Create A Cash Flow Show

Bookings, Bookings, Bookings!

Everyone in home party plan sales wants more bookings.  In my opinion, one reason that this is such an issue for most sales consultants is the actual term, bookings. What exactly is a booking, anyway?

• An invitation to someone’s home.
• A scheduled show.
• A home party.
• A fun gathering.
• A good time.
• A get-together

Don’t they sound nice? Booking is a technical term.  It is not friendly, nor is it encouraging to the guest, the consultant or the future host.  It actually is sort of an insult that makes it more difficult to schedule shows.

Schedule More Shows

The first thing that will help you schedule more shows is to start using friendlier terminology.  Does the dentist say to you: “I am going to extract your molar”?  No, he/she says: “I am sorry to say this, but I am going to have to pull your back tooth.”  I am sure you won’t be any happier about the situation, yet you will feel better about your relationship with the dentist.  Sales is all about relationships.

To schedule more shows, stop saying bookings.

• When you BOOK a show, you get this…
• The host gets a XZY when she BOOKS 2 shows.
• If you have three BOOKINGS you get a ……

Start using the phrases mentioned above:

• When you invite me to your home, we will….
• When you schedule 2 shows at your show, my gift to you is…
• Whose house should we get together at next month?

Building Home Party Sales

There is more on scheduling shows in the category of building business. Both the Power UP Program and the Create A Cash Flow Show program have a full hour on BOOKINGS, I mean filling your calendar.  Invest in your mind and it will always return to you in your wallet. The Cash Flow Show system of generating more shows at your shows is a set of systems that I used to quit my full time job.  The systems will work for you too. Click the money for more info.

Please feel free to reprint or publish anything on this website for personal or training purposes. We only ask that for online publication you select an excerpt from the article then link back using the permalink to the original article. For off-line purposes please print each article in it's entirety and include the following credits. Reprinted with permission from:
Deb Bixler www.CreateACashFlowShow.com 717-751-2793

There Is No Time Like The Present

Even when it comes to your home party business, the old expression ‘there is no time like the present’ holds true. Don’t make the mistake that many sales reps make, and always be looking off into the future. It is true that what you do now will affect your business the most three months down the road. Now is always a perfect time to focus on developing your business through proactive marketing techniques.

Ten Techniques to Generate Sales

Here are 10 steps or techniques to perform over a period of 10 days that will bring you instant cash flow now, and also a solid business down the road. As a successful home party consultant, these are all techniques or systems that I used when I was actively building my business. A system works the same for everyone who applies it. These systems will work for you and your sales team, just like they worked for me and other sales professionals who reach their goals.  Incorporate them into your business or use these 10 techniques as a team training topic.

