Poor credit means more than not being able to get that fancy Jag you always wanted. As a stay at home mom, it is more serious than paying more for auto insurance, or not qualifying for a “preferred” rate on a loan.

Bad credit can affect every aspect of your life, from your living arrangements to your job to your family. That’s because the credit system was originally built on trust, and once you break that trust it can be a long hard road back to financial security.

You can hurt your credit in many different ways; by paying bills late, or defaulting on loans, or having a car repossessed or a home foreclosed on. Unpaid medical bills, early termination fees on mobile phone or satellite television services, all of these and many other factors can adversely affect your credit standing.

If you have poor or bad credit, you won’t be able to get a reasonable rate on a car or home loan – assuming a bank will give you one at all. You might even have trouble qualifying for an apartment or house to rent, and some companies (particularly ones in the high end retail, finance or business arenas) reserve the right to deny employment based on an adverse credit score.

The assumption is that if you can’t honor your commitments, you aren’t to be trusted, and this can hurt you in other areas of your life as well. If you are a stay at home mom, how do you explain to your children why people keep calling on the phone and knocking on your door?

Children are quick to spot a lie, and even quicker to see hypocrisy – and if you can’t keep your promises, how can you teach them what it is important? Ethical and religious concerns can come into play here, as well, resulting in an enormous burden of guilt.

The best thing to do is be honest. Explain that you made a mistake, and it will take time to fix, but you are going to try to make up for what you did wrong. They can see how unhappy you are, and you can use this opportunity to come up with ways to save money as a family and get out of debt.

Learning how to manage your money and teaching your children by example may take time, but it will pay off as you start to raise yourself out of debt one month at a time. Your children will learn from watching you and be better able to implement these lessons in their own lives from the beginning.

The stigma attached to debt can drag you down into depression and cause severe damage to your self esteem. Don’t despair – you can be debt free if you put your whole heart into the effort.

Trying to dig your way out of the quagmire may seem impossible, but with hard work and conscientious attention to every single penny that goes through your hands, you can rebuild your credit and regain your dignity as well as financial stability.

Rayven Perkins has been a stay at home mom, surviving on one income, for over 8 years. Visit her site http://www.stay-a-stay-at-home-mom.com/poor-credit.html for more important information about the pitfalls of poor credit and ways to reduce your expenses.

Bankruptcy can be emotional and embarrassing. You may have a hard time looking your children in the eye, and feel that you have let everyone including yourself down. The main thing is to promise yourself to learn from the experience, and try to change your life so that you don’t end up back in the same situation again.

If you are a low income family, and have little or no actual assets you will probably want to simply file for a chapter 7 bankruptcy and discharge of debts. This requires that your estate be liquidated, and as much funds as possible divided up among your creditors. The remaining debt is discharged, and creditors are no longer allowed to pursue it but must write it off.

Liens on your house and / or vehicle should be examined to see if they are exempt from this process, and if not you will need to consider whether you should have them excluded from your chapter 7 bankruptcy filing. A house that is mortgaged for more than it is worth and has payments too high for you to realistically afford may have to be relinquished.

If you have good employment, but have had a tragedy including overwhelming medical bills or some other type of devastating but temporary setback, you may wish to consider a chapter 13 bankruptcy filing. This type requires a trustee to oversee your finances and work out a re-payment to submit to a judge for approval.

Normally, the chapter 13 bankruptcy repayment plan will call for a set dollar amount to be paid regularly for a specific amount of time, and the remaining balance will be discharged. Both you and your creditors will be expected to abide by the terms of the agreement. This ensures that you can continue to live normally, but gives you the chance to catch up on bills and regain your stability.

A word on refinancing a home after a bankruptcy; many people think that this will be impossible, but there are many lenders willing to give second chances in return for your business, and in an odd way the bankruptcy confirms one thing – at least you aren’t a risk for filing bankruptcy as you will be disallowed from filing again for several years.

