Saturday, May 10, 2014

Do You Want a Higher Guest Average?

Increasing your average guest spend is NOT about hocking lots of unnecessary products and upselling everything to everyone. It's about guiding the guests into a decorating mindset, story selling to give them emotional connections to the fragrances and decors, and giving them excellent customer service with quantities of fragrance (wax, oil, sticks, etc.) so that they enjoy everything they purchase.

Here are a few of the ideas I have to share our products.

TO START: I always start my parties with a story about how some of the pages will call out to them and most of them will not. Focus on the pages you like and think about how those pieces will look in their home. I always say that if nothing calls out to them, that's okay, too. I'd rather have them buy nothing than buy a nick-knack.

DURING: The Wow! card and the Show it off! Card are great for talking about the specific products I've brought with me. I let people know that the collections are specifically designed so they can purchase smaller items at a party and get larger items for free or half price when they book a party. (I also acknowledge that some people don't like to have parties, so they just buy the larger items outright.)

AFTER: I hand out the Love it! list and give them information about why they should fill out the front. Then I ask them to use the list to capture their favourites - favourite pages, products, and fragrances. I tell them that PartyLite isn't a one night stand... it's a journey. We can fragrance and decorate their homes one corner at a time.

WRAP IT UP: When this card comes up, I ask them to think of one person who has a birthday, or is moving into a new house, or has done something special for them recently. I share the Brighter World and Forbidden Fruits collections then. I also offer Gift Certificates in $30 and higher for people who are difficult to buy for. I say I want to be their Gift Service and I promise I'll never go above their budget whether it's $20 or $200.

SETTING EXPECTATIONS: When I give an example of the party sales for a booking seed, I always use $1000 as the party total in my example. Also I give out catalogues at the beginning of the party to allow them time to get used to our different products and prices throughout my presentation. The presentation captures the essence of the quality and value they get with PartyLite.

I'm sure you have ideas on how to best position the products and promotions to encourage your clients (new and returning) to buy. I'd love it if you'd share them here and make this post an even more valuable training piece.