1. Practice Show: Pick a date (or two) for a show at your home next weekend or not more than a week away. Write out a short script about the new products, the change-over to Summer, or a new theme. Call all of your friends and relatives and tell them you are having a practice show to get ready for the new season. Just say: ‘I am making some snacks and practicing my new tailgate party, would you like to come over and help me practice?’ Or: ‘I am having a Summer outdoor show for practice. Would you like to bring the kids over and help me practice our Summer theme show?’
2. Wedding Shower Show: Pick a date to host a show in your home. As you call your guests for follow up or customer service, offer them an invitation to your Wedding Shower Show. Say something like this: ‘Everyone knows someone who is getting married this year. The XYZ Company has many perfect wedding items. Are you planning a wedding? Are you going to a wedding or shower? I am teaching participants how to create unique wedding favors, pick out gifts for the second marriage, and bridal shower gifts too. Get all your wedding shopping gifts done in one fun afternoon.
3. Tailgate Show: Go to kids’ or relatives’ soccer, baseball or other sports games. Create a kid-friendly theme like ‘Creating Photo Totes’ or ‘Scrap booking for the Athlete’ or ‘5-Minute Snacks for Hungry Soccer Players’ or some other theme that fits in with your product line. Go to the game and open the tailgate, set up a card table, pass out catalogs, and provide lemonade and snacks.
4. Pamper the Business Day (aka Secretary Appreciation Day): You can call it what you want. The point is that you are providing a service to the boss to appreciate the employees. Call the dentist, chiropractor, bank or fitness center and tell them that it is Pamper the Staff Day/Month at XYZ Company. You are providing complimentary cookies and lemonade in appreciation for their professional services. Create an appropriate theme based on your products, such as Coffee Break, A Mug of Appreciation, Sweet Tooth for Sweet Staff, etc. Ask the office manager what time you should stop in with the trays. Put the gifts on real dishes and bring catalogs. Ask if it is OK to leave the books and what time you should return to pick up the dishes and any orders.
5. Perform a show or educational workshop at a school, church, sports club, Girl Scout group or library. Create three snappy titles and start calling. You could literally have a couple of these on the calendar within days.
6. Summer Teachers’ Shower: Act quickly on this one before the schools break for the Summer. This is a show to celebrate teachers who are having a baby over the Summer, a Summer birthday or wedding. Call all of the teachers you know and tell them you can come to the school and do an all-purpose shower for them in honor of all the teachers having babies, getting married, or having a birthday over the Summer. This would be an after-school event and you would arrive and set up as the classes let out. Then all the teachers show up, and you do a quick show. They buy for themselves and for the teacher(s) being honored. This is a huge market and can be done every year!
7. Apartment Community Show: Go to an apartment complex or residential development and ask the manager to distribute fliers to all the residents for a show. It could be a regular show in which the manager gets the host benefits for distributing the fliers. Or in most cases I have found that attendance is better if it is a fund-raiser show for the development. Returns from the fund-raiser will build or buy something for the community. The last time I did this, they used the cash back to buy a school bus stop booth for the kids.
8. Residential Development Show: If you can step out of your comfort zone, this works really well. Go around a development and knock on doors and say something like: ‘Hi, I am Deb, with XYZ Parties….some of your neighbors would like to have a XYZ Party show. Are you familiar with XYZ Parties? At XYZ Parties, we have fun, laugh and learn more about creating economical and unique solutions for year-round gift-giving ideas. At this point we are just trying to see if there is enough interest in the neighborhood from enough people to put a ‘get-to-know your neighbors’ party. If we decided to have one, would you be interested in some afternoon fun if you could bring the kids?’ After they say yes, then get the name and number and go on to the rest of the houses. Give each person a catalog or flier. After you have about 30 or 40 people, then change your script a little bit and say after the lead-in: ‘We have 40 people who definitely want to come. We are looking for a host. Would you be interested in receiving the host benefits and providing the beverages?’ Boom! Pick a date and you have a show!
9. Retirement Home Show: This is not a huge money-maker, yet it works every time and can be a consistent event on a monthly basis. The activities coordinators at local retirement homes and disability or rehab centers are always looking for entertainment for the residents. Offer your services as a presenter. Create themes and economical product packages for the residents. Use catalogs to generate sales with the staff. Usually the activities department needs funds for more activities, so a fund-raiser is a great way to go. Do not expect huge sales from the residents. Some will order if you create packages for gift-giving ideas that are affordably priced.
10. The Yard Sale Promo Show: This is a cool technique to involve the whole family and create income and leads with your business at the same time you are cleaning out the house and creating income with the annual yard sale. My neighborhood has a community yard sale every year. It’s actually coming up soon. I am not really a yard sale person, so I never would have one on my own, yet I always take advantage of the steady stream of “strangers” coming into the neighborhood, not to mention the neighbors who are mingling around and networking with each other. To take advantage of all the traffic and interest in the neighborhood, you only have to set up a business table within the yard sale activities. Selling product or inventory, taking orders, doing a small demo and collecting leads using prize drawing slips are just some of the things you can do at the Yard Sale Show. Have your family staff the yard sale area and you staff the business show area. Like an expo or fair, you must connect with your customers quickly.

Love the Word ‘No’

Successful sales consultants love to hear the word no because they know that you must hear no to get a yes. If you never hear the word no, then you are not asking enough. Get on the phone and start calling. These ideas can be thrown together within the next 10 days, they do not have to be a futuristic thing. The Power UP For Professional Results set includes an hour of training on Pumping Up Your Calendar and 41 ideas on proactive marketing. These are only 10 of the 41 ideas you will learn!

