Make the most of the holiday selling season!!

Do you feel it yet? Fall and winter are coming and we are starting to ramp up for our holiday sales. It’s even more important now that you’re filling your calendar early, and host coaching often, in order to have successful holiday shows that stick. This is one of the best times of the year for the direct sales industry, so here are some helpful tips to get your business back on track and help your team reach their goals!

Booking Ideas + MORE Orders for the Holidays:

The key here is to not overbook yourself. The holidays already cause us all stress and we tend to book tons of parties during the season, so know your limits and stop when you reach them.

• Reach out to past Hostess and any who have showed an interest in hosting a party to see if they would want to hold a jewelry bar for the holidays.
• Consider holding a Fall/Winter Open House to introduce your companies’ new products.
• Invite your customers or hosts over for a customer appreciation event. Consider showing them the new products being released and having them be the first to order those items before anyone else.
• In November, consider doing a Turkey Trot. A number of Customers receive a packet and go around to collect orders to receive hostess rewards or a chance for them to win a prize.
• Hold a Mystery Hostess Party on Facebook. Customers place an order through a specified party during checkout for a chance to receive all the hostess rewards.
• During Halloween you could include your business card with the candy to the parents when the kids come trick or treating. 
• Look for events in your community. Check for local craft sales, fall festivals, and school holiday festivals. It’s great exposure for your business.
• Have frequent specials and sales for each holiday (Halloween, Thanksgiving, Black Friday, Christmas, etc.) People are looking for a deal and they might just see yours!
• Participate in give-away opportunity. You can give away a locket and have them come back for additional items, include a chain and single charm or a gift certificate. Offer it as a donation to events. There is some out of pocket expensive so make it simple and cute.
• Participate in a fundraiser and have them raffle off a gift basket/bucket, or you can raffle it off at your booth with tickets for $1 apiece. Include a locket and show it off in the basket in some way. Also, add some catalogs, take out box, fortune cookie, business cards. Very simple & inexpensive.
• Consider handing out wish list cards for customers to list origami owl items they want and have them share it with that special someone as a little hint on what they want for Christmas.
• Send holiday cards to your best customers. They will appreciate the gesture. Consider including something special in there for a future purchase as well!
• Host a party in a restaurant, hair salon, wine bar, or have one at your work during your lunch or after work.

Get organized and put some focus on your Team

• Write down your goals for the holiday season. How many people will you add to your team? How many parties will you hold? What do you want your sales to be at?
• Promote your opportunity! People always need extra cash during the holidays and this is the perfect time to sign up!
• Send holiday cards to your team! If you have a large team, just send to your front line and to your leaders.
• Hold a holiday celebration for your team! It’s nice to get together and have fun and show your appreciation without any training involved.
• Work with the leaders on your team to help them understand the importance of the holiday season for their team.

Here are 5 quick tips to help you make the most of the holiday selling season:

1. Book early with potential hostesses. Holiday calendars fill up quickly, and if you want to be on the calendar in the first place, you need to be reaching out and scheduling those parties now. It also means you need to be more stringent in hostess coaching. Be sure to implement your follow-up system and stick to it for best results in holding shows you’ve booked. Don’t overbook yourself. Decide when you want to hold parties and how much time you wish to dedicate to your business. When you are supposed to be working…WORK. When you are supposed to be off, be off.

2. Coach your hostess as soon as you schedule her jewelry bar, before the jewelry bar and after. Connecting with your hostess 3 times before the party is the key to a successful Jewelry Bar. Provide her with the hostess packet and go over each item that you have included in it. Let your hostess in on your follow-up system and pre-show contact times so that she knows what to expect. It also holds you a bit more accountable to sticking to your follow up system. If she’s expecting you to call and you don’t, the show’s less likely to hold. On the other hand, if you tell her you’re going to email, and you do, she’ll be expecting it, so you don’t appear pushy. Continuous contact with your Hostess keeps the enthusiasm high. Send thank you notes to the hostess and guest after the Jewelry Bar to express your appreciation. Follow up with all the guest to ensure that they received their order and our happy with their creation.

3. Close the night of the show. Make SURE you do it during the holidays. Simply put, products go on back order or out of stock much faster during the holidays. An item that’s in stock in the morning can be sold out before your show that night - especially if it’s a limited edition item. In order to assure your guests will actually get the items they’re ordering before the holiday deadline, let everyone know you’ll close the jewelry bar on the night of the party.

4. Bring limited/hot products with you (cash & carry) to avoid issues with stop-sell and back-orders. I’m not one for carrying ton of inventory, but if you’re going to carry some extra items in your kit, the popular/hot items are a good choice. It encourages impulse shopping for last-minute cash & carry gifts, and makes you look like the hero if the product they wanted goes out of stock before the show order ships. It feels good to say “this item is sold out, but I have two left that I brought with me tonight.” You could potentially sale hundreds of dollars of products right off the table the night of a holiday show because people wanted to take them home with them. Ensure you replenish any items sold at a hostesses jewelry bar so that she can receive full credit for those items that you did cash & carry on, making it a win-win for everyone.. If they purchased a certain amount of products, give them the gift bag at no charge and include a sticker that has your information on it. Warning: do not carry a ton of holiday products if you don’t have the budget for it. There’s no sense going into debt on a “maybe” and then get stuck at the end of the season with products that didn’t sell.

5. Use the Full-Service Checkout (Especially at larger parties). It pays to spend quality time with every guest at a holiday party. Sometimes everyone’s in a hurry, but taking the time to do the Full Service Checkout we discuss in Direct Sales 101 gives you the time to review the order, present additional upsell options, as well as share the opportunity and booking options with each buying guest. Leaving money on the table at a show is almost always due to the fact that consultants feel too rushed to treat each customer individually. If you have a handful of people in a rush, have everyone take a number, and service them in that order. Most people don’t mind and appreciate the extra attention and gift-buying consideration of the full-service checkout. Have guest complete a wish list of all the items they want to order, that way when they come to you all you have to do is add the items to your form and total up the order.

Bonus tip: You have to make hosting and attending a show as easy as possible for a host during the holidays. With so many things vying for the attention of your hosts, the less they have to handle the better. You can easily have thousand-dollar shows (or more) when you make it effortless for your hosts and guests to spend their money with you. Each of these five tips is geared to doing exactly that.

Here’s to a very happy holiday season!

Shellie Yeomans, Team Leader #7234
Origami Owl Independent Designer
www.shellie.origamiowl.com