In fact, people who file bankruptcy often see their credit score bump up a little almost immediately. Strange as it seems, many lenders view filing for bankruptcy as a sign that you are trying to turn your life around, and by bearing that out over a course of a year or two you will probably be viewed as an average loan applicant rather than a high risk one.

The main thing to take away from a bankruptcy is self forgiveness and the determination to change your life and avoid having to ever take such action again. Learn from your mistakes, instill better financial practices in yourself and your family, and put the bankruptcy behind you. Move forward, and make sensible money decisions and financial choices a part of your everyday life!

Rayven Perkins is a stay at home mom who teaches others what she has learned about surviving comfortably on one income. Learn more about bankruptcy options on her website. http://www.stay-a-stay-at-home-mom.com/bankruptcy-options.html

If you are a stay at home mom in debt, and have multiple creditors, you may find yourself making many minimum payments each month just to stay afloat. Statistics show that an American family’s credit card debt of $10,000 will take over 30 years to pay off if only minimum payments are made.

That is an extreme example, but it is clear that only making minimum payments will significantly increase your debt due to accumulating interest charges. Being late only once can hike your interest rates even more, and lead to excessive fees and other charges.

Lenders offer the quick fix of debt consolidation, home equity loans and other programs that ultimately result in still more debt, and may jeopardize your entire future, causing you to rethink the financial aspect of staying a stay at home mom.

A plan is needed to directly address your debt, and offer a workable solution to ultimately get you out of debt once and for all. By carefully examining each penny you spend, and cutting out unnecessary expenditures, you can start saving money and reducing your debt at a sensible and much quicker pace.

First you need to track all of your daily expenses and find out where your money goes. Chances are you will find a lot of small, seemingly negligible purchases that seem inconsequential taken one by one, but add up to a significant financial drain on a monthly basis. By cutting out such excessive spending and putting that money aside, you should have a respectable amount saved at the end of each month.

Now you need to look at your various debts. Find the one with the lowest total remaining balance, and see what your monthly minimum payment is. If you have two that are nearly identical amounts, pick the one with the higher interest rate.

Suppose you owe Buy it Now Furniture $450, and your monthly minimum payment is $22. You have managed to save $60 by the end of the month, so you make your other payments as usual but you add the $60 to your normal payment of $22 and send $82 to Buy it Now Furniture.

At this rate you will pay off your debt in about six months, rather than years. Now you have a surplus amount of money each month of $82. Move on to your next lowest total debt, owed to Charge it Up Credit Company, where your balance is $1500 and your minimum payment is $45.

Add the $82 to the $45. Now you are making payments totaling $127, and you will see that balance drop rapidly as well. Once you have paid off Charge it Up Credit Company, you know what to do next. Add the $127 to the minimum payment on your next debt, and keep repeating the cycle.

This does take time, but you are paying off your complete debt to one creditor after another, and it is certainly not going to take as long as it would if you continued to make minimum payments alone.

Eventually you will become completely debt-free stay at home mom and it all started with a few less cups of coffee, a few more home-cooked meals instead of take-out, and $60 a month!

Rayven Perkins has been a stay at home mom, surviving on one income, for over 8 years. Visit her site http://www.stay-a-stay-at-home-mom.com/out-of-debt.html for more important information about consumer debt and ways to reduce your expenses.

If you are a stay at home mom burdened by debt, and spend most of your waking minutes worried and stressed about your financial situation, you should know that there are simple ways most families can payoff debt.

It does not happen overnight, but if you work towards this form of debt management, every stay at home mom can eventually become out of debt.

First you will need to keep a record or ledger that shows every time you receive money (such as payday), and every time you spend money. You should include every expense, no matter how small; if you spend 39 cents on a pack of gum, write it down.

You and your spouse need to do this together – make sure you each carry a notebook in your car so you can track every purchase, and make a point of sitting down together each night and updating your ledger. This doesn’t have to be done forever, just a couple weeks.

