In early 2013, while I was Active Duty in the Air Force, I remember going to my 2nd Mary Kay home party. I enjoyed the home parties. It was nice being pampered, and the host was encouraging the business opportunity.
Due to the circumstances, and the fact she’d hosted such a nice party, I wanted to join the business to reciprocate the favor. She persuaded quite a few of us (guests) by explaining how easy it could be to start a successful business, and at the time I had very little clue about the hard work it actually takes.
At no fault of Mary Kay, my independent distributor business failed miserably, and I’d like to save others from wasting their time on failed ventures, so I’m writing this…
Why Most People Join
Most people join home party businesses for the same reason I did. Especially as women, we go to parties where they sell products that we enjoy:
- Kitchenware
- Makeup
- Haircare
- Essential oils
- and others…
We enjoy the party experience, then when they explain how the party can become a lucrative opportunity, it seems like a no brainer, and we join.
What’s Wrong When Most People Join
Often times, when the party host persuades, they diminish the work required to be successful in a home party business. The truth is that if you rely on home parties as the sole marketing opportunity, you’ll learn there are parties where you’ll have more sales than others. In order for you to achieve financial goals you desire, you’ll have to set aside time to:
1. Market and network to Find party hosts
2. Practice your presentation
3. Gather necessary supplies
4. Deliver parties
5. Deliver customer orders
6. Follow up with customers, potential customers, and those you haven’t heard from in awhile
7. Analyze your goals and what you need to do to grow your business
8. Do your bookkeeping and tax reporting
9. Build your reputation as a likeable person and as a home party representative
and more…
When you really talk to successful people in home party businesses, they’re very disciplined about these core functions. They may have a certain number of networking events they go to, large networks and reputations, prior business experience or exposure, or a diehard love for the product and passion for others to have it, and whichever components they had may or may not translate to you. For these reasons and more, it’s important for you to consider these 7 things before signing up for a home party business…
1. What’s Your “Why”
When looking at the success of others, it’s easy to think you can do what they’re doing, but it’s harder to put that into practice. Successful people have a work ethic and imitating that work ethic is easier said than done.
If you’re joining purely for potential dollar signs, it may not be incentive enough to put in the work. Beyond money, it should be other underlying reasons why like:
- The business vision connects with your personal passions
- You can see the business opportunity as a positive component to your life plan
- or, The opportunity correlates with something you were doing anyway
2. Know How Your Regimen Will Need to Change
You may be working 40 hours as a homemaker, in a corporate profession, or starting another business venture, and starting this home party business will impact that. There’s loads of stories of people working 10 hours or less in businesses that are massive successes, but those stories are anomalies.
The truth is…
Most success stories in business come from disciplined and focused time. On small occassions, you’ll here someone who became a millionaire or multimillionaire home party business story, and they’ll tell you, when they started out, they spent more than 40 hours per week.
While you may not have 40 hours per week to invest, you’ll want to:
- Create a schedule that reflects your “busy” times and “available” times, and dedicate some of the “available time” to your home party business.
- Have realistic expectations about how quickly your business will grow in comparison to the person whose “going all in” with 40+ hours/week
- Maximize your productivity during your home party business work hours
3. What’s The Startup Budget Look Like?
It’s so easy to underestimate the requirements of starting a business (especially in direct sales). The costs look so small. The signup or entry packages are often less than $200, then the inventory, the travel, decor to make the party nice, accounting software, receipts, etc. Before you know it, you could be spending $1000s without accounting for it.
It’s important to create a budget of your personal expenses before the business. You can use an app like Everydollar or Personal Capital to get an idea of your regular spending habits, then you can challenge yourself with savings goals, so you’ll free up money to invest in your business.
To create your startup budget, you’ll want to sit down and be realistic with yourself about your ideal expenditures for the business. What type of party supplies would you like? How much do they cost? Where are your parties located? Do you have a territory limit? What are travel expenses like? How much does inventory cost?
