Direct Sales in the Summer: Explode Your Sales!

Posted at June 1, 2010

The summer season provides an excellent opportunity for direct sales consultants. The warm weather means there will be plenty of tradeshows, festivals, fairs, farmers markets, and more. These are great places to showcase your products and services.

If you have been in direct sales for a few years, you know how valuable these events and warm weather are to your business. If you are new to direct selling, you may not know yet, but you need to learn this quickly… these events are VITAL to your success in direct sales.

Some direct sales reps or consultants are happy having party after party making a small income each month with their business… but it really isn’t a business when you handle it like this. This makes it a hobby. It CAN be a business… a very lucrative business, but it must be handled as such.

The warm summer weather opens up opportunities for the direct sales champion. You can be a direct sales champion! Open up your local newspaper… browse your local city websites… find EVENTS and book tables. This is easy… It is probably easier than organizing a party! Book a table… print some signs… organize your calendar… and become a direct sales champion!

Let’s compare a direct sales event and a direct sales party:

Let’s take a glance at a potential party outcome…

At a party you could potentially have 20 guests… you must entertain these guests, you must provide drinks and maybe snacks for these guests. You have to send out invitations to these guests. You have to follow up with these guests to make sure they show up. You have to clean up after these guests… And to what outcome? Sure, you can have fun, but what will your sales be for the night? Let’s say your guests average $50 each in purchases. That is $1000 in sales… your cut being about 30%… you’d make $330. Now from your $330, subtract the cost of the food and drinks, the invitations, and the cleanup time… What does that leave, $250 to $275? Not too shabby, right?

Now let’s look at an event…

You have to book a table. You will need to pay for this table ($75 to $150). You will have to travel to the event location and set up this table… You have to… NOTHING. That’s about it. Now, with no invitations, no guests to entertain, no mess to clean up… what happens? You have potentially 100 to 200 customers at a decent event… Let’s say these customers only spend, on average, only $30 each (less than the above average for a party because party guests always spend a little more). Your sales are at $3000 to $6000. Your 30% cut of this is $900 to $2000! Subtract the cost of your table and travel and… YOU GET THE POINT!

You can find events online with the expected outcome based on the prior years event and the numbers are staggering… I got a table at a spring festival in 2007. The expected outcome for this event was 20,000 people! The cost of my booth/table was $150. I had over 350 orders over a two day period with a total sales of $9,800… My commission at this time was 35%. So my profit was $3200… AND, I received 10% in free product which I used to stock for my next event ($980!).

Now, the above example is the reason I stress the use of events and festivals to increase your sales. Read this information, let it sink in, and use it to drive your sales! Become a direct sales champion… you can do it.