Direct sales seasons move fast. Between preorder, customer live dates and retirement, the cycle goes 'round before we know it. It's easy to get go into automatic mode and post whatever you have ready whenever you have it ready. However, successful business demonstrators are a little more strategic than that! Enjoy these tips from my Blog Bounce Boot Camp--and I hope you'll consider taking it with us next time it comes up on the calendar!
- Seasonal projects coming up. What are they going to need to fill their needs and successfully complete items for the next three holidays? This gives them a logical reason to buy now. Make sure the date is enough in advance that they will be able to get the products and create the project in time. Blog in advance, and share again on social media closer to the date. You’ll get twice the marketing out of once the work.
***What you order to demo should be based first on the calendar, NOT the catalog.***
- Basics that make stampers more versatile or efficient. Sharing basic tools and tips for professional looking results will always be a good idea. This makes customers feel like they are making a smart purchase. People love to feel clever! “So many people forget to buy the reinkers and then they’re stuck waiting for an order to come in when their pad gets dry. Getting it when you buy the pad really is the best strategy.” It’s true, and they’ll feel brilliant when they buy.
- Products that coordinate with smaller items on sale. Sale items are impulse items. You know, like the magazines and candy and energy drinks they sell at the cash registers at the grocery store. They are typically meant to be added to an order, not BE the order. So demo what goes with those sale items. If the larger items are for them, they’ll buy them. But everyone probably has at least one or two smaller items they’d get if they were making an order. This can be the push that makes them actually add things to the shopping cart.
- Use what you have on hand. Business-minded demonstrators try to avoid impulse purchases. Many demos order far more than they will actually physically be able to demonstrate and blog (myself included). Then we get discouraged and wonder why our expenses are so high and we’re not making enough profit. It’s fun to buy the latest and greatest, but it’s not necessary.
Pace yourself. Buy wisely out of the main catalog. Short term promotions and mini catalogs give us an excellent reason to contact our customers, but we should never “hang our hat” on them. Our main “hats” should always be hung on the products in the main catalog, with new goodies from the minis and the specials to add some frosting to our cake now and again.
- Demo “flagship” items that represent a greater grouping. Narrow down the “overwhelm factor” by knowing that when we blog one ink pad, we’re sharing the benefits of 40 ink pads. When we share things in Designer Series Papers, we’re demonstrating on behalf of all the patterns. While we have this gigantic product line, we can cluster some products into group. What we blog is representative of the field of products. We don’t have to demo all the stamp sets to get them to buy a stamp set.
Like our product offering, what to share when is a huge topic, and sometimes you just have to learn by experience and say, “well, I won’t do that again!” or “wow, I was so on top of that! I’ll make a note to do that again this time next year.” No demonstrator optimizes every single experience enough that there's zero room for improvement. Nobody knocks it out of the park every single post, every single time. But we can get better at sharing purposefully. It just takes practice.
This article is available in a free handout for use with your teams. Download What to Share When 5 tips
Dream BIG --and plan strategically! I'm rootin' for you.
