Starting a party plan business.

Starting a party plan business is easier than you think.
I started my Jewelry home party business 6 years ago. I needed an outlet to market my jewelry, and a way to provide an income for my family. I also needed flexibility as a mother of four.

I was very nervous at first, I worried about everything..what if they don't like me, what if no one buys my jewelry, what if no one comes to a party, these were all things that concerned me, but I thought you can either go for it, or just sit and wonder all the what if's.

FIRST THINGS FIRST

I needed a plan. When i first was starting out, I had never made jewelry, but i had always had a passion to. I new that I had to buy all the equipment and teach myself to make jewelry, I needed money for that so I decided to launch my party business with imported jewelry, carefully selected . Now I had something to sell so I could save up enough money to invest in the hand crafted side of things, I gave myself 6 months as a goal of introducing my hand made jewelry. I had to figure out initial investment for jewelry, literature and enough cost to launch my first party. My initial investment was about $1000

SECOND STEP

I had to figure out how to price my the jewelry, this is something you really need to think very carefully about, because this will set a guide line for your business...too little and everything will go pear shaped and then when you raise your prices your customers will be upset.
Too cheap and you will set a standard that is too low and it will affect different aspects of your business.
My rule of thumb was to triple the price of the wholesale cost as i was importing it. I did deflect from this some depending on the price. You develop a good eye of knowing what you can get for a piece of jewelry. EXAMPLE: Necklace bought from wholesale would cost $4.00, I would have a guide price of $12.00, depending on the piece and quality I would lower or raise it accordingly.

THIRD STEP

Now I am getting closer to launching. I have to think about literature and hostess packages. you can save a huge amount of money by doing the literature by yourself. This is what i done, I had a computer and had some knowledge.
I worked on a design and business name, I initially went into business with a friend. My name was Jacqui and her name was Fiona, we wanted our business name to reflect our own names, so we brainstormed and came up with Jacquoni Jewelry.
We had all that figured out, now we had to work on our hostess rewards and our own rewards.

HOSTESS PLAN

When I was thinking about this, I had to bare in mind very carefully that everyone needs to be happy. In order to make your business successful, you need to reward your hostess in a manner that she feels satisfied. One of the key elements to success in a home party business is your hostess, without a hostess you will have no business so for that reason, she should become the most important part of your business.

When I first started out, my hostess reward package was as follows for every party:
..20% OF TOTAL SALES GO TO THE HOSTESS
..A GIFT FOR HOSTING GOES TO THE HOSTESS
..A $10 CERTIFICATE FOR EVERY PARTY BOOKING GOES TO THE HOSTESS
..I GAVE AWAY A GIFT AT EVERY PARTY THROUGH A DRAWING
..I GAVE A $10 CERTIFICATE TO EVERYONE THAT BOOKED A PARTY
..THE HOSTESS WILL GET AN INVITATION TO MY CHRISTMAS BOUTIQUE SALE, EXCLUSIVE FOR HOSTESSES.

What you need to remember, many people make the mistake of thinking that they are out of pocket by everything they give away, but you have to remember you are giving away at wholesale cost.
Let me break it down for you based on my pricing strategy.

FREE GIFT FOR HOSTESS......Necklace retail cost $10........Wholesale cost...$3.25
20% OF SALES IN JEWELRY...Party sales $300 @20%= $60....Wholesale cost..$20.00
GIFT GIVE AWAY...............Bracelet $10 retail cost..........Wholesale cost..$3.25
PARTY BOOKINGS.............2 Parties booked $20..............Wholesale cost.$6.50
GUEST BOOKING..............2 Bookings $20......................Wholesale cost.$6.50

TOTAL COST TO YOU WITH A PARTY SALE OF $300 AND A POSSIBLE 2 OTHER PARTIES AVERAGING ANOTHER $600 IN SALES.................$39.50.
TOTAL THAT THE HOSTESS RECEIVES.................$80 IN FREE JEWELRY

Once my business was up and running for a year and I was doing good money, I tweaked my hostess package so I could reward returning hostesses.
I had a three step hostess plan

BRONZE HOSTESS
SILVER HOSTESS
GOLD HOSTESS
If you would like more info on this, email me.

I am going to sign of for now and publish, but i will add to this post . I also plan to give you a list of some of the venues I sold at.

Home Parties....

I have started this blog to share my knowledge and experiences of doing home parties for six years. Hopefully I will be able to lend a little advice to those who are ready to take their business to another level.

I welcome anyone else who has advice, experiences or tips to share.