Cancellations are like a dagger to the heart of a successful direct sales home party plan business.
Don’t you hate those last minute cancellations? You’ve worked long and hard with your hostess to get everything ready for the party, and all of a sudden, she calls and asks to cancel. It’s enough to make you pull all your hair out of your head!
Coaching your host will help reduce cancellations and help your business survive and thrive. Think of host coaching as part of a good customer service plan. Just as you need to keep the customers happy, you need to keep the host informed, engaged and motivated.
January can be a woeful month for a direct sales business. This often follows a slow holiday period. People have spent and spent and spent some more, until they can’t spend any more. Business often picks up again in February and March, but how do you make January a month to remember?
Reduce Party Plan Cancellations
To help make January (or any month for that matter) a good sales month, you need to work on bookings a few months earlier. If you work diligently on bookings a few months prior to January, you might get a surprising numbers of scheduled parties. Work with guests at your parties and offer them special gifts or discounts if they will host a party in January. This often motivates them to book an event while others are resting up from the holidays.
Once you have a January booking, you need to make sure to avoid cancellations. How do you do avoid those business-killing cancellations?
* Stay in constant contact with your host. Keep your host energized and motivated. A
quick e-mail or phone call each day immediately prior to the party will help.
* Assure your hostess that everything will work out. She may be worried that guests will cancel; coach her to send out reminder cards and assure her that people will show up.
* Know her personality type. If she is shy, provide her with a persuasive script to use when calling guests. If she is unorganized, help her get everything in order and ready for the party.
Party Plan Tips
These are tips for anytime of the year. Just because January, August or any other month is recognized as a high cancellation month in the home party plan industry doesn’t mean it has to be for you. One of the most important jobs of the successful direct sales consultant is often babysitting the hosts.
You sometimes have to lead your hostess by the hand and guide her through every step of the process. In January, your babysitting skills are even more important. To avoid those dreaded January (or any month) cancellations, become a babysitter and a coach, and walk with your hostess every step of the way until the night of the party.
Taking the time to put a few precautionary measures into place will make a world of difference in your business long term. Consultants who have the lowest cancellation rates are those who priortize hostess coaching as the backbone of their business. It does pay off!!
BIO:
Home party plan consultants who priortize hostess coaching will always make more money. Learn more hostess and party tips so that will reduce cancellations at your next home party at: http://www.CreateACashFlowShow.com
