Bookings – The Lifeline of Your Business

Why are bookings so vital?

They are the absolute lifeline of our business. If we don’t have hosts, we don’t have a job. We are connecting with people everyday, so staying excited about what we have to offer will help draw others to us and encourage them to want to schedule a show with us.

GOALS

One of the most important things you need to do as you begin to add bookings to your calendar is to determine how many bookings you want. Just like with sales and recruiting, if you don’t set a goal for what you want, you won’t know if you have enough to accomplish your goals. For example, are you wanting to earn your Start Swell? How many shows a month do you need to earn them. Are you wanting to earn the cruise? How many shows a month do you need to do earn it. How many is enough for you? It may not be the same for you as it is for others you are working with. You have to know how many are enough for you.

CONSISTENCY

The easiest way for you to continue to add the shows you need is to maintain a consistent show schedule. Whether that is 2 shows a week or 4 a month, consistency keeps you motivated, excited and in front of enough people to add to your calendar.

Let’s look at a few things we need to do to get ready to fill our calendars.

1. Maintain control of your calendar.

Mark off personal dates first. If you haven’t done it already, go through the rest of the year and mark off all your important dates like birthdays, anniversaries, church or school events … all the things you know you don’t want to miss. One other date you should have marked off is the day of your Sales Meeting. You should never schedule a show on the day your TEAM meets!!

When you call to get your hair done, if your stylist doesn’t work on Mondays, then you don’t get to schedule with her that day. The same applies for you. Only you know when you can and want to work. Decide what days of the month you want to work.You may want to do 2 shows a week and 1 or 2 Saturdays a month. If you don’t want to work on a specific day, DON’T SCHEDULE A SHOW!

2. Take the availability of dates away.

You can do this by saying, “I am so excited about all the products Thirty-One has to offer. I only have a couple of dates open, so if you want to be the one to show these to your friends and earn them for free, be sure and see me right after the party.

You may have 8 or 10 dates you need to book, don’t lay all 10 of those out to people. Pick 2 or 3 of the earliest dates in the month and start there.

  • You can circle the dates you have open in pencil and only have 3 or 4 circled at a time.
  • You can hi-lite the dates in yellow or green so they will stand out to whoever is looking at your book.
  • You can also get the small post-it notes and put them on the dates you want to fill. This again, is just going to draw attention directly to what you want to book.

This will also help you to front load your month. You may have found that if someone wants a Tuesday, for example, she will pick the latest Tuesday you have available, even if she is booking 2 or 3 months out. By front loading, many times you will have the ability to reschedule a show within the same month, if a postponement comes up

3. Keep a neat, professional looking calendar.

If your calendar has everything on it that you do in your life, when someone books a show, they may get the impression that you are so busy, that if they need to postpone, it won’t be a big deal. If it is too empty, people may not feel the urgency to book with you right away. If you have too much written on your calendar, try to keep your everyday appointments, calls you need to make, to do lists, etc in a different place. .

If you don’t have all the shows on it you want and when you look at your calendar it looks like a snowstorm hit, write a few extra things down, like when you need to make host coaching calls, closing out shows, training events or other things to fill in the blanks a little.

If you don’t have shows scheduled right now, you will have to do a little bit of work to get your calendar where it needs to be.

Guest/ Host Appreciation Show or Mystery Hostess Show

You have one person that you can ask to host a show that should never tell you “No”. It is YOU! Pick a date TODAY to have your show. Invite everyone you can think off. Anyone from your past shows, friends, family, teachers, co-workers, neighbors, etc. Make it a goal to invite 100 people. You can market this as a Host and Guest Appreciation show where someone will have the chance to win the show benefits and other give-aways depending on what you can invest in this show. Your guests will earn tickets to go in the drawings for the prizes.

They could earn tickets by:

RSVP’ing

Arriving on time

Scheduling a Spring Home Show or Catalog Show

Bringing orders with you

Bringing a guest

Bringing the highest dollar amount of outside orders

(pass out sample of Guest Appreciation Invitation)

You have to do everything for this show that you tell your hosts to do. Talk about it to everyone you see. Carry invitations with you everywhere you go. Mail out your other invitations. Send out an email invitation to everyone in your data base. Make your reminder phone calls, so you can collect your RSVP’s. If you will work this, it will work for you.

