The Traveling Saleswoman

Sorry for the recent silence on the blogging front. There hasn’t been a lot to post about that was business-related. I had a couple of last-minute party cancelations due to that old standby, the “family emergency”. It’s the perfect vague excuse to get out of hosting, as no consutant will dare to question its legitimacy. Then we went on a family vacation for a couple of weeks.

Now we’re back but it’s the height of summer, and most hostesses or potentials are not returning phone calls. It’s a little frustrating because I’m anxious to get back into the swing of business and ramp up for a productive fall season, but I keep hitting brick walls.

I will share the most recent grammatical clanger that made my eyebrows shoot skywards. I received an email from a fellow consultant and her email signature was phrased as follows:

Name and phone number
You’re xxx consultant

She’s very successsful - presumably not because her customers are impressed with her grasp of basic grammar!

I thought it couldn’t get any worse when the hostess wanted to have her party outside on the deck and within a few minutes I got bitten by several mosquitos.

Then I thought it couldn’t get any worse when it started to rain and she still insisted that the party be outside.

Then I thought it couldn’t get any worse when I tasted some awful alcoholic concoction she had made and it was so foul, I had to spit it out when she wasn’t looking.

Then I thought it couldn’t get any worse when 80% of the people at the party smoked throughout.

Then I thought it couldn’t get any worse when a large item on my display toppled over, sending two glass items smashing down onto the cement floor below.

Then I thought it couldn’t get any worse when the 3 year old daughter of one of the guests slipped and fell fully clothed into the swimming pool.

Then I thought it couldn’t get any worse when the lady who booked her own party asked if I would mind sharing it with a jewelry rep.

Rarely have I been so glad to pack up and leave!

It’s the end of the school year and a busy time for my hostesses and customers. I had two hostesses postpone this month due to kid activity craziness, and several others who won’t return my calls, probably for the same reason. No parties this week but I did a lot of local deliveries, and have a few promising leads.

However, I did manage to squeeze into a local fair last Saturday at the last minute. There was no cost for the booth, which is a nice situation because you’re not allocating your first $40-$60 of profit towards breaking even. To my delight I sold a couple of heavy, bulky items - I was so thrilled to finally get them out of my basement. I even made a sale to an unshaven burly man with a large slobbery dog - not my typical customer demographic, by a long shot. The worst part of the day was the sweltering heat and lack of breeze. My legs sweated so much, my shorts were soaked and it looked like I had peed my pants! I held a strategically placed catalog in front of my thighs for most of the day after discovering that.

So you’ll recall my windy, rainy craft fair experience last weekend. Well, someone I met there said she wasn’t able to host a party but she might like to order something, so I gave a catalog. She just emailed me with her order - for over $300 worth of products! So I guess my weather endurance challenge paid off in the end.

Number of sales at today’s outdoor craft fair: 4
Number of hours away from home: 7
Number of those hours during which it rained: 5
Number of people willing to give me their email address to follow up on hosting a party: 10
Number of confused elderly men who told me about their WWII experiences: 2
Number of times I called my husband in a 15-minute period to ask him to bring things I’d forgotten: 3
Number of times my husband hung up on me in frustration: 1
Number of items I broke when I tried to adjust my tablecover: 2
Number of scouts who dropped their candy to hold my tent down: 2
Number of times my tent almost blew away today: 100+

I participated in a fundraising vendor fair last night at a local school. There were 12 tables, 11 of them populated by direct sales vendors of different varieties. All the usual suspects were there. The crowd was small and most vendors seemed pretty disappointed with the turnout and their return on the event. It would appear that I did better than most, turning a profit and securing a party booking. So I thought I would share some observations on what works at these events and what could be problematic:

DO…
* bring cash and carry items. When you’re meeting people for the first time without them being in the security of a friend’s home for a party, most people are reluctant to give you their credit card number and wait 2-3 weeks for their item to show up. Far better to let them take something home with them that day. Sell off your samples or use your consultant discount to purchase a few popular items cheaply.
* have food samples and/or a raffle at your table - anything to get customers to stop and linger at your table long enough that they will actually look at your product and listen to your brief spiel.
* offer a further donation (if it’s a charity event) if someone books with you - this encourages a decision.
* court the other vendors - they can be a good source of info on upcoming vendor events, and sometimes your best customers!

