Watkins Open House

In November, we held an open house here for Watkins, The Cookie Kitchen, Pampered Chef and Steeped Tea. I thought I had taken more pictures than this, but it looks like I only have ones of the displays that I set up the night before. I have nothing for the other businesses, which is too bad because it was such a beautiful night! Connie had the dining area all set up with our Cookie Kitchen samples and boxed cookies for sale. Last year she had this fabulous idea of making mini versions of each of our cookies so that people could taste them that night. This year we made minis again and we also had boxes of cookies already made up for cash and carry purposes. That turned out really well, and we want to do that again next year, too! My neighbor, Linda, won the draw for a free 3 dozen variety platter of cookies. You should have seen her excitement! You would have thought she won a million bucks!



This is the Body and Home Care area. I had out samples for customers to try as well as products for them to purchase.

This is one of the displays that I had out for some of the kitchen/cooking products. I'm thankful that a lot of my stock was sold that night. It's always a gamble to purchase what you think your customers will be looking for, because if it doesn't sell, you don't really want to have all that stock on hand.

The atmosphere that night was so pleasant with people lingering and visiting and sampling. It was the perfect night out for ladies, that's for sure! My friend, Marianne, won my draw as the Mystery Hostess for Watkins that night. Her name was drawn and she got to choose products that she wanted as her prize. How exciting is that?! You attend an open house for fun and end up being a winner!

So now that the open house is over and Christmas gift-buying is over, I need to ramp up some business again. The extra income the past few months certainly has come in handy here, but I need to keep going. I need your help, friends! Give me ideas of what I can do next to promote my Watkins business without becoming one of those people that others avoid because they don't want to feel obligated to buy something. What has drawn your attention to direct sales businesses in the past? What do you like? What turns you off? What do you think I could do to get some more customers and/or associates to work with me so that this business can excel? Feel free to comment here, or send me a private e-mail. I believe that God has opened this door for me to be able to stay at home and do most of my work here, but I also can't just sit here and wait for people to knock on my door! I'm open to any ideas that come to your mind and I thank you in advance for them!