Joint Party W/ Mary Kay & Home&Garden Ideas, Suggestions

[pampermejolene]

So a friend of mine asked me to do a party for her. After agreeing she tells me great, the Mary Kay and Home & Garden Party reps also said yes. I have never done a show like this. I already told my friend that with multiple vendors there is a chance she won't reach sales levels for her to receive host benefits. She doesn't seem to care. I'm not too worried about it reaching show level. My Mom said she wants to place another order. I just don't know how to manage things during the time that I'm there.

Any ideas or suggestions?
It's going to be open house style so I thought I would bring a tray of brownies (already cooked) on one of the stones, and have the pizza cutter and mini server there to serve. I'm also planning on bringing some garlic, citrus and maybe an onion or something to demo the garlic and citrus presses and the food chopper and cutting boards.

I guess my main question is how should I handle the door prize? I was hoping to have everyone fill out info to get them on my mailing list but I usually draw names at the end. If it's open house style people will be coming and going... I guess I could draw a name every hour? (though if I'm taking orders and answering questions I may forget to do this!).

Any ideas, or input would be much appreciated. The party is scheduled for January 31.

 

[jbdowd0798]

You can do a door prize a few ways. I've done them where if they fill out my slip they are entered, if the place an order of $35 or more, $50 or more, book a show, and so on. Don't spend too much money on door prizes. You could do a SB for slips and maybe something around $10-15 for the other.

I've done them and its ok. I have a TS joint show feb 7th and the host is EXCITED and wants to talk about our business already! YAHOOO!!!!

 

[ChefPaulaB]

I did one of these in November and it was a total flop (it was for a friend too). I planned to do the salsa demo and just kind of keep it going let everyone give it try here and there, but she never ended up with enough people to even bother with it. She had all of the vendor's donate a prize and she gave us all fun money and we were to hand them out to people as we saw fit and at the end whoever had the most money got to pick a prize... although, again, if people are coming and going that won't work (not sure what she was going to do there). Like you could give out $5 for ordering, $10 for booking and that type of thing. I don't think that I would do a drawing every hour unless you have a lot of small things to give out... I don't know. I guess I wasn't very much help after all, sorry! Good Luck! On a good note, those of us that were there had a good time... there was lots of food and drinks for us since no one showed up!

 

[Debrachef]

I wouldn't worry too much about a door prize. What you could do is when guests come by your table, tell them that you offer a monthly newsletter or recipe via email and ask if they would like to be on your email list. Most will say yes. Then, you can tell them that you are also doing a drawing for a free Season's Best recipe book that you will mail out to the winner in about a week. Just look at this as a being no different than a vendor fair. I would not count on very much sales, but work on leads. You can tell your host that based on sales and/or bookings that you get that night, she will at the very least receive a free cookbook. Again, it can be a Season's Best,(if its a flop) or you can give her one of our other cookbooks (if you get some sales or bookings).

Good Luck!

 

[teresah551393]

I have dont two of these and I have another one coming up. I am not so sure i like them. After the first one i decided i was not going to invest much $ wise because I reallly didn't get much for the showl The one coming up I am the main attraction. This host booked with me and had me send the invites and do all the leg work in that respect, the other vendors arent' doing that so I intend to act as if it is just a PC show and do what I normally do. The other vendors know I am going first anyway, and I take the most space in the kitchen to set up and so forth. This is my business/job and I need the income. I don't really like it but if the host wants to do that, that is her right I suppose, I just don't like not knowing that up front. I won't be giving many door prizes if they aren't really listening or interested in PC. I can't afford to have done all the work, gone to the expense of postage and then have all the other vendors walk away with the sales. From now on I don't think I will agree to do these. Good luck, I hope it works for you.

 

[PamperChefCarol]

I have done several of these type of things and what I do for a door prize is offer a GC redeemable only through me. This works several ways: 1, you are not out anything until they redeem it, 2. the winner will probably end up spending more and you now have complete contact info and a possible customer,host, recruit lead, 3. it takes nothing but a stamp to get it to the winner if they are not present, and 4.you can offer to double it, etc if she redeems it at her show. I am a huge fan of the personal GC.

 

[chefann]

You should check with the host that the guests know that there will be more than one vendor there, too. Otherwise, they'll only budget for 1, and everyone's sales will suffer.I know that if I were invited to a home party and there were 3 companies there when I only expected one, I'd skip all purchases and go home with my checkbook intact.

 

[StacieB]

This past summer I did a show for a gal. I knew ahead of time that there would be a Jewelry gal and an Arbonne gal. I was pleasantly surprised that most of them wanted PC stuff and not the others. The show closed with over $400 in orders. We had an Open House type atmosphere and I served Clubhouse Chicken Squares along with some other food she had. I had products set out for them to look at along with catalogs and order forms. Best of luck!!

 

[Sheleif]

I did a combined party with Gold Canyon Candles and we both did great in sales. Mine was $1300.00. I was pleasantly surprised.

 

[DessertDivaFL]

I am going to be holding a New Product Open House in my home with a Tastefully Simple rep in March since we both debut new products that month. We both agreed not to demo competing products (I won't demo seasonings and she won't demo any non-food products). It helps keep things on a level playing field.

 

[JackieBozeman]

Each of the consultants from the various companies should invite their past hosts to attend also. Of course, get the OK from the host. I actually did this myself and told each of the other consultants they needed to invite 10-20 of their customers to it. We split the cost of the food in thirds or 4th (don't remember how many I had). This way you get 60-80 people hopefully coming through.

 

[pampermejolene]

Thanks for all the input! I really like the GC idea and the one door prize. I was mostly trying to figure how to get people's info so I can stay in contact. I just found out that one of the other reps is actaully her mil and it is at her house!!
I'm going to go and do my thing but I really wish she had been more up front with me at the beginning.

 

[pampermejolene]

I was just contacted by one of the other vendors, she wants me to bring a couple food items to help demo her recipes and products. I'm a bit surprised by this. I didn't even know they sold stuff similar to ours (guess I should have a researched a bit before hand). I simply told her that I was planning on bringing some snack type foods as well to demo my recipes and products. I hope that didn't come off rude ???

 

[chefann]

Why would another consultant want your help to sell her items? That's bold. It sounds like you handled it well.

 

[pampermejolene]

she wrote back saying if I was bringing my own snack food not to worry about what she requested. Maybe she figured I wasn't bringing anything at all when she heard I wasn't doing an interactive demo.