DON’T…
* sit and chat with your friends rather than actually manning your booth.
* act totally bored and disinterested.
* refuse to hand out catalogs because they are too expensive - just get their contact details so you can follow up.
* sell Christmas items at a fair in May on an 80º day!
* leave in the middle of the event to get pizza!

I am not sure which scenario is worse.

1) The party where the hostess is expecting 10 people and 20 show up, leaving her short of food and the consultant unprofessionally scrambling to write orders on scrap paper and persuade people to share catalogs and having to try and do a presentation over a lot of background chatter.

2) The party where the hostess tells you she’s expecting 20-25 guests, she prepares a ton of food, you get your husband to drop off extra catalogs, and then only 6 people show and everyone is left feeling a bit deflated.

Both have happened to me. Neither is much fun.

I was chatting with some women recently about my business and they asked me to describe the worst party guest I ever encountered.

That would be about two years ago, at a party where there was lots of alcohol freely available. During the gathering time and the course of my 45 minute presentation, one guest drank an entire bottle of Baileys liquor. She then proceeded to verbally abuse me and insult my whole product line. The “F’ word was heard more than once (from her not me, I hasten to add). Then she decided she actually wanted to order some of my “f-ing crap”; however, she was too drunk to complete the order form (a friend had to do it for her) or sign the check. She then excused herself, went outside and vomited on the hostess’ deck.

At this point somebody called her husband and asked him to come and collect his wife, who was clearly in no fit state to drive herself home. Upon discovering this, the woman went around breathing fumes in everyone’s faces as she accused each person in the room of being the bitch who had called her husband and got her in trouble. I was quietly sitting at a table, trying to keep my head down and not get punched as I tallied up the orders.

I remember driving home that night thanking God for my quiet life.

One of the most fascinating aspects of this job is that I get to go into such a wide assortment of homes. From cramped apartments with ratty old furniture to gorgeous but sterile McMansions, I’ve seen it all - and everything in between.

Last night’s party fell into the latter camp. It wasn’t so much the size of the house; it was that the whole place was immaculately staged, as if it would be imminently featuring in a photo shoot for “Country Sampler” magazine. I’m talking old-fashioned washboards leaning artistically against antique desks, tons of embroidered sayings on pictures and pillows, all the sage greens and cranberry reds and beiges on the walls. It was gorgeous and perfect and barely looked lived in. How in the world do they live like that with a 4 year old child and both parents working full time?! Where are they hiding the piles of mail, the household clutter, the discarded sneakers and the random toy pieces that litter my house?

The thing that cracked me up the most? There was no trashcan in the kitchen. It was many feet away, down the hallway, hidden in an artistically designed wooden box in order to blend in with the furniture. The hostess “has a thing about trash near food”. OK, that’s where practicality would trump aesthetics for me….

The party I did tonight was in a very urban area, far from the quiet town where I live. It reminded me of the city I lived in before I had kids. The hostess and guests were all black, and appeared to all be single moms. There was an ever-changing assortment of brothers, nieces and babies, all with unusual names, and it was hard to keep track of everyone and figure out who went with which mom! Fathers were noticeable by their absence.

I arrived to set up at 5.10pm and found the place in disarray, but everyone was put to work and the place was soon transformed into party central. Some kids cleaned, others were dispatched to the store for food and ice - everyone had a role. The invite said 6pm but the first guest didn’t show up until around 7.15pm. Loud reggae music blared from the stereo. We ate fried chicken and danced and found surprising things in common.

It was a lot of fun, but very chaotic and quite a long way removed from my usual crowd! I was grateful for my GPS to guide me home to more familiar surroundings.