FUN Theme Show For October Home Parties!

Don’t be Superstitious this time of year…
Throw some salt over your shoulder and join me for a Superstition party!!!

Gretchen Manmiller, Thirty-One Gift Consultant’s Favorite Home Party Theme Show

This article was submitted by my good friend Gretchen Manmiller who is a Senior Executive Director for Thirty-One Gifts.

Does this sound like FUN? Would you want to attend? This is one of my favorite theme parties and it is perfect for Friday the 13th and any party in October – it gets the hostess excited and makes the parties a lot of FUN! Guests who receive this invitation are intrigued and know that the party will be something different!

So – what does a “Superstition” party include? Umbrellas open in the house, a guest guessing game and some “Name That Tune” songs! All of these will help you get more sales and information on your business to your guests! How? Well, read below to find out!

When guests arrive, give them a card that has the letters “wendeerorio” typed or written on the card. Ask guests to fill out one of your company’s door prize slips and tell them that the letters on the card spell “One Eerie Word” and that when they figure out what the word means to write it down on the bottom of the door prize slip!

Tell them to make sure that they get the door prize slip to you before you start the party as anyone who turns it in will get a chance for a prize – even if they don’t get the word right. The word by the way is “One Eerie Word”! Make sure you say exactly “one eerie word” and repeat that if they start asking you things like, “This only spells one word?” “Do I have to use all the letters?”

Theme Show Winner

Pick a theme show winner – tell the guests the phrase and then start the party! Start the party with a black umbrella (purchased at the dollar store) up! Will always get their attention!! Begin the party!

Use an MP3 player and MP3 speakers (can purchase at almost any store now) and then play Name that Tune. Pick tunes that will help your business and then show a product quickly! I have Hershey Kisses that I give out to the winner of the tune (I ask the hostess to help me pick the winner). They can name the artist or song. One with the most Hershey Kisses at the end of the party gets a prize!

Theme Songs:

Here are a few song ideas that will go with our theme. I am sure you can come up with others for the party!

• “Ghost Town” by The Specials: Show your specials for the month for hostesses and customers.
• “Thriller” by Michael Jackson: Tell the guests how “Thrilled” you are to be in the hostess’ house and how she is receiving her FREE products and half price items by hosting a party! Pick a product that was on the hostess’ wish list!
• “Addams Family” Theme Song: Tell your guests that one of the best parts of the business is that you work around your “family’s” schedule!
• “Lucky” by Britney Spears: Tell guests how “Lucky” you are to be doing your business and some of the ways your home-based business has changed your life!
• “Superfreak” by Rick James: Show the guests YOUR favorite item and explain why you “Superfreak out” about that product!
• “Black Magic Woman” by Fleetwood Mac: Tell guests the products you sell are perfect for any woman. Tell guests that these products are perfect for not only the guests but as gifts for family members. Challenge guests to come up with people to give the items to! Give a Hershey Kiss for each idea!
• “Superstition” by Stevie Wonder: Tell your guests “not to be superstitious” about the products and explain your return policy.
• “Love Potion Number 9” by The Searchers: This is always the last song to be played. Thank the guests for coming. Do not show a product. Tell guests if they are searching for a great way to make a little extra income to talk to you or mark it down on their order form! You have the perfect way to help them achieve their dreams!

Tell guests to count their Hershey Kisses and then declare a show winner!!! Tell them the Kisses are theirs and tell them the following superstition: At midnight, couples embrace for a kiss to celebrate the New Year and to set the tone for the New Year. Some hold the superstition that failing to kiss someone ensures a year of loneliness! Turn to the hostess and say – “How silly is that? You are here with friends and family and what a silly superstition that is, as obviously they are loved!”

Thirty-One Gifts, Home Party Leader

Gretchen Manmiller is currently a Senior Executive Director for Thirty-One Gifts.  She joined Thirty-One in April of 2007 and in June of 2009 she was able to quit her full-time job as a teacher and 18 months later promote to the highest paid position (Senior Executive Director) of Thirty-One in March of 2010.

She has been a facilitator for the past three Thirty-One National Conferences. Her best accomplishment with Thirty-One is watching the amazing women on her team achieve their dreams. Gretchen’s motto is “It is not about YOU, it is about THEM!”

Even though Gretchen is busy with Thirty-One, she never forgets it is the community that got her to her success. She is active with her local alumni association, she helps with the Relay for Life and she donates to her local school for the Performing Arts Program, as well as the Joyce B. Murtha Breast Cancer Center in Jonestown, PA.  Gretchen and her husband Kevin reside in Blandon, PA with their eight-year old daughter Victoria.

Watch Other Speakers & Consultants To Improve Presentation

Not everyone is born a “people person”, but if you hope to succeed as a  home party plan consultant, it’s essential that you gain a comprehensive understanding of what will lead to  public speaking success.

Presenting home parties is public speaking, you know! Unfortunately, this isn’t a skill that is learned best by reading a book or listening to an audio podcast. When it comes to public speaking and your presentation skills, the two best ways to learn the trade are: (1) to do it, and (2) to watch other people do it.

