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One of the most exciting aspects of direct selling is the flexibility and variety of options that are available. In fact, you should use several different methods of touching your business and generating new contacts. (By touching, I mean interacting with.) The more different things you try, the more you’ll create a broad base of profit that will sustain you – and the more you’ll appeal to a broader number of prospective team members. Conduct business in multiple ways, and you’ll be presenting options that appeal to the desires of prospects who may not be exactly like you.

I urge you to choose a few favorite methods from the options given in this section and try them. Keep the others in the back of your mind. Then if a day comes when new leads are decreasing, or you need more bookings, you can revisit the options for ideas of other ways you can expand your business.

Live presentations and home parties

When people get to attend a party and interact with other guests, they experience that great energy that comes from people having a good time together. The right balance of fun, the excitement of seeing friends make similar purchases, the information provided in the brief presentation, and the added bonus of your expert advice all combine to create the social proof mentioned earlier in the chapter. Social proof can create stronger sales, result in more bookings, and even make recruiting new team members easier. In my experience, holding parties regularly results in higher sales and recruiting numbers.

Trade shows and vendor events

Trade shows can help you reach out into your community and meet people you may not have met otherwise. Here’s something surprising: I’ve found that smaller, less expensive events tend to provide a bigger return on your investment.

I’ve also discovered that there’s a key ingredient to creating success: Decide on your purpose for that particular event. If it’s to get bookings, then don’t focus on selling product. Concentrate on engaging people so that you get bookings. That means you’d most likely have just display product and only a small amount of product to sell. Your focus will be on creating an urgency to book a party with you, perhaps with a Book Today special.

If your goal is to earn enough to pay for your booth as you expand your contacts, you’ll want to focus on selling product you have on hand. You’ll experience the best results if, instead of bringing along your catalog or a variety of items, you instead offer a specific Show Special. A Show Special is a particular item or bundle of items that you’re highlighting for that particular event. You’ll have a supply of this to sell cash-and-carry to people who visit your booth.

If your goal is recruiting, make a gift basket that goes to a new team member and make sure all your conversations include the message “I’m looking for people to join me.”

Event parties

Event parties are an exciting new twist on the home parties that have been the bastion of the Party Plan industry for decades. Event parties are held outside the home, and are growing more and more popular. There are two basic types of event parties: those held at an office, restaurant, or coffee shop and those held in partnership with a retail establishment. The first type has been around for years. It is really just a home party held in a different venue.

The second type seems to be growing in popularity, as more shops are starting to pair up with representatives on a monthly basis. A boutique, gym, or bookstore might want representatives that offer tea or food samples, or even an unrelated but still non-competing product. A cafe might like to invite representatives of jewelry, clothing, or home decor companies to display their products.

For example, a cafe near my home features a different party each month, displaying a flyer every day until the event. They let the selected representative set up a display of products, and the cafe owners and the representatives both tell me they love it.

Because both the store front and the representative promote the event, it becomes a blending of their customers. The representative’s customers return to the store, and the store’s customers become the representative’s customers, too.

Want more examples? Appliance stores let cookware representatives do cooking demonstrations. Women’s gyms love partnering with nutrition supplements and weight-loss product representatives. Some boutiques who don’t carry jewelry allow jewelry reps to set up their displays and meet their clientele during key weekends. Libraries have been known to allow food and beverage reps to distribute samples during book readings. The key is for the establishment to provide added value for their customers, while also using your business to drive more people to their location. Of course, the added benefit for you is the exposure to a new clientele.

Online marketing and online parties

These days, one of the most touted aspects of direct selling is the benefit of doing business online. There’s no question that online parties can be a great boost to your business. They allow you to reach people outside your general vicinity and offer the convenience of being able to cover your responsibilities at home while popping over to the computer to host an online party on Facebook.

When it comes to doing a great online party, you use exactly the same skills as an in-home party. The difference is in how you utilize those skills. To succeed with virtual parties, you need to engage guests, make it fun, and show them how your product really answers a need they have. Successful online parties also demonstrate why hosting a party is exciting and rewarding and how becoming a representative meets a need that each guest has.

You’ll find that doing a combination of virtual parties and live parties is often the best fit for both you and your hosts. You may need to be home on a certain evening, and she may believe her house isn’t large enough to do a live party – that’s a great time to utilize an online party. You don’t have to leave your house, you can put the kids in bed and sit down and do your virtual party. She doesn’t have to rush around cleaning – she simply grabs her laptop and helps you engage her friends.

Fundraising

Fundraising is a $19 billion market. The great part of fundraising programs is that people want to support their community. Fundraising can introduce you and your products to an entirely different crowd. Many companies offer a fundraising program that divides your normal profit so that the bulk of it goes to the school or organization. But if not, you can develop your own program. Focus on offering about a dozen top items on a flyer rather than using the entire catalog. Make sure the receipt offers an opt-out option for future contact and that the products are delivered with your contact information included. People who come from a long-term corporate background find this model of doing business very successful and appealing.

Re-servicing

This is a piece of the business that many people leave out, and that’s a huge amount of cash to leave on the table. Re-servicing is more than simply posting on Facebook “I’m putting in an order, does anyone want anything?” Re-servicing is true customer care, meaning it involves contacting customers by phone with a simple, short conversation to ensure that they’re doing well and like the products, and to determine whether they need more or would like to try the monthly special.

If your company doesn’t offer a monthly special, create one for just your customers. Or look at each customer’s previous purchases and suggest something tailored just to them. Re-servicing can turn into an independent stream of income. I made thousands of dollars in sales by focusing just one day a week on re-servicing. You can also schedule about 15–20 minutes a day for this task.

For more details on re-servicing, see Chapter 13.

Personal shopping experience

Consider providing a service as well as selling products. For example, for those who sell food-storage products, you might tell your prospective customers something like “For a fee, I will come in and organize your pantry.” The customer then pays the fee, and you come in, show them how to organize and what products should be used – and tell them they can apply their fee as a credit toward their order. Representatives that offer cooking tools can offer to streamline kitchens. Those offering clothing can also offer seasonal wardrobe-organization services. For many companies, it’s appropriate to offer this service twice a year.

Personal shopping may not be something you can base your entire business on, but it is one more layer you can add to it. Though you may have time to do just one party a week, perhaps during the middle of the day you can do a couple of personal shopping experiences.

Some representatives overlook this opportunity. They fail to recognize that there are people who will not have a party, but they will buy your products. Recently, I overheard a conversation between a well-to-do professional and an eager representative. When the prospect mentioned that she’d love to have the representative come help her one-on-one, the representative replied, “You can have a party!” From the prospect’s objections, it was clear that she had no interest in hosting, but was ready and willing to buy products. The representative was so focused on persuading the woman to host a party that she missed an opportunity to make what could have been a very lucrative sale.