need to do is to print off the printable (fill out the form below to get it). Then send this to the hostess with your host pack. She can qualify for a prize by completing all the tasks in a row and there’s a special prize if she completes the whole bingo board.

The tasks are all designed to help your event be a success and you can follow up with your host a few times with reminders for the pre-party tasks (just a quick SMS or Facebook message is fine).

Obviously you’ll also need a few prizes. They don’t need to be expensive. You could

choose products that you have been able to get for free or cheaply, you can grab some wine or chocolates if you don’t have products, or have some fabulous flowers delivered to her.

Party Games for Direct Sellers

Games are an awesome secret weapon for your parties. They help guests to relax and have fun. They help you to get your booking or recruiting message across. Games also help to keep your parties fresh because with a big stash of games you can always mix things up for repeat guests.

Grab the Ultimate Games Bundle with 26 done-for-you games that are ready to play! All the necessary printables and images are included.

And until the end of the year it’s available for only $9.75 !!!

View the Ultimate Games Bundle

Moet Moments

Have you ever heard the saying:

Success breeds success.

Having success leads to more success. And if you take the time to celebrate your small wins on the journey to your direct sales goals, you’re far more likely to achieve your big hairy goals!

Allowing yourself to celebrate each win along the way will help to anchor the experience in your mind.

The enjoyment of the achievement will last longer and embed in your subconscious mind. This will help you to keep both your conscious and subconscious mind on track to repeat that wonderful feeling of success….leading to more success!

I celebrate “Moët Moments” (yes, I’ve named it after the champagne).

Each week I set a small goal that will help me reach my larger goals. When I achieve that weekly goal, I celebrate it with a glass of Moët because it feels like a special treat that I don’t indulge in often.

But don’t dwell on the champagne part. Your Moët Moment could be anything….a night out at the movies, a massage, a long indulgent soak in the bath, gourmet chocolate, having the ironing done for you…. anything that’s a treat for you. It doesn’t have to cost a lot of money but it does have to feel special to you for it to work.

I know it’s easier to just tick off your task and move on to the next one.

But you’ll actually achieve more success faster if you enjoy the journey and savor the wins along the way. Plus it’s enjoyable!

Below I’m sharing my Moët Moment worksheets. They come as 2 on one A4 page and I’m sure you’ll love using them.

Download them today and share your wins with us in the comments. I’d also love to hear how you celebrate your Moët Moment.

Plan like a Pro

Working In Your Business vs. Working On Your Business

There’s a difference between working in your business and working on your business. Allow me to explain…

I noticed that when I started to treat my direct sales business as a business, rather than a hobby I did on the side, it started to grow. Massively.

Instead of just doing the parties, working to get bookings, and fulfilling orders (working in my business), I began to work on activities to grow my business (working on my business).

The most important thing I did to make this work was to set aside time to do the things that would help me to get ahead. And I also made my business portable so I could work in small pockets of time.

When I started to plan my time across all aspects of my direct sales business (bookings, hosting, social media, recruiting, etc.) to keep a balance in my efforts things started to really improve. I made sure I worked in the business to deliver awesome service and maintain an income now, and I worked on the business for future growth.

Balancing your energies and efforts is important. For example, if you only spend your time and energy on finding new people to sponsor, you will soon run out of party bookings and your business and orders will fizzle out. But if you only spend time on getting new bookings, you’re not growing your team and you’re running on the spot (just faster).

Like the circus act, you have to keep all the plates spinning or they’ll fall and break!

Planner

To help me maintain that balance and keep myself focused, I developed my own weekly planner.

I found using this planner to be super helpful because once I started to actually allocate times, I stopped trying to do everything all the time. I stopped replying to messages, making host coaching calls, or be on social media while really I wanted to be with my children.

Now I could be with the children and give them my full attention because that was time I had freed specifically to be with them.

During the times I had allocated for business activities, I was able to focus and be more productive because I wasn’t trying to do 5 things at once while feeling guilty for not spending enough quality time with the children.

I also negotiated times with my husband to work in my home office for a few evenings while he organized the kids so I could work on my business, adding to my available work time.

Using the planner stopped me from feeling overwhelmed because the boundaries between work and home life were no longer blurred.

When I was with the children, that was my time with the children. When I was at work, I could focus fully on work and be productive.

Using the planner also helped to plan other important activities for myself, such as exercise, date nights, etc. Self-care is important and the planner helped me to make time for it.

To-Do List & Making Business Portable

To focus my work time, I used specific to-do lists for each aspect of my business, such as party bookings, sponsoring, host coaching, etc. This meant I could walk to my office and be immediately productive because I always knew what I had to do.

Additionally, I created folders for each of those aspects of my business. This way I could grab a folder and start work and have everything on hand that I needed.

This also made my business portable.

If I had some waiting time, for example waiting at gymnastics or basketball, I could grab a folder and my to-do list and make these times incredibly productive. Waiting for the kids never felt like wasted time.

Even if you only have 15 minutes, you’ll be surprised by how much you can get done if you’re organised and ready to work.

Over the years I’ve trained many people on this system (using a weekly planner, business to-do lists and portable folders) in their direct sales business. The people who actually implemented this system reported a big boost to their business and a big increase in the quality of life as their work-life balance improved.

Update: This system has been so popular that I’ve now designed a direct sales planner – no more bits of paper lying around everywhere!

It’s pretty, super useful and designed specifically for direct sellers and party plan consultants.

ORDER YOUR COPY!

How to Use the System

Planner

Grab the Planner download and print it off. You’ll find a timed version and a version without times so you can put your own time blocks in.

You’ll notice that it’s divided in hourly blocks of time and the days of the week. Now cross out the times you definitely can’t work on your business because you have other commitments.

Also cross out the times you need to keep fee for personal time, such as exercise, time with family, etc. Alternatively you can write in these time blocks what you’re doing.

Now look at the times you have left. That’s the time you can allocate to working on your business. Grab a highlighter or colored pens and allocate some time to each aspect of your business (bookings, sponsoring, host coaching, customer care, social media, or other).

Some people like to write in the time blocks what activity they’re doing, some people use color coding and highlighters. Use whatever works best for you.

To-Do Lists

Grab the To-Do List download and print it off.

On the sheet you can see the different headings that correspond with different aspects of most direct sales businesses. There’s also an unlabeled spot for your specific needs (or you can use it for notes). Now sort all your business activities for this week under the various headings.

Folders

Use the To-Do List headings for your folders. You can put everything you need to complete the tasks in these folders so you can easily grab them when you have a pocket of time. So you’d have a Host Coaching folder, a Bookings folder, a Sponsoring folder, etc.

So there you have it: the complete system to plan time to work in your business and on your business and you’ve made your business portable!

I’d love to hear how you implement these tools in your business and which topics you add to your planners. Remember to send me a message and let me know.