Perfect Your Party Plan Presentation

Here we’re going to focus our attention on how watching other speakers to glean their presentation skills can positively impact your very next home party. There are public speaking events going on all around you every day, so pay attention!

Use your down time to visit other consultants shows. You will be amazed at home many tips you can pick up from another consultant either in your company or in another company.

Listen to  Presenters Words

The first step to boosting your home party business by watching others make their presentations is to pay careful attention to what they are saying to sell their products and services to the audience. What words did they rely on heavily? Were there more nouns, verbs or adjectives in their presentation? How did they employ emphasis? What rhythm of speech did they depend upon to stand out as a direct sales consultant?

Next, Listen to Their Body Language

Words are powerful but there’s another dimension of communication that will be critical in your direct sales business, and that element is body language. Make it a point to attend a number of different direct sales party events in your region that are hosted by leading consultants to see what they are doing – and not only saying – to make the sale and gain new distributors into their network. Do they smile a lot? Do they use their hands while they talk? Do they make a great deal of confident eye contact? When you find a successful public speaker, try to mirror the things that they say and do and tailor them for your own dynamic approach.

Presentations Are Everywhere!

Opportunities to improve your presentation skills pop up everywhere; you just need to think creatively. Your preachers, teachers, professional speakers, other party plan consultants, video conferences and commercials (never forget those infomercial pros!) all offer valuable insights during their “public speaking” event.  Pay attention and you will learn clever strategies that you can use in your day-to-day home business to become an extraordinary success!

Direct Sales Consultants, Feng Shui At Your Party

Feng Shui is an Eastern philosophy that has moved West.  Basically, Feng Shui is the art and science of being in harmony with your environment.  Everything is made up of energy, which affects a direct sales consultant’s ability to generate sales at their home party.

Direct Sales Home Party Training

Understanding that the consultant does not always have control of all the factors at her/his home party, your awareness of certain things can be used to create energy more conducive to a successful party. You can use some basic Feng Shui skills to create more income in your direct sales business.

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Tips For Shows

• Always have your back supported
• Never stand in front of a mirror
• Never present in front of a door or window
• Do not stand on a mountain top

The above tips seem simple and yet at a show we often find ourselves jammed in front of the bay window, a mirror over the fireplace or in a doorway.  In every situation of your life: an interview, a restaurant, your direct sales show, a dinner party, when you can choose your spot and one spot is against a solid wall, then always grab it quickly before someone else does.  This gives you more credibility, more authority, just better energy in general.  Always have your back supported for better energy surrounding you.

Mirrors are distracting and also put forth negative energy.  Whenever possible avoid a mirror behind you.

You should always be able to see who is entering, arriving or walking in.  This is true in all cases.  An open door or window does not promote good energy for effective presentations.  Like a mirror, it is distracting to both the audience and the presenter.  Command control of the room by seeing who is arriving.

Would you like to live on the tip-top of a mountain?  In a war that may be a good place for a fort because you can see everywhere and yet it is a very vulnerable position.  Wind or a hurricane or lightning may strike at any time.  When you are presenting your home show, you do not want to feel or project vulnerability.  Try to avoid standing higher than your audience. This may happen in a situation of an outside party with a deck, or a sunken living room.

These are very basic Feng Shui tips and yet they can really impact your show tremendously.  When you walk into the next party, take a look around and evaluate the energy of the room.  If your host has the card table in front of the bay window, ask if you can move it in front of the fireplace.  Or maybe you could close the blinds.  Sometimes there is no choice, but awareness is the first step and then making the best out of every situation comes after that.

Direct Sales Presentation Training

People always listen to stories with greater interest than they do facts. Tell stories at your direct sales presentations and you will keep the attention of your audience. All sales consultants give quick tips and education to their guests at shows. The whole environment of party plan is successful because of the unique blend of product knowledge, one-on-one customer service and fun. Adding stories into your program to make the tips and information more interesting will increase the fun factor and keep the attention of the audience.

Improve Your Presentation Skills

Stories will improve your sales! One of the concepts that all professional presenters incorporate into their program is the use of pictures, parables and principles. Principles are facts, rules or knowledge. Pictures are well… you know what pictures are, they are pictures. You can include pictures by actually drawing them as many presenters do, or you can draw the picture with your story. The parable part is the story. Put them all together and pictures, parables and principles will increase sales in any environment, and your home party is no exception.

Sales Consultants Share Product Knowledge

In the home party, the “principles” are the sales consultant’s product knowledge or tips. This is the educational part of the show. But product knowledge alone will never sell the products. Most new consultants focus on product knowledge and that is a good thing, but is not the end-all of your show. You will develop more product knowledge the longer you are in business, so put focus on the other areas because pictures and parables will do more for selling your product.

