Party Weekend

This week I launched my Stella & Dot business.  Not wanting to belabor a point I signed up and after watching a couple online training videos I started making phone calls.  I booked 3 shows to hold in just over a week; a launch show at my home Friday night and 2 on Saturday.  My starter kit and the sample jewelry I ordered arrived Wednesday 3 days before my first show. I finally had a catalog to give people.  It was all packaged so beautifully and the web site is so great that even before I got the books it was easy to tell people what I was doing.  Since I had never been to a Stella & Dot trunk show before and had no idea what I was doing my sponsor flew in from Georgia for those first 3 shows to train me.  And she brought all her fabulous jewelry so I got to see more than the few pieces I ordered with my starter kit.

I do have very enthusiastic and supportive friends but I still had to ask several of them before I found a couple to host.  You will hear "no" 10 times for every "yes".  I have heard that quoted many times and no mater how excited your friends are it is still true.

Also, life happens, so my Saturday morning hostess ended up having a medical problem that week and finally called Friday morning to let me know she was not going to be able to host my show.  We will reschedule but that just left me with 2 training shows.  I am a fast learner so I knew it would be fine.

For my show I invited over 80 people, more than 50 RSVP'd "no".  I will share that even though I fully expected that kind of response to a Friday night invite sent barely a week ahead it was still a little scary to get that many no emails responses to my evite.  I did get 6 "yes" and 7 "maybe" responses.  In the end 10 wonderful friends were able to make it and we had a great time.  I mainly just acted like the hostess chatting with friends, telling them they looked great and trying to pass out a few drinks.  In the rush of the evening I didn't end up putting out any food, just a couple bowls of m&m's.

I didn't sell the company average of $1000 but was just short of $600 which I felt pretty good about.  Since I was the hostess I will be able to order a little over $100 in free jewelry to add to my samples and I earned $146 in commission.  If I sell a total of $2300 for the month my commission goes up and I will get $175 for that night.  2 of my friends are excited to get some free jewelry by hosting a trunk show for me.

My second show was hosted by my cousin.  She was a wonderful and enthusiastic hostess but also had more "no" responses than yes and ended up with a more cozy 3 guests.  We still had a great time and they had fun trying stuff on, it was easier to give individual attention to the guests and help them choose something they love.  Jessy has a couple outside orders coming as well so I don't know yet what the total of the show will be but even with only 3 guests I sold nearly $500 giving me another approx $125 with a $150 potential when I make the higher commission sales goal.  And one of her friends is also going to host a show for me.

So at a minimum I made about $271 this weekend.  Each show was 2 hours long with a little time before and after for set up so call it 6 hours of work or $45/hour.  If I did this every week I would easily reach my Stella & Dot goal of $1000/month.  If I sponsor a couple stylists to join me in this adventure I could replace my currently income while only working about 10 hours a week.

While it sounds easy when I say 10 hours a week to make $1000/month.  I will have to actually put in that time.  My biggest fear as I transition to self employment is that I will free up time to do the work but then get distracted by all the distractions of life.  My sponsor used the term "time block" several times this weekend to talk about how she manages a busy career as a director working more than 10 hour a week (but making much more than $1000/month) while also raising 4 kids and running a home.  Something I am going to need to figure out pretty quickly.

So far what I have figured out is that one of the keys to success is going to be simply asking.  Everyone!  To that end I found myself telling someone recently that I do freelance writing and the next thing I knew I was having coffee with a new business owner looking for some sales materials.  I will tell you all about how that turns out next week!