I had my first show on Sunday, which I would say was a success. $660 in sales, 4 bookings and 3 potential bookings, and everyone seemed to have a great time. Mostly friends and family, but still. I have a couple of observations, and thought I'd share them here. Maybe you guys already know all of this, but maybe there's an idea or two that someone else can use.
1) Getting products in people's hands is the way to go! The guest that used the MFP bought it. Same goes for the veggie wedger, mandolin, and professional shears.
2) Use bits of yourself. I talked about my first pampered chef show when I was 12, the quikcut paring knife my granny sent me away to college with, stuff like that. Even the friend-of-a-friend folks that I hadn't met seemed to connect. Everyone placed an order.
3) Don't be scared to mention the opportunity. I was more focused on hosting, and thought I knew that nobody in the room was interested--but I went into it anyway, just to practice my "shtick" and two people had questions. Don't have any new recruits yet, but there may be some seeds of interest there after all.
4) Let people sell the products to each other. I played a game with the group where every time I mentioned or we used a PC product, you got a ticket if you already had that thing and could say what you liked about it, and you spoke up first, or if you wanted that thing and could tell people why. Folks were scrambling for tickets, but in a good way, and everyone was excited to talk about the products, even things I would've never thought anyone had! My grandma single-handedly sold 3 food choppers, and we didn't even demo it. She talked about how great it is for chopping pecans, and how easy it is to clean in the dishwasher. It was amazing. Any time I started to sense a gap in the show---while a guest was still slicing potatoes, or other guests were stacking the potato layers for the bacon & blue cheese potato bites---I'd just pick up another item and say, "What about the pizza cutter?" and someone would tell everyone how awesome it is!
Anyway--I had a great time, and am excited to get more shows under my belt (I've got another cooking show this week)! Don't know if any of this helps anyone else, but figured I might as well share.
1) Getting products in people's hands is the way to go! The guest that used the MFP bought it. Same goes for the veggie wedger, mandolin, and professional shears.
2) Use bits of yourself. I talked about my first pampered chef show when I was 12, the quikcut paring knife my granny sent me away to college with, stuff like that. Even the friend-of-a-friend folks that I hadn't met seemed to connect. Everyone placed an order.
3) Don't be scared to mention the opportunity. I was more focused on hosting, and thought I knew that nobody in the room was interested--but I went into it anyway, just to practice my "shtick" and two people had questions. Don't have any new recruits yet, but there may be some seeds of interest there after all.
4) Let people sell the products to each other. I played a game with the group where every time I mentioned or we used a PC product, you got a ticket if you already had that thing and could say what you liked about it, and you spoke up first, or if you wanted that thing and could tell people why. Folks were scrambling for tickets, but in a good way, and everyone was excited to talk about the products, even things I would've never thought anyone had! My grandma single-handedly sold 3 food choppers, and we didn't even demo it. She talked about how great it is for chopping pecans, and how easy it is to clean in the dishwasher. It was amazing. Any time I started to sense a gap in the show---while a guest was still slicing potatoes, or other guests were stacking the potato layers for the bacon & blue cheese potato bites---I'd just pick up another item and say, "What about the pizza cutter?" and someone would tell everyone how awesome it is!
Anyway--I had a great time, and am excited to get more shows under my belt (I've got another cooking show this week)! Don't know if any of this helps anyone else, but figured I might as well share.