Listen To 10 Steps To Increase Sales On Ipod

This tele-seminar topic is available as a MP3 download at the Elite Power Club download center. Click Here

Please feel free to reprint or publish anything on this website for personal or training purposes. We only ask that for online publication you select an excerpt from the article then link back using the permalink to the original article. For off-line purposes please print each article in it's entirety and include the following credits. Reprinted with permission from:
Deb Bixler www.CreateACashFlowShow.com 717-751-2793

Selling The Benefit-Benefits Sales

Features never sell products. Benefits sell products. When you are talking about your products at a show, be sure that you are creating pictures for your guests using the benefits of a product.

Features VS Benefits

A Feature Is About The Product

• The ball is orange.
• The whisk is stainless steel.
• The lip balm is petroleum free.
• The vest is a polyester/cotton blend.

A Benefit Is About The Person

• Lots of kids came up to Johnny to play because of his bright orange ball.
• The ball was easy to find when Johnny kicked it into the woods.
• You can put this stainless steel whisk in the dishwasher.
• This whisk will last a lifetime because it will never rust.
• The lip balm does not dry out your lips even more.
• This lip balm will stop the lip balm addiction, as it actually soothes your skin instead of drying it out more.
• You can put this vest in the dryer because it is a poly blend.
• You will never worry about this vest shrinking.

Business Sales Techniques For All Products

This feature and benefit comparison will work with any product or service. Just sit down and list the features of all your products, offers or services. Then, next to the features, write a list of the benefits to the person.

The Emotional Theory

People buy emotionally. The next step is to create an emotionally charged statement with each feature and benefit on your list. People shop and purchase emotionally, so create and memorize statements that draw out the emotional benefits of a product.

• Johnny is so excited with the new friends he made at the park today, while playing with his orange ball.
• I can’t believe I will never have to buy another wire whisk in my whole entire life! And it goes in the dishwasher too!
• Ever since I started using this lip balm, my husband has commented on how soft my lips are.
• Today I was rushing around and just pulled this vest straight out of the dryer and threw it on. Wash, dry and wear. It is so simple!

Get in the habit of sprinkling these emotionally charged statements everywhere you go. The law of attraction will work for you when you share the benefits of your products, services and opportunities at the grocery store, the mini-market, the hairdressers, the dry cleaners, at the show, at the dog kennel……….

Create A Cash Flow Show is a 8 CD set of systems that will increase your show average by 30% in 90 days or your money back. I promise! -The set includes an entire hour on word choices to increase sales.

Please feel free to reprint or publish anything on this website for personal or training purposes. We only ask that for online publication you select an excerpt from the article then link back using the permalink to the original article. For off-line purposes please print each article in it's entirety and include the following credits. Reprinted with permission from:
Deb Bixler www.CreateACashFlowShow.com 717-751-2793

You can have a sensational Summer in your sales business when you believe that you can do it! It is mostly about attitude. Listen to this hour recording on how to set your self up for success and have a terrific Summer selling season. For that matter these techniques can be used any month out of the year. (This recording was recorded live and is totally unedited.)  More systems to increase party sales.

Please feel free to reprint or publish anything on this website for personal or training purposes. We only ask that for online publication you select an excerpt from the article then link back using the permalink to the original article. For off-line purposes please print each article in it's entirety and include the following credits. Reprinted with permission from:
Deb Bixler www.CreateACashFlowShow.com 717-751-2793

Creating Desire Will Create Customers

How would you like to have your customers coming to you? Would you like to attract more customers than you can handle? I know that some of you are thinking that sounds impossible. But I am telling you that it is entirely possible. When you learn how to create desire for your product, services and opportunity, people will be coming to you and asking to do business with you. You can literally create customers by creating desire for your services.

How To Attract Business – Create Desire

This is a simple system to create desire for your services and attract business. There are only four steps:

1. List the Top 20 reasons why your business is the best thing since sliced bread.
2. Create powerful statements from that list.
3. Sprinkle the Top 20 powerful statements everywhere you go.
4. Watch the customers flock to you.