Additional ways to find hosts outside of a Home Show

  • Call anyone who placed an outside order
  • Carry a Thirty-One purse or tote everywhere you go.
  • Post a catalog in the teacher’s lounge at your child’s school or the employee break room. Have your husband do the same.
  • Talk to the receptionist at the dentist and doctor’s office.
  • Set up a display at a craft fair, community event or school function.
  • Do a show at your workplace over lunch or at the end of the day.
  • Talk to people wherever you do business regularly – hair salon, hairdresser, dry cleaners, post office, etc.
  • Contact schools, church groups or civic organizations about fund-raisers.
  • Keep business cards and catalogs with you at all times to hand out or post wherever possible.

Build Business With Customer Care

Customer Care calls allow you to follow up with past customers and hosts, whether from a home of catalog show or an outside order.

Customer care gives you a wonderful opportunity to:

  • Express appreciation for a customer’s business
  • Offer added value through a product tip or idea
  • Tell past hosts and customers about upcoming specials
  • Book future Home Shows
  • Share the Thirty-One business opportunity
  • Obtain referrals to friends and acquaintances you could also contact

Whom should you call?

  • People who couldn’t attend a show but placed an outside order
  • Guests who indicated an interest in hosting a show or finding out more about Thirty-One
  • Customers who love the products, have placed large orders or have been to several shows
  • Guests who indicated interest in several products but placed a very small order
  • Past Home Show hostesses
  • Potential Home show hostesses
  • A host who had to postpone a show
  • Potential Thirty-One consultants
  • Referrals you’ve received
  • Leads from survey drawing slips, fair and fund-raisers
  • Every other hostess and guest from your past shows

If you need to add shows to your calendar, commit to making a minimum of 5 contacts a day. These do not include voice mails that you leave. You have made your list of who you need to contact so the next step is to “Just Ask”.

Some words to use when you are contacting friends, family, or guests and hostesses that have become close to you are, “I have a personal goal I am trying to reach by adding ___ shows to my calendar. When I thought about who I could count on, you were at the top of my list.”

Brainstorm the reasons people decide to host Thirty-One shows.

You have to know what those different reasons are and address several of them at least 3 times during your demonstration.

Common objections/hesitations to Scheduling a Thirty-One Show

Sometimes no matter how good of a job you have done on your demonstration, you will come up against some objections and hesitations. Don’t let those derail you. Practice the words to use so when an objection is mentioned, you are ready. Work with your director or recruiter, or with your recruits so this becomes a second nature.

I don’t have enough time/ I’m too busy -- I say, “That’s why I make it so easy to have a show with me. You don’t have to do anything until I call and remind you. For example, about 3 weeks before your show I will call to let you know it is time to start getting your invitations addressed. I will call you the next week and remind you to pop them in the mail and cover a few details about your show. Then the week before your show I will call and see how the outside orders are coming and how many RSVP’s you have gotten. Doesn’t that sound easy? Were you thinking about July or August?

I don’t know enough people -- “I will help you come up with your guest list. In fact, we’ll let everyone here tonight know when your show will be and they can go ahead and get it on their calendar” (Keep some extra invitations with you and pass them out to the guests and let them address it to themselves and then give back to the person that scheduled the show). I will also give you a guide to coming up with 50 other guest names in about 5 minutes. You can also address your invitations to “your guest and friend” and I will have a gift for everyone that brings a friend. Were you thinking about a Tuesday or Thursday?

My house isn’t big enough -- “We don’t have to have a lot of space. Your friends will just love the chance to get together and re-connect. I can bring a small table at we can set up anywhere.” OR “Do you have a friend that you could co-host with? We could have the show at her house and then you could share the host benefits”. You could also offer to do the show at a church fellowship hall, office after hours or even at your house if you are in the same area. Then you just follow up with the “What day of the week works better for you?”

I really don’t need anything else-- Then your really want to have a show. You could use your host benefits to get gifts for all the upcoming holidays like Christmas, Father’s Day, birthdays, graduation, wedding gifts, even Teacher Appreciation! What would work better for you July or August?