After a week or two you should start to see your spending patterns emerge. Most unnecessary spending is for convenience items and impulse buys; coffee every morning, fast food twice a week, take out or pizza delivery on the weekend. These are small expenses at first glance, but over a month’s time the add up to quite a bit.

Luxury items like liquor or cigarettes can hike your monthly spending as well. Now might be the perfect time to quit, and cutting out those trips to the mall that always culminate in a purchase “too good to pass up” might be a good idea too.

Just because an item is on sale, doesn’t mean you need to buy it!

Whenever you make a choice NOT to purchase something you want, note the amount you saved by not buying it in your notebook, with a star beside it to indicate money you saved by not yielding to temptation. When you are entering your day’s expenses in the ledger that night, put the amount you saved in an envelope or a jar with a piece of paper taped to it. Add up your savings and watch them grow day by day.

There are other ways to cut down on excess spending in your day to day life. You can try to cut down on unnecessary trips that eat up your gas budget. Plan your route to make all your stops in one run, and see your charges at the pump decrease. Brown bag it to work, and pack your children’s school lunches – it’s healthier anyway!

Your monthly bills can usually be tweaked, too. Cut down on electricity costs by keeping the thermostat set a few degrees higher or lower than you usually do, switch to lower wattage or energy saving light bulbs and turn off lights in empty rooms. You can conserve water by taking shorter showers, and by not leaving the water steadily running when washing dishes or brushing teeth.

Shop your phone service around, and see if you can get a better rate. Most people never use all the features that phone companies try to package with service, so see if you can switch to a smaller plan. Do the same thing with your cable service, if any; a little less television never hurt anybody.

Now it’s time to payoff debt! Once you have added up your savings at the end of the month, take that extra amount and apply it to your debt with the smallest total remaining balance.

Do this monthly until it is paid in full, then start on the next creditor. It will take time and diligence, but it has a snowball effect; as you pay off each debt your amount of extra cash on hand will increase, so each successive creditor is paid off faster.

You can truly use your pennies to get out of debt! This form of debt management has proven successful again and again, and whole families can participate. Getting out of debt is completely possible for most stay at home moms; all it takes is a little extra effort and a good dose of will power.

Rayven Perkins has been a stay at home mom, surviving on one income, for over 8 years. Visit her site http://www.stay-a-stay-at-home-mom.com/out-of-debt.html for more important information about consumer debt and ways to reduce your expenses.

Many families run on a two-income budget these days, and stress their way through each week worrying about bills, their children, missed family time and the like. What they don’t realize is that both parents working outside the home could be costing them money, and running them deeper into debt.

Before deciding to take a job working outside the home, most people look at how much money they will be adding to their income each week. Let’s make an example of Jill and Dan.

Dan works as a truck mechanic from 10-6 Monday thru Friday, and makes a fairly good income of $2,200 a month. He and Jill have three kids, ages 1,7 and 9, and money is tight.

Jill gets an opportunity to take a part-time receptionist job at a law firm. The position is 10-6 Monday, Wednesday and Fridays for $12 per hour, which would add an additional income of roughly $1,000 per month after taxes.

That sounds like a lot of money, especially for only part time, until you realize Jill is going to have expenses. The job is on the other side of town from Dan’s, so carpooling is not an option. Also, Jill and Dan have no family nearby to take some of the childcare load, so that is another concern.

Payments on a second car are at least $200 per month. Chiseling away at that $1,000 pretty quick, isn’t it? Now add in the full-coverage insurance for the second car ($100) and gasoline ($100 – conservative) and you are down $700 out of that $1,000.

Jill finds a daycare center that will give her a discount on after school care for her two older children, just $5 per day apiece, but the baby is a higher infant rate for three full days a week at $15 per day. That’s another $300 a month. She had to look at a dozen daycares before she found one she felt she could leave the children at, and still feels nervous about not knowing the people watching her children.

Now we come to those pesky incidentals. If Jill doesn’t brown-bag it, she can expect to spend $5 to $10 a day or more for lunch. If she buys a coffee in the morning that adds another expense. Don’t forget the new clothes for the new job – even supposing Jill can find the money for the initial outlay, she may have dry-cleaning costs.