Best Thing Since Sliced Bread

What are the Top 20 reasons why your business is the best thing since sliced bread? Make a list. Write down the 20 reasons why you love what you do. Not just about your company… about you too. Write down 20 reasons why your business is the best thing that happened to you since they invented sliced bread. The list might go like this:

• No stress
• Free product
• Free vacations
• Stay home with the kids
• Money
• Set my own schedule
• Excellent service
• Etc.

Continue all the way up to 20 reasons why your business is the best thing since sliced bread!

Benefits – Advantage – Features

Features do not “sell”. Benefits and advantages “sell”. You may have a stainless steel mixer in your product line and if you do not tell customers the benefits of stainless steel, it won’t sell. ‘This is stainless steel, therefore it is dishwasher safe.’ ‘This plant stand is wrought iron, therefore it will not rust when put outdoors’, etc. The benefit or advantage to the guest is what sells the product. The listing above are the features of your business not the benefits. Just like stainless steel or wrought iron, money, vacation, or kids are not very interesting in themselves. Now take those features and turn them into benefits. What is the advantage to your customers of free products, being home with the kids or setting their own schedule? The advantage or benefit to me of less stress is that I do not even have an alarm clock in my bedroom. The benefit of free vacations to you may be that you take your husband once a year on a romantic getaway without the kids. So, now create a new list of the real personal and emotional benefits that go with that list of 20 features.

Sales Connections

People buy with their emotions. Your best way to make sales connections is to make friends by sharing emotionally. The next step in attracting more business than you can handle is to take your Top 20 features that are now benefits and turn them into emotionally charged statements. Like this one: “I started my business to make a little extra money and my husband is thrilled that this little home party business is now paying the mortgage.” Create 40 different emotionally charged statements from your sliced bread list of features and benefits. That’s right, I said 40. That would be 2 emotionally charged statements for each one item listed on the Ttop 20 list. One sentence will be for the benefits of hosting a show and one for the business opportunity. If you are not in a business that relies on home parties, then create one for the product line and one for the opportunity.

Leads For Free

This lead generation system is free. The only thing you have to do now is memorize your Top 20 emotionally charged statements and start sprinkling! People pay big money for leads. This system works! Just start sprinkling your Top 20 reasons why your business is the best thing since sliced bread everywhere you go.

You may be at the grocery store and someone says, “Hey, long time no see, what’s new?” You say: “I think I told you last time I saw you that I was thinking about starting a business. Well I did, and I am so happy with it. I get to go to all of the twins’ soccer games and am chaperoning all of Jennifer’s school trips. I love it!”

Or maybe you are at the gym and get to talking with someone who says: “Whatcha been up to lately?” You say: “Wow! Just before I came here, UPS brought me the new XYZ Company Spring products! I just unpacked them and started redecorating the living room with the new wall hangings… I can’t believe I get to redecorate every six months for FREE!”

Sprinkle, sprinkle, sprinkle — then listen. (Key word: Listen) The sprinkling takes practice and the listening takes practice. When you practice and sprinkle everywhere you go, the business comes to you!

Please feel free to reprint or publish anything on this website for personal or training purposes. We only ask that for online publication you select an excerpt from the article then link back using the permalink to the original article. For off-line purposes please print each article in it's entirety and include the following credits. Reprinted with permission from:
Deb Bixler www.CreateACashFlowShow.com 717-751-2793

Has the phone stopped ringing? Are sales down? Customers are not calling? Now/the New Year is a great time to take action. Before you spend time and money drumming up new business; try getting in touch with the people who already or at one time already loved you.

Building A Client Base

I’m always surprised by how little effort most people put into staying in touch with the customers that they have already served well. Many seem to have the attitude that once a job is done; it’s done; once a product is sold, it’s sold, and the relationship with the customer is over. That’s short-term thinking. Former customers are the best source for future sales, even in businesses where customers make purchases only every few years. After all, satisfied customers talk to others, so they’re an important referral source. It can cost twice as much to find a new customer as it does to keep the past customers coming back for more.