I’ve done home shows in the past and didn’t have a good response -- The great thing about Thirty-One is that there is something for everyone and because we are such a new company many of your friends my not even know about us. You could be the one to open this brand new door for them. I will help you every step of the way. All we need to do right now is decide what works better for you, Monday or Friday.

Reasons you MAY NOT be booking shows:

Your demonstration doesn’t offer anything new or updated: If you are doing the same product demonstration over and over you may find yourself getting in a rut and just running through it without interacting much with the crowd or interjecting any new ideas for product uses, tips or ideas. Read home decor magazines, watch HGTV, QVC, etc.

You don’t honor your host: It’s doesn’t matter how incredible we think Thirty-One is or how much we talk about the wonderful host benefits, if we don’t make our hosts feel special. Thank your host at the very beginning of your show. Compliment them on what a great job they did getting their guests there or on how many outside orders they collected ahead of time. Find SOMETHING positive to say about the host at the beginning of the show. You may also want to say, “I also want to thank you for coming tonight. I know everyone is very busy and there are probably a thousand other things you could be doing or places you could be, so thanks again, for being here. I promise we are going to have a good time tonight.

You aren’t having a good time: While most people will schedule a show to earn free product, if you aren’t having fun and enjoying what you are doing, and if you don’t connect with your guests, they aren’t going to schedule a show with you. Honestly, our guest are busy and when they come in to our show, we owe it to them for them to have a good time. I don’t mean we have to be the town comic or telling jokes at every turn, but we can all be pleasant and smile and be excited about our job. If you come across rude or unpleasant, you won’t get bookings.

You don’t have enough guests at your show: Obviously, if you don’t have but a couple of people at your show, it may be a little more difficult to generate 1 or 2 bookings. This truly goes back to host coaching.If you have consistently low attendance, ask your director or recruiter to give you some ideas to increase attendance along with your host coaching.

Additional Booking Ideas:

  • Offer a hot date -- this can be done a couple of different ways. One way is to offer a product of YOUR choice for the price of the day you want scheduled. This obviously works better towards the beginning of the month. For example, you need to book a show on the 5th. Offer the Mom’s Backpack or something similar for $5. Order this as a business supply order. You could set a minimum for sales or attendance, but you can try and see what works for you. Maybe try requirements are 15 total orders or $500 in sales, usually. Depends on how close you are to the date you want filled. You could offer an additional ½ price item if someone books a date you need.
  • Offer a “Free show” –You agree to mail the invitations, bring a batch of brownies, and making reminder phone calls. These can be some of your most successful shows because youare doing what you ask all your hosts to do. You might not want to offer to do all these things, but you might want to offer to mail the invites or make the reminder calls. Whatever fits with what you are comfortable with.
  • Offer a “party in a bag” -- To do this, have a gift box or party bag and have the invitations, paper plates, napkins, cups and one either acake mix or brownie mix. Then say, “I am offering a party in a box tonight for whoever schedules a show for ______” Then, they get to take that box or bag home with them.
  • If you have a couple of specific dates you want to schedule, say, “Write somewhere on the top of your Sales Receipt the numbers 22 and 25 (whatever dates you have) and I will tell you what those numbers are for at the end of our show. When you talk about the Guest survey card, say, “Remember the two numbers I gave you at the beginning, what are they? (Say this so everyone will look back at them and know what they are) Those numbers represent the 22nd and 25th and are 2 dates I am going to schedule shows. If you book a show for one of those dates, in addition to all the host benefits you will earn from the company, I will give you ______” You could offer anything from an additional ½ price item, to something free you may have on hand, to $10-$15 off their order the night of their show. You decide what it is worth to secure the additional booking.
  • Have envelopes with the dates you want to schedule written on the outside. Write names of products on index card and put it in the envelopes. When someone books that date, you can order whatever is in the envelope for them the night of THEIR show. This can be anything from a candle, some lotion or a tote.
  • “Pass or Play” – This is another envelope system to encourage bookings at your show. Hand everyone a sealed envelope with a product written on an index card inside. At the end of the demo, as you are going over the door prize slip, say something like, “Everyone has an envelope. If you want to have your own show and earn the host benefits and free products you can play. Simply open your envelope and you will get the gift that is inside.