There will be days when the kids are sick. The school will insist that they be fever-free for at least 24 hours before returning to class. The daycare will not charge Jill and Dan for the older ones since they are only half day, but they have to pay the $45 per week for the baby whether he is there or not, or risk losing his spot in the class.

Unfortunately, Jill stands a good chance of being fired if she misses work too often – and of course she doesn’t get paid if she doesn’t show up. Money going out, none coming in. It’s harder to keep the house clean, too; seems like she is always running on her days off, trying to catch up.

Traffic is also a concern. Sometimes Dan has to stay late, and Jill usually picks the kids up from daycare, which closes at 6:30. She usually makes it by 6:20, but if there is an accident on the freeway or a traffic jam down the street she might run late. The daycare center has a strict $1 per minute, per child penalty that really adds up when she is five minutes late.

The $1,000 is probably nonexistent by the end of the month. Jill and Dan might be able to break even if Jill takes the job, but it is more likely that her working outside the home will cost them money in the long run. Factor in the added stress for all members of the family when both parents are working outside the home, and it is hard to see where the benefit comes in.

A reasonable alternative is for Jill and Dan to sit down and look over their budget. Perhaps they can reduce the cable or phone bill, or cut down on eating out.

Shopping at consignment stores is a great way to dress nicely for half the cost, and learning to conserve water and energy can be a family project. Jill also might look into finding a job she can do from home; there are many opportunities available, and she would be able to care for her children as well.

Of course, all of these scenarios can also apply to stay-at-home dads. Not to say that both parents having outside jobs never works, especially when the children are older, but with little ones in the house choosing to be a stay-at- home mom (or dad) might actually make the most sense, financially and otherwise.

Rayven Perkins is an expert at saving money. Visit her site http://www.stay-a-stay-at-home-mom.com/cost-of-working.html to learn your true Cost of Working, and see if it makes sense for you to work outside the home.

As a Tupperware consultant, one of my favorite things to do is to hold fun-filled themed parties. My hostesses love it and so do the guests, causing them to spend more money and book more parties.

One of my favorite theme parties to have is a children’s party. This is where a group of moms and their kids all come to one big Tupperware party.

Now, the way that your party is designed and the products you present are all going to depend on the age group of the children you have at the party. But most will follow a certain pattern.

You’ll want to have child friendly foods available at your party. Make the food nutritious, but fun. And make sure you serve it all on Tupperware products.

Your party games should include the children, whenever possible. Obviously, if your guests are infants, this would not be a possibility, but for the preschoolers and school aged children, including them and offering them a small prize from your Tupperware goody bowl will go a long way towards making them happy.

After a game, encourage the children to play with some of your Tuppertoys or to do a fun craft. I use the Tupperware stencils and a Modular Mate full of crayons, but you can find inexpensive crafts at Oriental Trading Company if you would prefer.

Once the children are happy and occupied, you can do your home party presentation, and demo items that the moms in your group can use. Tailor your demonstration around the age group of the children.

For a group with mostly infants, demo all the baby feeding items in the current catalog, as well as Midgets for storing baby formula on the go. Another good item, our Modular Mates Square #2 to store homemade baby wipes.

Preschool mothers might get more value out of our line of Tuppertoys, as well as various products that they can store snacks in on the go. Don’t forget to point out that Modular Mates make excellent storage containers for crayons and other art supplies.

School aged children will love all of Tupperware’s licensed lunch items and tumblers. They can bring their favorite characters to school in a quality product. Seasonal cookie cutters and children sized mini-Tupperware are also a hit with this age group.

If your moms have brought along older children and teens, get them involved with the household cooking. Show them products that will help them cook at home. You can even have high schoolers fill out a Tupperware wish list for products they want for graduation.

Regardless of which age group children you have, make sure you touch on some products such as the Microwave Stack Cooker which will allow mom to save time in the kitchen. Modular Mates for storing snacks and Cereal Storers are also big hits with families.