Sell More At Home Show Presentations

You will sell more products at your home show when you paint pictures with stories. Think about your reasons for being in business. What are the top 20 reasons why your products are the best thing since sliced bread? Seriously, make a list!! Depending on your product line, you could have well over the required twenty.

• Skin care: Petroleum-free, hypo-allergenic, botanical-based, etc.
• Cookware: Solid anodized aluminum, non-stick, oven-safe, etc.
• Vitamins: organic, preservative-free, high antioxidants, etc.

Professional Speaking Technique

All professionals speakers use the technique of telling stories. Tell a story using your top 20 reasons why your product is the best thing since sliced bread. First, write down the 20 features that you want to focus on similar to what we did above. Then take those product features and turn them into benefits. Following that, create a story that will draw people in emotionally and paint a picture that they can relate to. Here’s an example:

• Feature/Product Knowledge: The skin care product is non-allergenic.
• Benefit: My daughter who is hypersensitive and has allergic reactions can use it.
• Picture and Parable: My freckle-faced twin daughters who burn very easily, and usually cannot spend any time out in the sun, spent all day at the beach building an enormous sand castle with their Dad and did not even get a burn.

Recruit Direct Sales And Marketing Consultants

You can apply the same concept to your organization’s direct sales recruiting efforts. Have your team create the top 20 reasons why their marketing business is the best thing since sliced bread!

• Feature: Free Trips
• Benefit: I get to take my hubby on a free vacation.
• Emotionally Charged Picture and Parable: Last year I took my husband, Jake, on an all-expense-paid vacation. We had a second honeymoon lying on the white sandy beaches of Cancun for a week… it was heaven!

Teach your team that principles, parables and pictures concept and they will become awesome presenters and will increase sales and recruiting at their home party presentations.

Party Show Presentation Tip

• Are your home party plan sales in the dumps?
• Would you like to have higher show sales at every party?

The following is a simple marketing tip that will fine tune your presentation skills and guarantee that you make more money at every home party.

Home Party Business Strategy

A simple business strategy is to make your home party presentation more interesting. The easiest way to increase your party plan show average is to incorporate adjectives into your party presentation. Unique and varied adjectives will make your presentation more interesting and keep your customers focused on you.

Frequently when I observe other sales consultants’ shows, I notice that they use the same word choices multiple times.

They often say something like:

• This is my favorite…
• I really like this…
• This is my favorite…
• No, I really like this…

It seems as though every consultant not only has her or his  favorite product, but also  a favorite set of words. Think about it, what do you say at your show over and over again?

Start to incorporate new adjectives into your show. Write a list of adjectives. Over the next few days listen to other people and jot down adjectives that you hear other people using.

You should be looking for cool and unique words. Listen carefully to professionals  in other business fields.

• Add the adjectives that people in finance use.
• What adjectives do decorators or chefs use?
• What kind of descriptive terms do people in hardware use?

Another place to find good adjectives is in your product catalog. The home office already put time and money into describing your products, and chances are they have a wide variety of interesting descriptions. In those descriptions, you may find  the perfect adjective to use for that item.

After you have an extensive list, start adding these to your show by linking them to specific items or pieces of information. Even if you are not yet entirely comfortable  saying the new description, just put together the list.

Marketing Your Home Party Products

You will find that it becomes easier to market your home party plan products when you are using a wide variety of descriptors.  Chances are your home office has already assembled an impressive list of adjectives in your catalog.

• A dish with the opulent French vanilla glaze
• The Rugged carry-all bag
• Unparalleled customer service
• Deluxe cheese grater
• Royalty rich burgundy satin
• Girly-girl satin undies
• Handy cuticle remover
• Seductive cinnamon aroma

Do you get the idea?

Notice that all of the above adjectives are not features of the product. For example with  “stainless steel whisk, therefore it is dishwasher safe”, stainless steel is an adjective but it is also a boring feature of the whisk. You would be better off describing it as “a breeze to clean; the whisk is dishwasher  safe”. The feature of the product is usually only a good adjective if you can spin some humor into it. “This is titanium reinforced alloy” is such a ridiculous statement that you can say it and it will sound funny.

Generally, it is better to stick with adjectives that paint pictures or evoke emotions rather than features of the product.

So, now that you have a list of adjectives linked to all of your products and information, it is time to start practicing. It is OK to use the same adjective with each product at every show. Once you memorize your adjective list and use them  at several shows it will become second nature. It is a good idea to re-look at your adjectives every time a new catalog comes out. Once you do this exercise you will continue to hear new adjectives all the time to add to your arsenal. Interesting word choices will keep the attention of your guests and keep them focused on you.

Sales will increase and your shows will be more fun when the guests are more attentive to you. The Cash Flow Show program of show organization is a complete set of home party plan skills that are guaranteed to double your show average. (Game Players: see your score card for a discount!)

Share Your Home Party Product Adjectives Below!

It is good to listen to other peoples adjectives, especially those used in other industries. Let’s put together a huge list of adjectives that you can use at your home party!!

Share some of your creative adjectives in the comment box below so we all learn some new ones!!