Staging Home Jewelry Parties

The following are the 6 steps in staging home jewelry parties. You should arrive at least 1˝ hours prior to your guests arrival. This will give you time to look over the showing area and visualize the best way to display your jewelry lines.

Video of Do's & Don'ts for a Home Party Showing.

When demonstrating at home jewelry parties, you want to be facing the entire group and not standing with your back to one-half of the audience. Re-arrange the room, if necessary.

Begin each party on time. It usually takes longer than you expect to describe and circulate each item. Plan in advance; structure your program to arouse interests; and highlight benefits.

1. Introduction (10-15 minutes)

Inform the guests that they will be seeing the work of (the number of jewelry designers you will be representing) from the local area, whose work was chosen not only for its quality but also for its uniqueness. Then pass out pencils, product/price lists, and order forms. As you show and talk about the different products the guests can check off or make notes beside the items that they are interested it.

To break the ice and get the guests to interact and to think about jewelry, you could plan a short game or two such as "the person who can write down the most different types of beads or standard jewelry sizes, in two minutes wins a small gift or bonus jewelry bucks."

2. Presentation (approx. 1 hour)

Build enthusiasm by discussing each item pointing out interesting tidbits about the history of the jewelry design, construction techniques, interesting details, quality of the piece, and/or any notoriety of the jewelry designer.

Describe color and design options and stress that your work can be personalized and customized to suit individual needs This is a distinct selling point, making your line more desirable than that of a mass merchandiser.

If a product is also functional, demonstrate it's uses and how this product can benefit the consumer. Many customers will look at a product and think to themselves, "It's beautiful, but what would I do with it?". By offering a few suggestions to the uses or different gift ideas of each item you may suddenly change the customers whole view on the product, thus giving them a reason or excuse to buy it.

To entice people to buy, you must create an exciting visual image for customers and stimulate all of their senses: touch, taste, smell and hearing.

Pass the items around for "hands-on" exposure. Let each guest closely examine the products, its quality and workmanship. This is the most important part of the sales presentation—guests will want to try various pieces on. Suggest how your jewelry pieces will give pleasure, comfort, improved appearance, or some other addition to the consumer's life.

Think of some catchy phrases or short funny stories to keep your guests alert and interested. Always get them to think handcrafted, for example, you could ask if any one knows of a wedding coming up, then you could recite to them:

"Something Old
Something New
Something Handcrafted
Something Blue"

Have color samples available to show the guests the different colors that they could order.

Wind up your presentation with a statement explaining your deposit and refund policy. Again emphasize your hostess benefits. This is also a good time to mention that you are available for bookings if anyone would like to host a home party of their own.

3. Take Orders

Keep your contacts with guests and hostess pressure-free, let them browse at their leisure, but be available to answer questions, offer suggestions and help with ordering. At this point, most guests will place orders while others are enjoying their refreshments.

This refreshment period after the demonstration is the time for the guests to socialize and discuss the jewelry pieces amongst themselves. Many purchasing decisions have been made during this time as the guests talk about how they plan to use the different products or who they plan to give them to as gifts; they give each other great ideas and encourage one and another to buy.

As you write up each order ask the customer if they would be interested in hosting a party of their own. Complete the order form in triplicate, one for the customer, one for the hostess and one for your records, then inform the customer when they could expect their purchases.

4. Distribute Promotional Materials

When they are looking for something special months later, they will remember your line, and place an order or even book a party. You could even pass out extras, asking your customers to distribute these to friends and neighbors.

Pass around a guest book, asking those interested in receiving product updates to print their names, addresses and phone numbers.

5. Wrap-up

Once again thank all the guests for coming and reassure them that they will be extremely happy with their purchases.

6. Follow-up