Parties with children can be a huge hit! Moms tend to buy more for their children when they are present, and everyone has a lot of fun.

Rayven Perkins is a 7 year direct sales representative. Her site http://www.direct-sales-supplies.com offers game ideas, tips, and hard to find consultant supplies for all distributors in the party plan industry.

There is a certain cult-like mentality with many MLM programs out there. Many uplines want you to eat, sleep, and breathe their message. They want your full, 100%, undivided attention on them exclusively.

These companies and uplines would have you believe that their product is the best in the world, and would make you feel like it’s a mortal sin to diversify. But that is exactly what you need to do.

Imagine this for a moment: you spend the next five years of your life building a successful network marketing organization. You quit your day job. Your business is profitable, and growing.

Your sole source of income is your network marketing company. Sure, you spent a lot of money in the beginning on leads and business materials, but it was all worth it. You are thriving.

Your multi level business pays for your house, your car, your food, your vacations. The income you’ve made sends your children to college, and is funding your retirement.

But then something happens. The company goes out of business, or worse, fires you!

Now, you may think that this cannot happen, but let me tell you, I’ve seen it happen to more than one distributor in multi level marketing. And it always comes as a shock, and a major financial hardship.

All this can be avoided however. If you choose to diversify your income in the beginning of your multi level marketing career, and see your MLM company as a stream of income instead of your only source of income, you can build a successful business and not have to worry about any unforeseen hiccups in your compensation.

Don’t let your company use you, use them as a powerful tool in your monetization model. Treat your business as a real business, and diversify your income.

So what kinds of monetization models work well with network marketing? Well, the best way to monetize is to attract leads to your network marketing business opportunity. Have them pay you.

Huh? Yes, I am suggesting that instead of paying for leads, you have leads come to you and pay you. You do this by establishing a lead generation system that will educated and entice prospects to your business.

For example, you could build a content based website about how you are successful in your multi level business. You could teach prospects how they could be successful, and sell them information products or business materials to help them succeed.

Then, once they realize that the materials they have acquired through you are legitimate, and really work, they will want to join your opportunity as well. Sounds over simplified, but it actually works.

The benefits to this type of system are enormous. You monetize by having a website, you prequalify prospects with an MLM education so that only the ones willing to put in the work necessary to succeed contact you, and you ultimately build a strong organization, all the while profiting in multiple ways.

It takes some time, and some work, but in the end, you come out a winner.

Rayven Perkins has dedicated her time to creating a free resource for all those in Network Marketing trying to achieve success.
For complete details on the 8 Steps to Online MLM Success, please see her website:

http://www.stay-a-stay-at-home-mom.com/online-mlm-success.html

If you have been around the internet for more than a day, chances are you have seen information about taking online surveys for money. Chances are you have seen a lot of information about these paid surveys, including sites that will show you the best ones for a fee.

Are they legitimate? Can you make real money with online paid surveys? Is this an acceptable for of supplemental income?

The answer is, online surveys can be a fun way to earn a little extra pocket change, but they are rarely a good way to earn significant supplemental income. Think of them as a paying hobby, and not much more than that.

Most sites will pay $1-3 for completing a survey, which you must first qualify for. Some sites will pay $5-10 for a lengthy survey, and there are sites out there that do pay $25 or more for surveys or focus groups, but the qualification process is very selective.

Many sites are also offer sites, which will pay you to complete trial subscriptions or will give you a rebate on your purchase at select online stores. While some people do not like these sorts of sites, I do, as I shop online anyway, and it gives me the chance to earn some money back.

There are a few rules when it comes to taking paid surveys or completing offers online. If you follow these five rules, you will have fun with your paid surveys hobby.

1.Never Pay for Surveys
The biggest mistake someone new to the online offers and survey world makes is that they pay a service to give them a list of sites that are “hiring”. This service typically charges the user around $30 for information that is available free on the internet.

