Got Guests?

• September 3rd, 2008
• View Comments (32)

Since I’ve been on a bit of a hot streak in bringing guests with me to my meetings lately, I thought I would share a little on what I’ve been doing. To be perfectly honest, I’m a little shocked myself. In the past, I have not had this much success in bringing guests. What I’ve been doing differently has made a phenomenal impact on my confirmation and attendance rate.

So what have I been doing? What’s getting these guests here? Who are these guests? Where are these leads coming from? I know, there are so many questions to be answered! In fact, over the years I was asking these very questions to myself as I would watch other members of my unit come week after week with guests while mine were not coming at all or I just had no one to ask. Part of the problem was my own self esteem and confidence. I didn’t really believe that I could find people who wanted to come with me. It was a little deeper than that, though. It was kind of a feeling of why would someone want to be my guest? I was making it very personal which was silly now that I look back on it. By personalizing it, I’m making it about ME. It’s not about me! It’s about them!

This is another step by step process. In order to have guests, one must have leads. My favorite way to get leads is at booth events like fairs. It’s low pressure. The booth is there. It has my business posted with product on display. People can see what it is. I like watching the people. It can be quite fascinating. Maybe that is the psychology major in me coming out, but I digress (ever notice how I digress a lot?). Anyway, the people who don’t want to be approached go out of their way to stay out of the perimeter of our booth area. Those who want what we have don’t hesitate at all about asking questions, taking cards, asking for samples, etc. Typically, I have raffle items. I have a survey that visitors can fill out to enter the drawing. It looks like this:

Name__________________________________________
Address________________________________________
City, State, Zip___________________________________
Day Phone______________________________________
Night Phone_____________________________________
Cell Phone______________________________________
Email__________________________________________
1) I am currently using a skin care line. ___Yes ___No

2) Have you ever tried Mary Kay before? ___Yes ___No
If so, when?_____________________

3) Do you have a Mary Kay consultant who currently services you? ___Yes ___No
Her name_______________________

4) If I were to offer you a free facial, would you be willing to try our products and give me your opinion? ___Yes ___No

5) Would you prefer to have your facial ____alone? ____with a few friends?

6) Would you be interested in hearing about what Mary Kay has to offer Today’s Woman in part-time or full-time career opportunities? ____Yes ____No
Thank you for completing this survey. I appreciate your help.

I love these surveys. They ask every question I want the answer to. I used to feel weird about putting the career opportunity on the survey. I feared it would deter people from even bothering, but I have found that they will check yes to a facial and no to the opportunity and still hold appointments.

My current guests have come from a fair booth I worked in July and I called the people who said they want a facial. I first just called. I got a couple of bookings! One held a facial and one was postponed a couple of times. When I call them, I tell them we met at the fair and she entered my drawing. I ask her when she would like her complimentary facial. I tell her I have some options. We can meet one on one or she can share her appointment with friends and get some free MK. I tell her I can come to her home or she can come to an event we’re having at X location. Some people don’t want a stranger in their house so they opt for the event. Others don’t like to leave home or don’t like to be around a lot of people and choose to keep it at their home with or without friends. This is one way I invite guests. Usually, they schedule a house party at this point. If it holds, perfect! Sometimes they postpone…and postpone…

When they postpone a second time I tend to offer the guest event again. When a class postpones twice, I start to wonder if they really don’t want to do it or if they want to, but don’t want to deal with having people at their house. I open up this less threatening option when this happens. At least, I think it is less threatening because all they have to do is show up at the location. This is what I did this week. The class postponed once. Then, she had to have a surgery done and she told me to call at the end of the month. I did. I mailed her a postcard first. This got the notion out there that she can be invited to something and she gets a discount if she brings 2 friends. I sent her the postcard and followed up a few days later on the phone. I asked how she was feeling and if she thought she was up to either rescheduling her appointment or just coming out to our event instead. She said she wasn’t sure. She said she wanted to be there, but wasn’t sure she would. In closing, I said to her, “You know, that is fine if you can’t come. For right now, it sounds like you want to so I will prepare for you. There is one other thing I wanted to tell you. I thought you might want to attend because on your slip you filled out at the fair you indicated you might want to hear more about a part-time career in MK. You would hear some good information about this if you attend. Just give me a call if you can’t be there. Again, I completely understand if you can’t come or aren’t feeling up to it.” At this point she said she would be there. Honestly, I wasn’t sure she would be there. I called her the day before the event so I didn’t want to call again the next day and bug her. I figured she knew the information and could come or not. Well, she was there and she had friends with her!

This is how I’ve been inviting my leads from the fair. Another thing I do is when I’m out and about I occasionally invite someone to an event. I don’t do this all the time. Most recently, I was getting an oil change and when I was paying, the girl at the register noticed my wallet. My wallet is a MK lip set case that holds a lipstick, gloss, liner, and primer on one side and holds ID’s and credit cards on the other. She complimented it three times as I was paying. So, finally, I said, “would you like one? I can tell you how you can get one.” I told her we were having an event at a local hotel and there would be product trials, door prizes, and if she came I would give her a lipstick case/wallet of her own just for attending. Well, it  turned out she had to work until 8:00. Our event started at 7:00. I told her we do them regularly and asked if I could call her for the next one. So she gave me her name and number. I will be inviting her to our next meeting.

OK. So I don’t always invite strangers to meetings. I have invited regular customers to come to an event for a discount or just for fun. The regular customers don’t always come. Sometimes they do, but I think they figure they will be in touch with me when they are in need of something.

My final method of securing guests is bringing potential team members. A couple of my recent guests are now team members. They knew they would sign up, but were waiting. I invited them to the meeting so they could meet my director, try some new products, and hear information. I also tell them it will give them a taste of what we do at our events and meetings. Since they are genuinely interested in signing up, they do want to come and see what it is about. My friend invited me to her meeting when I told her I wanted to sign up. She gave me a tape and told me to come to the meeting and see what they do. Of course I was willing to do this. I wanted to see what it was I might be getting into. I signed up that night.

So, can you see in my dialogs that I am having with my guests how it’s not about my wanting them to be guests? In each scenario I followed their lead either by what they are saying to me, what they have written on their survey, or what they have told me they are interested in. I leave it up to them in the end. There is no pressure. And I tell them what to expect. Simple.

Tags: Direct Sales, Network Marketing, Networking, Success Events