Suddenly Multi Vendor Cooking Show!!

[Veevahchef]

I have a show tonight that is getting very "Out Of Whack".

At first, it was someone asking me to come and do a cooking show, and also asking if she could sell her "self Breast Exam kits" at the show as well. I said fine, since it ties in nicely with the whole May HWC thing.
THEN a week later she tells me she wants to do a joint PC/ARBONNE thing because a "friend" sells Arbonne and she wants her guests to be able to have a "Pampering" in that way as well.
I didn't really like it, but i agreed and i asked her to put me in touch with the Arbonne lady so we could work out how we would do it all and keep it fair ect.

Sooo.... The Arbonne rep called me today and told me that in talking to the host (this morning), she has discovered that she (the host) also invited a lady who sells jewellry to do a little presentation as well!

Both of us are feeling very confused and misinformed and now wondering how we are going to "make it work".

I spoke to the host lastnight and she never mentioned a thing about the jewellery. but I am almost wondering if she realizes that we could be there for HOURS AND HOURS with all this stuff she has got going on!

NOT looking forward to my show tonight........

What would you do?

 

[wadesgirl]

Keep your demo short! Or have the food already prepared and talk about the four main groups. Try to get to go first if you can!

 

[Veevahchef]

Yes, I was supposed to go first, but now with the jewellry, i don;t know what is going on. At least myself and the other vendor got to discuss it and make a plan, but the plan could be blown out of the water!!

Thanks for the suggestion!

: )

 

[Tig]

Wow, Id be upset as well. Not only the time issue, but not everyone is going to have a ton of money to spend on all the different direct sales companies!

 

[bsaxman]

Maybe you should all do it more as an "open house" instead! Sounds like too much going on. If you are going to do a demo, make sure to go first otherwise people who are tired of waiting around will go home and miss yours entirely. What a mess! Hope it turns out ok in the long run!

 

[stefani2]

Veevahchef - I am going to be in the same situation on Saturday- I think it is jewellry and purses at the same show as me. They invited 60 people and have asked for my presentation to be about 1/2 hour long - but they want a cooking show. So I figure I will REALLY focus on bookings and recruiting, and then right into the demo. I will have to slow down checkout to spend more time one on one I guess.....

....good luck - try to think of it as a great opportunity to meet lots of people. If money is low - book a show, right? (money will probably be low for most people b/c there are so many DS there).

 

[pampchefsarah]

My suggestion would be, as others said, try to go first (convince the other vendors that having the guests fed instead of waiting for food will help them focus on the other presentations!), and then tell the guests that you will take orders while the other presentations are taking place (preferably in another room, so you can obstensibly not interrupt the presentations, but also so you can draw paying customers from seeing something else they may want to spend their money on, instead).

If you can't go first, try to go last, and make sure the order taking is done by all vendors at the end of the night. If others are anything like me, they'll want to see everything available before deciding on what to spend their money, then go with what they remember best (which, of course, will be all the amazing PC tools and products!!).

Please come back tomorrow, and let us know what went right tonight!

Sarah

 

[linojackie]

I called a lady to confirm her date and she tells me "I really want to do this because I'd like to combine it with an Avon party." So I basically tell her that I don't mind another vendor, but that for her to get the best results as far as sales go, that I need undivided attention for about half an hour for my demo and then they can talk to the Avon lady as they shopped thru the PC catalog when I'm done. She said "oh, ok, that sounds good". You just have to tell them that it doesn't work as well for THEM if you don't have an undistracted audience.

 

[cewcooks]

This happened to me too, and I ended up in the basement next to the drunk other DS company consultant and I went home so mad and felt like a complete waste of my time,with a little order two days later. I would try to have a knockout recipe to WOW them

 

[Kitchen Diva]

I had this happen, thankfully it wasn't jewelry, but it was a competitor and Tastefully Simple- and I was there for 6 hours and left with $150.00 in orders. The host kept her show open for 3 more weeks to bring the sales up to over $600- but it was a long, painful day. AND the tastefully simple rep brought her ill behaved toddler that screamed instead of using his words, so for at least 4 hours I listened to the loudest, shrillest screams from a child non stop! She would just smile and say "Oh at least those are his happy screams" That little brat found my car keys and hid them. I was at the hosts house until 8:00 that night with her, her DH, her 3 kids, and me all looking for my keys. When the host called the tastefully simple lady to ask if she could look in her bags for my keys and told her what her son did, she laughed and said, oh he wouldn't have put the keys in my bags....