Many survey sites also pay a referral fee to the service for recruiting the new panelist. So these services get paid twice for the same amount of work. Quite lucrative for them, a scam for you.

2.Open a Separate Email Account
Taking online surveys and paid offers usually comes part and parcel with receiving a large amount of junk email. It’s technically not SPAM, as you do subscribe to these companies in exchange for your payment, but it does have a tendency to clog a good email account.

As a precaution, open up a separate email account to use only for online offers and surveys before you get started. All your offers will come to that email account and will not affect your main account.

3.Sign Up with Multiple Companies
In order to get the most offers, you need to take the time to sign up with as many companies as you can. Some will be real winners, some will be a waste of time, but you need to sign up with them all.

Also, make sure that you confirm your email address immediately. You will not receive any offers if you are not confirmed.

And take a few extra minutes to go into each site, after confirmed, to take their initial questionnaire. This allows the site to match surveys to you. The more info you give them, the more surveys you will be offered.

4. Don’t Give Out Your Credit Card Number
If any survey company requires your credit card number to do business with them, something is wrong. Do not give it to them, even to verify your identity. Just move on.

Some offers or trials from offer sites will require your credit card number, however. If this makes you uncomfortable, just pass on these offers. If you do decide to try the offers, make sure you read the fine print on how to cancel your trial subscription.

Most mistakes happen when panelists do not read the fine print and let the trial go on to a full subscription. This can cause a battle with your credit card company over reimbursing charges for a service you did not want.

Rule of thumb: only do trial subscriptions to a service that you are thinking of trying out anyway. This way you are not disappointed if you forget to cancel it.

5. You Won’t Get Rich
The most important thing to realize when you are doing online surveys and offers is that you will not get rich off this type of work. You might only get 1-2 surveys per company, per month.

Most sites require a certain amount of money to be earned before you will be paid. Understand that it could take you a few months to qualify for this amount.

Treat this like a hobby, and look at the little extra money you earn as a fun treat to spend on yourself, or as your holiday gifts fund to spend on other people. Enjoy!

Rayven Perkins has been taking online surveys for more than 5 years. Check out her list of survey sites at http://www.stay-a-stay-at-home-mom.com/online-surveys.html

Oh Where, Oh Where Has my Money Gone?
Oh where, oh where can it be?
It comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb
I scrimp and I save whenever I can
But my money’s still gone and I need it again
Oh where, oh where can it be?

As stay at home moms, one of our greatest responsibilities is money management. It is not a subject most of us would like to talk about.

But the fact remains that choosing to survive on one income means that we must be very conscious of every single dollar that goes out of our pockets.

Yes, its time to talk about budgeting, or, more accurately, where it is your money is going.

What kind of budget are you using in your home? If you are like most of us, the answer is none. That needs to change, now.

Having a budget does not need to be restrictive, intrusive, or even expensive. You can write any sort of spending you want into your budget.

Before you can accurately put together a budget, you need to know where your money is going. Take a month to monitor it.

Carry a little spiral bound book with you, and make sure you give one to your husband as well. Each time you spend, whether its 35cents for a newspaper or its $100 at the grocery store, make a note of it in your book. Jot down the date, amount, and what the purchase was.

Don’t try to curb your spending at this point. It is mainly important that you get an accurate accounting of your expenses. Though I will say, having to write it all down is an excellent way of getting you to spend less right off the bat!

After a full month has gone by, take the notebooks and compile a list of your spending. You may want to do this for a month or two if you felt like the particular month you started this in was an irregular month.

Put your spending into different categories. Somethings, like housing, fuel, and utilities are expenses you will have each month that you cannot change. But other expenses, like dining out, entertainment, snacks and even your food bill can be trimmed.

This exercise is very important. When you take the time to truly examine just what it is that you are spending your hard earned cash on, it can be both enlightening and frightening at the same time.

For instance, we found that my husband was spending almost $40 a month on coffee in the morning at his favorite gas station. $40 a month!

