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!

Other consultants who send me their newsletters written ALL IN CAPITAL LETTERS LIKE THEY ARE YELLING AT ME and including such spelling and grammatical gems as:

COME CELEBRATE THE BEGINNING OF SUMMER AND HAVE THAT PARTY YOU’VE BEEN THINKING ABOUT AND PUTTING OFF FOR AWHILE.

NOT QUITE READY FOR A PARTY, YOU CAN SET UP AN ONLINE PARTY (LIKE A BOOK PARTY BUT BETTER) YOU SINE UP LIKE A PARTY THROUGH THE WEBSITE AND YOUR GUESTS CAN LOOK UP YOUR PARTY AND ORDER PRODUCTS AND STILL HAVE EVERYTHING SHIPPED DIRECTLY TO THEM AND YOU GET THE THE HOSTESS CREDIT.

When my company promises to release information on a certain date/time and then fails to do that, without even offering an explanation for the delay. They are always telling us to “underpromise and overdeliver” when it comes to our customers, an approach which I heartily endorse - I just wish it applied to their corporate announcements as well.

Direct sales consultants who don’t proofread their customer newsletters. I received one from a consultant for another company today:

Come Join Us! Start your xxxxx business before April 14th and qualify within your first 30 days, and in addition to commission and xxxxx dollars, you can also earn xxxxx free!

The problem? It’s April 22nd today….

Hostesses who don’t distribute the products to their guests in a timely manner. Yesterday I just heard from a customer who has not yet received her order from a late-February party. I know for a fact that the hostess has been driving around with it in her car trunk for over a month, and she only lives one town away from the guest. What is so hard about dropping it off? Now we have passed the time window for a free exchange if the item is defective. I’m just praying the item is in good shape, otherwise I’ll be shipping it back on my dime -and it’s heavy! Grrrrr…..

Guests who come to a home party and ask if they can take the catalog home because they “need to measure the space/want to consult my husband/need to think about it.’ Nine times out of ten, this is code for “I have no intention of actually ordering anything, but I am too chicken to tell you that or walk out without buying something. Instead I am going to take one of your costly catalogs home, forget about it and ignore all your attempts to contact me by phone or email until you give up and leave me alone.”