Boost Home Business Party Sales

Profitable home business party sales require a good number of guests. Here's how to to boost sales by getting more guests to attend your parties.

Work closely with your hostess and check in with her frequently enough that she feels you are helping her organize the party, but not so often that she feels pestered.

Provide guidelines in terms of the number of people your hostess should ideally invite. Remind her that she'll need to invite approximately double the number of guests she's hoping for. So, for example, if you're aiming for 10 guests at a party, encourage your hostess to invite 20 people.

Make it very easy for your hostess to invite people. Provide her with evites that you have set up on a site like evite.com, set up an event invitation on Facebook that she can use to invite guests and/or provide copies of printed invitations. The first two options are more cost effective (i.e. free) compared with printed invitations, but do keep in mind, not everyone uses email or Facebook on a regular basis, so it can help to be ready with an invitation option for guests (like my mom!) who are not active online.

Have your hostess send out invitations 2 to 3 weeks before the party as well as a reminder closer to the day of the party

Provide your hostess with written guidelines including suggestions for the number of guests she should invite, a timeline for inviting the guests, and a check list with everything she needs to do.

Keep everything as simple as possible for your hostess. A happy hostess results in more home business party sales for you, and more potential to book future parties.

Provide your hostess with incentives based on the amount of sales at her party, the number of guests and/or any subsequent parties that are booked at her party.

Provide opportunities for people to make a purchase even if they cannot attend your home party. An online catalogue or printed brochure will allow people who cannot attend to view your items and make purchases through your hostess.

Ask you hostess to let guests know they are welcome to bring a friend. Consider offering an incentive, such as a percentage off their purchases, for bringing a friend

Incentives such as free items can cut into your profits at your craft home party. If you do offer a free item, reserve this type of incentive for your hostess only. Consider offering discounts on purchases for incentives. This way you'll still make a profit on the items sold to that person, and you may sell more than you would have without the incentive if the person feels they are getting a good deal.

Consider offering half off of a few specific items for any who books a party on that day. If you've priced your crafts appropriately, you should still be able to make a profit even with this type of incentive.

Offer gifts and perks that are exclusive to the hostess, perhaps free customization on a specific product. If you give your hostess special treatment and make her happy, she's more likely to rebook and guests are also more likely to book a party.

Established companies that work on a home party business model have these techniques for increasing sales down to a science. Consider hosting a couple of home parties from an established company. This strategy will give you the opportunity to experience the home party from the hostess' point of view and learn how you can support and encourage a hostess for your own craft home party. You'll also be able to observe how the representative promotes her items and her parties and build on those techniques to increase your own home business party sales.