For me, it was bottled water ($2 each) at the gym three times a week. That works out to be over $300 a year.

By eliminating just those two simple expenses, we were able to add almost $800 a year to our savings account. This did not take into account the spending we were doing on the kids; toys at the checkout line, snacks at ballet practice, dollars here and there for video games.

The discretionary spending fund can eat away at your wallet.

After finding out where your money is going, you will be more open to a budget. You don’t have to take all the fat out of your money diet, but just trim it back a little, and prepare to be amazed.

Rayven Perkins has spent 7 years implementing cost-cutting tips that allow her family to live on one-income. Her site http://www.stay-a-stay-at-home-mom.com/budget.html examines resources and tips on Reducing Expenses, Stretching Your Dollar, and Supplementing Income in order to stay a SAHM.

When giving home party demonstrations as a direct sales consultant, a little “dressing up” goes a long way. By adding a little color, flavor and pizazz to your demo, you can increase sales, date more shows, and add more customers to your database.

In addition to a friendly, approachable personality and a neat and tidy appearance, these following tips can help you dramatically.

1.Use Lapboards
Instead of handing your guests an ordinary catalog and order form as they walk in the door, surpass their expectations by handing them an attractive consultant lap board.

A lap board is sometimes a decorative clip-board, other times a hard notebook. Some are company specific, while others are generic and dressed up by the consultant. Inside the lapboard, put your catalog, monthly sales flier, order form, any incentives, and a pen.

2.Add Stickers
Stickers are fun, inexpensive, and can really draw attention to a product or opportunity.

Before placing your catalogs into your lapboards, go through each catalog or monthly flier and highlight specials or items you will be demonstrating. Do this for 3-4 items.

You may also want to put a sticker about your opportunity or hostess plan on the front of your catalog.This will increase the sales of these specific products as customers can find them easily and notice them in your catalog.

3.Shout Your Specials
You want your specials and your opportunity to leap out at your customers. Include a flier in your consultant lap boards about specials. These can be company sponsored specials, or specials that you are offering your customers.

They might be for the entire month, or specifically for those attending the demonstration. Make sure this flier is noticeable and attractive.

Another way to shout your specials is to invest in a small tabletop sign holder. These plastic holders hold a regular 8 x 11 sheet of paper. Make up a small sign about your specials or opportunity and display it on your demo table.

4.Display Your Items
When displaying your products, there are a few things you need to do to make them pop out to your customers.

First, make sure that you bring your own table to your hostess’s home. This way you can set out your preconceived display with ease. You will also want to make sure that you cover your table with a tablecloth, be it company specific or a more generic one.

Your products should be placed on your table at varying heights, either by placing one product on top of another or using simple plastic display stands. You should also have accessories on your table that will make your products more appealing, but that your company does not offer.

For example, if your company offers a line of bath and body products, you may choose to include a candle with your display of bubble bath to give your customer an idea of how to use the product, even if your company does not sell candles.

5.Pick a Theme
When you choose a theme for your demonstration, it makes your show run smoothly and makes it fun for your guests. The more fun they have, the more money they will spend and the more likely they will choose to date a demo from you.

Following a theme makes party planning more convenient as well. Your snacks, games, samples, and list of products to demo will revolve around the specific theme you have chosen.

Have a book with a list of themes available for guests to look at during the demonstration. They will be more likely to book a show if they find a theme that they would enjoy.

6.Dress Up Your Samples
Adding a little ribbon, a cello bag, or accessories to your samples or giveaways will make customers appreciate them more. Instead of giving them a freebie, you have given them a gift, which is psychologically more valuable.

Utilizing these simple methods of dressing up your direct sales home party demonstrations can help you reach your party sales goals faster. Guests will have fun, your hostess will have fun, and you will be making more and furthering your business.

Rayven Perkins is a 7 year direct sales representative. Her site http://www.direct-sales-supplies.com offers game ideas, tips, and hard to find consultant supplies for all distributors in the party plan industry.