New idea I got from Erika

Welcome to the blog Erika! Your open house will turn out fabulous. I know you very well and you will do a great job.

To All - Erika had a great idea for an item that she can make for a sample at her shows. I'm sure she won't mind me sharing it with you. I'm thinking about making one myself. She bought a nice large glass jar with a lid. She purchased a dog face embellishment to apply to the jar and she is going to fill it with dog treats. You could add a customized dog name as well. I also thought you could buy several 2 inch 'paw' embellishments to put randomly around the jar as well. Great idea, Erika. Thanks!

She also noticed the fine print on the customer incentive forms that says we, as demonstrators, are able to purchase one of each of the hostess incentive expressions at half off during the month they are being offered. That's a great way to stock up on some nice inexpensive expressions that you could give away as door prize drawings or a hostess gift.

I did an open house this week that was a lot of fun. The hostess had 3 vendors in her home, myself, Tastefully Simple and PURSEnally Yours. We were each set up in various parts of her home and she had quite a turn-out. Everyone was very excited about our products and most had not heard of it before. I can't wait until next week as I close it out and find out how well it did. One lady ordered over $100 worth right then and there. The down side to having a party like this is that you don't really get to do your 'spiel'. I brought 3 demo samples with me and ended up giving 3 demonstrations whenever I had several people that were showing interest. The up side to a show like this is that I got to spend one on one time with a lot of different people explaining the product. The photo album was a hit. It's one thing to look at a catalog, but yet another to see how it is actually used in real homes. I added the pictures I took from Lisa Hall's home and they went over really well.

One more piece of info for you. Once you've started submitting orders for open houses, the company will respond to that by referring people to you. As people go online and look at the website and express interest to the company in finding a demonstrator or learning more about becoming a demonstrator, you will receive an email from the company with all the contact information on that person. Be sure to check your email almost daily. You only have 2 business days to make contact and let the company know that you've made contact or the information will be passed along to another demonstrator. Once you've made contact, you will click the link in the website near the document library called 'Referral Tracking' and fill out the 'Action' tab that you've contacted the customer.

I'm out of town (going to the beach!!!!) beginning at noon today, but always feel free to call my cell if you have ANY concerns or questions. It's just a weekend with girlfriends, so don't feel bad about calling if you need to.

Good luck in your open houses and happy selling!

By the way, I looked at the new catalog online and it looks fabulous!!! I should be getting my catalogs today or tomorrow. Also, note that there are 2 new colors. A wine color (Bordeaux) and a Sage color. I was really hoping for a Turquoise, but these are very nice colors.