The Weekend So Far

Friday night I went to the debut party for one of my new daughters. As so often happens at one's first party, not too many people showed up. The sales were under $100, but two parties were booked. I assured the consultant that the main reason for debut parties is to get some experience under their belts and to book parties, and both of these were accomplished. She was able to see the areas on which she needs to concentrate her training and, with the bonus Pure Romance is giving us this weekend, she will be able to place her activating order and go from "recruit" to "consultant".

I had two parties on Saturday, neither of which amounted to much. The first had a lot of last-minute cancellations so there were only two guests, one of whom did not have any money. The other was a former consultant. I called her ahead of time and told her to bring any leftover stock she could not use, and we traded product so that she could get products she could use personally and I got some products I can sell. She also put in a small order. Hostess only had enough money for one small product but had two on her wish list, so I offered her a BOGO (but one get one free) as her hostess credit. She is going to contact the guest who could not buy anything (she just got laid off) to see if she will have a party. I had also asked her if she wanted to use her unemployment check (when it begins) to buy a kit and have Pure Romance be her new job. She seemed interested and is going to check it out online.

Saturday night there were three hostesses and I gave them 20% hostess credit. One of my new recruits went with me to shadow the party. There were about 18 guests present, the demo went smoothly, but as soon as the ordering began, over half of the people disappeared. Those that did order each purchased only one small item. The total before the hostesses' orders was $78, so they each got $5.20 hostess credit. The entire party total was $143. I told them that since the party total was under $150 that technically I did not have to give them a hostess gift beyond their hostess credit, but I knew they tried so I gave each of them a PR can cozie. One of them remarked that if at least one other guest had ordered, they probably could have hit the $150 mark. At that point I told them as nicely as I could that my average party sales were $600, so the extra $7 would not have made much difference. They finally got it that their party sales sucked.

We played Pop Your Cherry and the guest who popped her cherry wanted her free gift that night, but I reminded her what was written on the sheet - she gets her gift the night of her party, providing it holds on the original date and has a minimum of $350 in sales. She looked at me like I was crazy, expecting that high a sales total, so I repeated what I told the hostesses - my average party sales were $600 so $350 was usually not too difficult to achieve. I smiled the whole time and did my best not to give off negative vibes. The recruit who was with me saw that no matter how bad a party is, we remain professional about it.

When I got home I went out with two of my family members for a couple of drinks to unwind, then came home and chilled for a few hours. This afternoon I have a party in Bloomington. Hopefully it will bring my totals for the weekend up to a reasonable amount.