The cost that usually sneaks up on Entrepreneurs is customer acquisition costs and it could be the biggest cost you have, and you may not even know it. It would be EXTREMELY helpful to consider what the business costs could be.
Everything you’ll need to spend on, you’ll want to factor it in. Before diving in, be sure your personal finances are able to handle the business expenses, and if not, be disciplined enough to save. If you go into the business finances in a gambling manner hoping that each dollar you spend will magically return, you can be very disappointed. Business doesn’t work that way.
Business is more like Farming than a Slot Machine
Often times, people are not thinking about putting value out into the atmosphere and letting it grow sufficient enough to create optimal financial outcomes. Instead, they’re thiinking about spending one dollar today and getting it back tomorrow. Business doesn’t work like that. You plant the seeds today thru:
- Educating people about your product or service
- Informing people of your business
- Explaining how your product or service can help others
Then, over time, you’ll have more and more people coming to your for products and services as your reputation becomes more established. If you’re in the mode of instant gratification, where you’re sacrificing your grocery money for your business, it can be very uncomfortable (I know from experience).
Overall, your main concern in the beginning should be using your product or service to give value and growing your reputation. Then, as your reputation becomes established, more and more people will know, like, and trust you and the products or services you offer.
4. Understand the Components of a Successful Business
Often times, home party businesses are run like hobbies or sales jobs. Those who join understand the home party component, but they don’t understand customer acquisition, lead conversion, other components of customer fulfillment (aside from home parties), management, branding, or leadership. Any successful business requires these seven business systems, and home party businesses are no different.
5. Set Goals for Financial Outcomes
When you understand the seven business systems, you’ll know you need to set goals like:
- Make (specified #) of contacts with target audience
- Deliver orders to (specified # of customers)
- Do (specified #) of presentations
- Sell (specified #) of products
- Attend (specified #) of networking events
- Draft (specified #) of social media posts
- Post (specified #) of blog posts
- Create (specified #) of videos
- etc.
Without clear goals, you just be “wingin it” and hobbyists do that. You can make a decent side hustle income “wingin it”, but if you want to make a serious income from your home party business, you’ll have to be disciplined, and set clear goals.
6. Create Your Game Plan to Suit Your Financial Goals
Typically, when people consider any business opportunity, there’s a financial component to it. Maybe you want to make an extra $100/mo, maybe $1000, or maybe a full time income–whatever you’re goal may be, you have to set clear actions that translate into the financial outcome. For example, if you want to make $3000/mo and your average commission from your home party products is an average of $20/piece, you’d need to sell 150 products per month.
Once you’re in business for awhile, you’ll start to see patterns like:
- The average sales from a party
- The average party size that does best
- Product combinations that go together well
- and, Better ways to explain the products to others
With the upfront financial goals and your experience experimenting to get results, you’ll come up with clearer and clearer goals about exactly what actions translates into what type of money.
7. Whether other Marketing Strategies Would Work
Although many direct sales or multi-level marketing businesses are taught to use home party selling, when you become a distributor, you’re a business owner. Entrepreneurs use various methods to market their businesses and get results.
Internet marketing is a growing and leading method for acquiring traffic to products and services. If you’re able to:
- Rank your business in the search engines
- Grab attention on social media
- Create a website to get people taking action
- or find attractive ways to engage thousands of people with the same amount of time you’d take to host a party for dozens, why not try adding that too?
I recommend home party business owners start internet marketing training, and for those that have, it’s become a huge competitive advantage.
Final Words on 7 Things to Consider Before You Start a Home Party Business
The goal of this article was to show 7 things to consider before you start a home party business. The failure rate in direct sales (and business in general) is extremely high because so many people don’t think about these 7 things before signing up.
If you have questions or concerns about this, don’t hesitate to leave them in the comments section. I’d love to help you out!
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Now, it’s Your Turn…
Have you started a home party business before? What things do you think someone considering a home party business should consider?
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