Facebook Parties and Direct Sales

So you want to convert your direct sales business to strictly having parties online, huh? Let's flash back to 1999 when chat rooms and AOL Instant Messenger were, well, let's face it, THE social media. This was 4 years prior to the idea of Facebook, and while I admittedly was still in high school at the time, it was the coolest way to visit with your friends without actually having to be in their presence or on the phone, which technically wasn't true since the internet was connected to our phone lines. Ah, take a moment to reminisce with me and Dawson, I mean, James Van Der Beek:

Alright, enough of that. The only thing worse than being banned from the phone line was sitting in a chat room all by yourself. It wasn't that you didn't have any friends, it was the fact that they were too busy with their own lives to sit in front of their computers and type for hours on end with you. So you'd either log off and go to bed at a decent hour, or you would sit there searching for your favorite songs on Napster (gosh, those were the days, weren't they?) until someone haphazardly logged on and unknowingly committed to a conversation full of "Hey. What's up? How's it going?" with you. This was our civilization's first step to what I like to refer to as "anti-social social media."

Fast forward to 2014. We've had Facebook for over a decade now, and we see less and less of people regardless of how "close" we are. Our lives are constantly on the go, something is always happening, and most of us, myself included, never stop. Let's be honest here: we eat in the car, we do business on our phones (not the way you would think), and we are plugged into society and accessible 24/7, but we just can't seem to be physically present anywhere we don't absolutely have to be... and even then, as long as there's an internet connection, we're not really there either.

Naturally, the remedy to direct sales companies (which are very "party-plan" based) getting their business connected to the world would be to cater to those who are plugged in and yet are nowhere to be found! So let's set up a Facebook party! Brilliant!

We, as consultants, do all the party things we're supposed to; we set a firm date and time, we make the event look cool, we add links and convenient information so the guests can shop whenever they want, and we coach our hostesses just like we would normally. The party time rolls around, and you find yourself back in that empty chat room in 1999 wondering if you should go to sleep or just keep refreshing your screen in case your internet somehow hasn't realized that someone is actually online...

What now? Do you keep posting hoping that someone is there? Do you give up on it and risk losing that one social media unicorn who watches everything without ever making their presence known (really, how do we know if they exist or not?)? Do you start calling--who am I kidding--messaging people desperately hoping that they just forgot and that they really do care that you're sitting there trying to virtually give them your sales pitch?

Any of those are the "right" answer, but none of them end up being profitable for you. So here's my solution: GET OFF THE INTERNET.

I know. Harsh. But really, if they're not available for you, why are you wasting your time?! People aren't on Facebook to be sold to. Period. They're on Facebook to be social. The department stores of life don't invite you to exclusive online parties. The business executives of the world don't invite you to Facebook meetings. So why do direct sales people invite their clients to virtual shows??? Because we don't know how else to connect to this oxymoron of a social media-based world! We care too much. We don't want to be intrusive or require too much time from our guests. We want to be convenient and considerate and we want people to come to us when THEY want to come to us. Ladies and gents, that's sweet and all, but that doesn't make any sense!!!

This is a business. You are a traveling sales person. TRAVEL. Use Skype or live video chat or meet for coffee! BE SOMEWHERE. ("online" doesn't count as a "place-form" noun by the way)

Personal anecdote time: One of my colleagues/friends invited me to an event earlier this week. She set it up as a Facebook event. I rsvp'd as a "yes," not really reading it all (guilty as charged) and didn't even realize it was a real event, like "in person," until she did all the good hostess things - - she posted that she would be covering the appetizers and fountain drinks and that she would love for us all to get together for a girl's night, sent reminder texts and "can't wait to see you tonight" messages, posted directions on the event wall... "Oh, I guess I have dinner plans now!" So I went to meet up with her and when I arrived, I found her whole direct sales business set-up on display in the party room of the restaurant. She had FOURTEEN people there, folks, and not a single one of us knew it was coming. Now, had she said "Come shop and buy stuff from me because I need your help financially" would we have shown up? NO. Well, probably not. But she catered to our social side--a girls night, free food, fun, camaraderie.... were we upset? Well, maybe a little, but only because we were fooled. Did we all leave there thinking, "Wow, that was so much fun! I'm glad I came!" Of course! Did she have a $600+ retail sales party? Yup. Wanna know why? Because she got us there, silly!

Now, I've done the online party trainings, and I've paid my hard-earned money for the files and the pictures and the verbiage to use to get people to shop online, but for one of my businesses, my average online party sales are at a whopping $175. That's not bad, but it's not great either. What are my average in-home party sales, you ask? $460. Now, I'm not very good at math, but I can tell you that is a BIG DIFFERENCE.

Your product is awesome! YOU are awesome! Your presentation might be awesome too, but those sorts of things can always be improved (practice makes perfect, after all!) so you need people to practice on! I wish I could say I've never done a real show. I wish I could tell you that every time I practice my party performance, I reward my hostesses a thousand times over, but alas, I have been sucked into the mindset that I am going to a home show to try to sell things to customers and I've been disappointed in myself for doing everything "right" and not getting the results I was after. That's our main goal right? Meet/find people, get them to buy, get them to get their friends to buy, lather, rinse, repeat. That's your strategy for online parties, too, huh? How's that working for ya?

If you're anything like me, it's not. So, short story long, run away from the sales-person mindset as fast as you can. Do it. Right now. Convince yourself that you are in the business of making friends and helping people. Then, when there's literally no other way to party with your hostess than to use social media, you log on and approach that new Facebook party full of strangers and friends of friends like it was a real live party and take a minute to get them talking to you. Who are they? Why did your hostess invite them? How do they all know each other? Just like you would do at a home show. (Or at least like I HOPE you are doing at a home show!) Make them realize you are investing in them as people. After all, it takes a really brave person to talk to the "new girl" at a party without someone else introducing them, so don't take it personally when they don't go out of their way to get to know you first.

Invest in them as people so they will invest in you. If you MUST use social media as your party place (it's still not a place, but I digress...), pretend these names and profile pictures are real people looking at you in person. Greet them all as you would if they were walking into your house. Introduce yourself, explain how you know their connection (hostess or whoever invited them--whichever is applicable), and how glad you are that they showed up--or, if your Facebook event invites go unnoticed like many of mine do, how excited you WILL be WHEN they rsvp...

Find out where they are so you can get there, too. I honestly think this is why those Facebook party scripts are so finicky. There's not a magical set of posts that you can copy and paste and then see 20 orders in your workstation. Guidelines exist, and by all means those are invaluable for any brand of consultant, but they aren't guaranteed for every crowd, so make yours personal and friendly and approachable. Try it, be human, be real, and be genuine. They're really just dating you, so don't expect them to give it all away on the first date if you took the cheap route and just took them for a stroll around the block instead of wine and dining them...

That's probably enough analogies for now.  You get it right? Be human, be personable, and be interested in them....try this out on your next online party and then let me know how it goes!



The next blog post will be about feedback... so stay tuned!