Well guess what? And guess who had to drive to get them? My host graciously agreed to go and get my keys from this lady. The tastefully simple lady told my/our host that it wasn't her sons fault that he took my keys (the kid went into my purse during all the mayhem) and that I should learn to keep a better eye on my things.

I was livid...needless to say I cancelled my order with the tastefully simple lady!

Anyway, I wanted to say that aside from psycho kids and crappy consultants and open house is a really good idea! I just kept making pizza's and raspberry fizz drinks!

 

[Veevahchef]

Ok, show was lastnight, and WOW what a disaster.... ok... maybe not completely... but close enough!

I arrived at my hosts house at 5:45pm (She insisted on starting show at 6:30)

When I walked in I notice that there are 11 furry faces staring at me through her back patio doors (Yes... she has 11 dogs). When I walk into the kitchen, there are about 8 or 10 dog kennels stacked along one wall (yes, thats right.. the dogs sleep in the kitchen). Then I start noticing all of the glass aquariums all over the house....... reptiles everywhere.... and one aquarium with hundreds of baby "praying mantis' ( yes.. thats right... BUGS).

I got there first (or so I thought) and tryed to work out the situation with the host before the Arbonne rep came (I told the Arbonne rep i would do this).
I asked her where she wanted me to set up as there didn't appear to be ANY surface free of clutter or party food. She cleared off her kitchen island for me and I asked her if I could go ahead and still do my demo first so that we could get the food thing out of the way and then people could leisurely relax with the other demos. She said that was ok, so I was then trying to work out in my head how to shorten the demo a bit to not take up all the demo time.

people started coming almost as soon as I got there! I found out that she had told everyone 6 not 6:30. luckily my set up was extra quick and we did an "on-time" draw at 6:30. HOWEVER, the host wanted to wait until EVERYONE showed up to start anything, and you could see some of the people who got there at 6 were getting annoyed with waiting and just wanted to get going.
The Arbonne rep came at 6:30 (she was told 7... sheesh) and since it was "dead time" we decided that she could start doing "sea salt scrubs" on peoples hands in the kitchen sink until we started the cooking demo (she gave me one... it was fabulous).

I asked the host "when is the Jewellery lady showing up"? And she tells me that she is already there and has been upstairs setting up for the last 2 hours.
So i walk upstairs to check it out and I tell the lady that we are starting the cooking demo just as soon as everyone gets here. She then says "But I discussed it with the host and I am going to do my demo first".
soooo.... I smiled and went back downstairs.
I just figured at this point..... go weeth zee floooooow.

So finally it is after 7pm and I say to the host that we had better get started as maybe some people have had something come up and won't be coming after all. She agrees and announces that i am doing the cooking demo first.
(Daggers from the jewellery lady)

There were about 18 people there, so I am thinking this should be pretty decent even if they have to spread their money around.

My demo went very well and we did as interactive as we could, very attentive audience... all seemed well.

BUT then they split the 18 ppl into 2 groups, half upstairs to the Jewellery lady and half in the living room for an Arbonne foot soak......
Then the groups switched......
So basically this all didn't end until about 9:30 or 10pm, and really... everyone just wanted top get the #@!! out of there!
Out of all those ppl only 5 placed and order with me, only 4 orders for the Arbonne lady, and it was so insane there that neither of us had a chance to talk to anyone about booking a show, starting a biz... all that. not sure how the jewellery lady did... she wasn't really talking to us too much.

Luckily i did make sure I got my Survey/prize slips out before ppl went off to their other demos and asked them to give it back to me when that demo was over. So i do have 5 maybe bookings from prize slips and 2 "tell me more" for recruit leads.