Develop a contact system

• Put together a list: If you’re like most of us, you’ve got contact information all over your house: stacks of business cards, address lists in word processing files, customer invoices on a different computer altogether. Take a few hours to create a list. Start with ALL former customers or clients — go back at least five years. But don’t stop there. Add anyone who has been — or might be — a source of referrals. This includes industry colleagues, suppliers, friends, even some relatives. Go through your address book, your accounts, those business card stacks, and your email in-box to jog your memory.
• How will you contact them? Phone calls are a simple, personal, and effective way to touch base, and it’s harder for someone to ignore your phone call than it is an email or a letter. Of course, calling takes time, so you may want to limit that to only your most likely prospects. E-mail can also be effective if you make your email personal rather than seeming like spam. Real mail is always more personal. The secret to success is to have a personal connection with each person.
• What are you going to say? You don’t need a specific reason to contact a former customer. You can tell them the truth, “it’s been a while since we’ve talked, and I’m just touching base. I wanted to see how you’ve been and if there’s anything I can do for you.” You’ll probably get more sales, however, if you make a specific offer, especially with a significant discount. Always connect with conversation before making the sales pitch. I personally like the “It’s customer service week” at my company approach. Check out this Script For Customer Service for the approach. Always ask for the referral.
• Determine how ambitious you want to be. Two sales reps I know each wanted to generate some new business and decided to get in touch with old contacts. Jennifer, who hates seeming pushy, finally forced herself to phone one former client. Mark sent out a mass e-mail to over 8,000 names, and got some angry anti-spam responses as well as a few inquiries. I suspect you’ll find a happy medium between these two extremes.
• Be consistent. It is better to do less more consistently than to do more intermittently. Two calls a day for the rest of your life is a system that will make a huge impact on your business. 25 calls this week and maybe again in a couple months will only impact your business in the short term.

Competitive Advantage – Strategy

What is your New Year strategy to give you the competitive advantage? Businesses never fail, only systems fail. Have you put effective systems into your business to keep the cash flow rolling in? During the busy times many of us are so busy serving current business that we don’t have the time-or the need-to stay connected with former customers or potential referral sources. Regardless of how well your business is doing, scheduling time and creating a system of constant contact will guarantee future successes. Remember, “word of mouth” advertising doesn’t just happen; it has to be nurtured. So stay in touch.

Power UP your New Year with other sales strategies with the CD set Power-Up For Professional Results. This 8 CD set includes over 8 hours of strategies that will work in all sales businesses. The New Year, and NOW is the best time to pick up the phone!

Please feel free to reprint or publish anything on this website for personal or training purposes. We only ask that for online publication you select an excerpt from the article then link back using the permalink to the original article. For off-line purposes please print each article in it's entirety and include the following credits. Reprinted with permission from:
Deb Bixler www.CreateACashFlowShow.com 717-751-2793

You can generate FREE leads through public speaking

One of the best lead generation systems I have ever found is offering yourself as a public speaker. There are literally hundreds of clubs, churches, schools and non-profit organizations near you that would love to have you come and speak to their group. There is nothing better than a system that generates an unlimited supply of leads that are FREE! This is a summary of our last teleseminar “Getting Started in Speaking for Free Leads”. Don’t miss the upcoming Power Hour Seminars: Sign Up

I’m afraid to be a speaker

Yes, you can be a speaker. If you are anything like the rest of the world, you probably started speaking a while ago. Maybe age 2 or so. I bet you are pretty good at it by now! If you are in direct sales or network marketing (and the odds are good since you are reading this blog) then you are already a paid speaker. You can be a public speaker, so stop staying you can’t. Offering yourself as a speaker will bring new business into your client base that is totally unrelated to your existing client base. You wouldn’t pass up on FREE or PAID For Leads would you? (Sometimes speakers get paid. You can’t beat that: Getting paid to generate leads for your direct sales business! Wow!)

Say it: I am a public speaker!

What to Talk about

I am often asked “what would I talk about?” Here is a simple way to decide what you will offer the organizations when you begin to make your calls. Think about these questions:

• Who are you?
• What is your life purpose?
• What is your business purpose, your brand?
• Which part of you will have value to groups?

