Vendor Event Success Tips for Direct Sales

For decades Direct Sales companies built their structure on reps doing home parties and demos. But when COVID struck, we were all forced to figure out how to navigate our new reality. Social distancing made it hard to “party” in person, and most parties moved online. As the world started to open back up, VENDOR EVENTS re-emerged in full force.

People were desperate to find something to do, and Direct Sales reps/solopreneurs had a captive audience. We could meet new people and get immediate sales.

Here’s the problem: no one trained us on what to do at an event like this! So how do we translate our party-talk and in-home demonstration into a successful vendor booth?

Take a walk around your local Farmer’s Market and you’ll see a WIDE variety of vendor engagement and success. Do you see Vendors sitting or standing? How many are on their phones? How many greet you when you walk by? What do the booths look like? Which ones look professional? What kind of signage catches your eye – café signs or banners? So many questions!

But don’t stress…here’s some basic etiquette for you to follow to have success at a Vendor Event:

Etiquette for Success

1. Stay off your phone! When your head is down, your business is closed.
2. Say Hello and come up with an ENGAGING question that will bring people closer.
3. Look the part – Dress yourself and your table appropriately. It shouldn’t look like you’re manning a garage sale.
4. Have a way to capture their information so you can follow up with Customers and Leads.

If you perfect #1, 2, and 3, you will make money at the event.

If you perfect #4, you will make money for the next year!

Let’s run both scenarios.

Scenario #1 – “New You” has mastered 1, 2, 3. Your product is priced at $10. You hustle and sell 100 of them at the event, taking home $1,000. Great job.

Scenario #2 – “MASTER You” also has a system in place to CAPTURE CUSTOMER INFORMATION AND LEADS. You sell the same $1,000 in product. But now you follow up with those customers regularly. You message them a Thank You note. You ask them in 2 weeks if they need more. You tell them of an upcoming sale.

We’ve found it’s not uncommon for at least 10% to repurchase within the first 2 weeks, and another 10% will repurchase within the next month. Do this and your sales are now $1,200. But more importantly, you have brought those customers into your world. Now you can remarket to them when new products are launched, or when you are running specials for the next holiday. Not to mention you have the ability to market and stay in touch with all those leads that didn’t purchase the day of the event.

The next group you want to capture information for, are the people that were interested, but didn’t purchase the day of the event. When I focus on this, I can easily collect information from 25 people in a day. From that group, I will generally get 1 that wants to purchase, 1 that wants to host a party, and 1 who is interested in joining my team. They only ACT because I FOLLOW UP. Think about the impact THIS activity would have on YOUR business. Growing your customer base, growing your sales, and growing your team. All because you took a few seconds to CAPTURE their information and follow up.

How to get new customers and leads to give you their information

The concept is simple. Give them something of value in exchange for their contact information.

During your conversation simply say something like, “Could I give you something a little extra? I’m going to send you an invite to my VIP group. This is where my best customers get the best deals. I just need a couple of details from you…”

When they give you their info, you can capture it by jotting it down on a clipboard. After the event enter their information into a Google Sheet. Be sure to include details for first name, phone, email and a notes column for where you met. Update this sheet and when you do your follow up calls, and be sure to send them that invite!

Or if you’d like to make life really simple you could use YouCanFollow.Me to manage your direct sales business. From capturing leads to contact management to email marketing – it’ll do all this and more.

The truth is, our Direct Sales world has changed.  We have to adapt with it if we want to succeed.  

What was your biggest takeaway from this article? Post your comments below. We’d love to hear from you.

– Liz

P.S. To see how our boss ladies are growing their businesses, their circles and their teams, download the Landing Page Method.