The Arbonne rep called me on my cell just as I was pulling up in front of my house after the show and wanted to know how I did because she was so disapointed. That is when we compared stats. Both of us normally would have had $1000 shows with that many ppl in attendence. She had less than $200 in sales and I had $248.
She did get one firm booking though.

It was horrible.. I heard guests making comments about what a fiasco it was with too much going on ect. And I don't blame them. i made a BIG point of letting everyone know that this is nothing like a normal PC show.
you know what was wierd? out of 18ppl, only 2 had ever been to a PC cooking show before! So I was seriously concerned about the first impression, so during my demo I really talked about how a normal cooking show is.

I am going to try my best avoid this situation from ever happening again! I hated it!!
When it was just myself and Arbonne (Which was the first "blindside") The Arbonne rep and I had it all worked out and had a plan, and it probably would have gone quite smoothly, but then we were blindsided again with the jewellery demo.

Sorry so long with this... i just needed to tell someone about my crazy night.

Hopefully those bookings and recruit leads pan out. i sent them all e-mails lastnight as soon as i got home, hoping that i was the first..lol.

 

[vwpamperedchef]

I would seriously say something to the host. In a nice manner of course, but it seems she blindsighted you too. I would not give her the host benefits. In fact, if you can ship everything directly to your guests. I would not want my kitchen products sitting in someones "pet infested home" which sounds like it was..EWW GROSS

 

[chefann]

This is also a perfect opportunity to make morning-after calls, to speak to each guest individually. You may get some more orders, but even if you don't you can leave a more positive impression of you and PC with them.

 

[wadesgirl]

I would follow up with everyone!

I had a host who wanted a Tastefully Simple/PC bridal shower. I just politely told her I didn't mind but that she needed to realize that it could mean less for the bride in the end. She agreed and it's just me. So far all my joint shows have fallen through but I do agree that it will be a pain if it ever happens.

 

[Mr. Pampered Chef]

Wow...sorry all I can muster...I guess you could chalk that up to a learning experience...

 

[Intrepid_Chef]

OH MY GOODNESS!At least you got some good leads out of it .... I agree with doing the MAC calls ... Reminds me of a sixth lesson to post in the flea market thing ... I'd just find a diplomatic thing to just say, "I generally find it works better just to have one demo to save everybody's time."By the way, as a former jewelry vendor, can you tell us what line she sells from? I'm just curious!

 

[Veevahchef]

She actually is completely independent. Makes most of it herself, started doing homw parties only in last few months. It was "jewellery by.... her name.. can't remember.

 

[Addie4TLC]

How sad the host would have gotten so much more had she scheduled them separately. She probably thought she would get a lot more doing it this way. NOT!

 

[Veevahchef]

that is what a friend of mine said, she thinks that the host probably thought she would "cash in" big time... but it backfired!

 

[Addie4TLC]

Maybe two wouldn't have been so bad. When I started I was selling Creative Memories and my first show was during a scapbooking workshop. I told everyone we were gonig to take a break and see a cooking demo and sample the recipe. It worked out great because they had pre-paid for my workshop. PC sales were $700 with 5 bookings that I ended up doing myself as I signed to be a consultant. No one had heard of PC before!

 

[ChefBeckyD]

It sounds like you handled it with as much grace & calmness as possible. Hopefully some of your leads will work out for you!

 

[Kitchen2u]

I avoid multi vender parties because when I schedule their party, I start the host coaching immediately. One thing I say is something like, "I hope you're not thinking about having other vendors there...because you will be doing a disservice to yourself." Then I explain about folks having to "split the money" they want to spend, etc. I also explain that they might think they are "conveniencing" their guests, but a lot of times they feel sad they aren't able to buy what they want because they feel they need to split the $$. Instead, it's wiser to have separate parties a few month apart. So they know from the get go, it's not a great idea to do this.

I've only had 2 multi vendor parties in over 7 years. Both times I went first...including order taking. BOTH parties were great...one was over a $1000 and the other was over $800. I attibute he success from "going first & taking orders" AND host coaching!

 

[pampchefsarah]

Oh, Veevah, I'm so sorry it turned out badly! Hopefully the CC calls will turn things around for you.

Sarah