Make A List

Keeping those questions in mind, write four lists each with about 10 entries on each. List your passions, your skills, your hobbies, and your business skills, products or motivations. It might go something like this:

Passions
Children’s eating habits
Environmental issues
Chemical free living
Whole foods

Skills
Organization
Teaching
Marketing
Web design

Hobbies
Body building
Cooking
Gardening
Bonsai

Business, motivation or expertise
Chef
Recipe creator
Human resources management
Business training
Increase metabolism

It doesn’t really matter what you have in each category. The topics do not have to relate to your business for you to get leads. If you snowmobile for a hobby then write it down. If you are a good swimmer as a skill then that is good too. The point here is to dig deep and get 10 in each category. You should have no less than 40 topics to pick from.

Pick A Topic With Value

After the lists are done, go back to the original questions. Which ones of these topics are you most comfortable with? Which of the topics are best presented to groups? Which have the most value to the audience? Pick out three of the 40 on the list and determine the benefits to your audience. Taking the three that you selected, get a new paper and list the benefits or value of each topic.. Again, think of as many values as you can come up with. In the above list, I have selected one of my topics as increasing metabolism.

The Value Of Increased Metabolism
Not tired
Feel better
Keep up with the kids
Get more done
Stronger immune system
Fewer colds
You can eat more
More energy,
ETC.

What To Call Your Seminar

Now that you have three seminars and you know all the benefits or value of those seminars for the participants it is time to write a SNAPPY title and an equally snappy subtitle. The title gets their attention and the subtitle tells them what it is all about.

For example:
Title: The Jack Rabbit Energy Workshop

Subtitle: I can teach you how to have the energy and spring of 12 jack rabbits on a trampoline.

Pretty SNAPPY, Huh?!

During our Power Hour TeleSeminar last week one of the topics was gardening. The title that one of the participants came up with is: Be a Red Beet, not a Deadbeat! A subtitle might be: Become a super human growing super foods for exercise and nutrition. The point of the subtitle is to give the listener a brief one line description with some emotional value. The subtitle needs to be short, to the point, and leaving them wanting more. It should have an impact to the emotions. Like, who wouldn’t want to have the energy and spring of 12 jack rabbits anyway?!

It Takes Time To Be SNAPPY

The process of creating speaking topics takes a few days. Allow your subconscious mind do some of the work by not forcing the issue. Be willing to step out of your comfort zone a bit. It is OK to feel a bit uncomfortable the first time you tell someone that your topics are:
The “Jack Rabbit Energy Workshop” and “Be A Red Beet, Not A Deadbeat”

The SNAPPY titles will catch them and the subtitles will make them want more. When they ask what the Jack Rabbit Energy workshop is you just say “I can teach you how to have the spring and energy of 12 jack rabbits on a trampoline… When does your group meet?”

Take advantage of your subconscious mind

Don’t write the speech until you have a dated speaking engagement. Again, allow your subconscious mind to do some work while you do the calls. When someone gives you a date, you will be able to write a speech in a flash because your subconscious mind has done all the work.

The System Summary

The summary of how to get paid-for (or at least free) leads:

1. List your topics.
2. Pick out 3 topics with the best value that are going to market.
3. List the benefits or value to the group, client or organization. How will the members benefit from the topic or your speech.
4. Write a write a snappy title for each.
5. Write an equally snappy subtitle that conveys the emotional value to the group quickly in a quick one liner.
6. Make your calls.
7. Write up a page description to use as a mailing piece when requested and not before.
8. Write your speech when you date a speaking engagement.

This is a system that works to generate an unlimited supply of free leads. Power UP For Professional Results and Create A Cash Flow Show are sets of systems. Each CD set includes 8 hours of proven systems training that work for all businesses. Check It out.

Please feel free to reprint or publish anything on this website for personal or training purposes. We only ask that for online publication you select an excerpt from the article then link back using the permalink to the original article. For off-line purposes please print each article in it's entirety and include the following credits. Reprinted with permission from:
Deb Bixler www.CreateACashFlowShow.com 717-751-2793