Home Party Plan Parties: A Small Rant
March 27, 2008 by Deborah Ng
Filed under Home Party Plans
Warning: The blog post you are about to read is completely one-sided. I’m sure there are people who enjoy attending party plan parties. I am not one of them. I am also sure there are plenty of lovely people earning a living through party plans. I harbor no ill-will and mean no offense.
I’m not a fan of party plans. Mind you, I don’t know anything about the selling part. I’m only speaking on behalf of a person asked to attend party plans. I’m sure a lot of work goes into the behind the scenes of the party plan party, and I don’t wish to minimize what the salesperson goes through. I kind of resent home party plan parties and here’s why.
I enjoy going to parties. I like to socialize and talk with my friends and meet people. I enjoy making and trying new foods and learning new things. What I resent is when people who barely say hello to me in the real world all of a sudden send me an invitation to attend their home party plan party. Hello? I barely know you. You didn’t invite me to your Christmas gathering or backyard barbecue, but I’m good enough for a sales pitch? And what was your name again, anyway?
My other issue with the home party plan is that I can’t always buy things. My hostess will always say, “just come for the fun, you don’t need to buy anything.” I always feel obligated.
My idea of a good time is not listening to someone go on about the joys of reuseable plastic containers or overpriced candles. The last home party plan party I attended to was for jewelry. The guests were all about my age – mid 40’s. The jewelry was all funky and hip. I liked some of it, but most of it was appropriate for teens and those in their early twenties. When the hostess passed around the “high end jewelry” catalog, she mentioned how all the celebrities like that particular line. I asked which celebrities. The hostess named a few, “Lindsay Lohan, Paris Hilton…” I asked if any 40-something celebrities wore the jewelry and she said “not that I know of but I’m sure there are some.” I wasn’t trying to be difficult, but what ever happened to knowing your audience? As a forty-something work at home mom whose idea of a night out is coffee with some friends, why would I want to buy products geared towards twenty something poster children for bad behavior?
If you’re having the girls over for some wine and cheese, or coffee and cake, I’m in. Indeed my friends are always welcome to sit on my back deck and eat some of my husband’s smoked ribs and other mouth-watering barbecue fare, but I promise to never invite you to my home to sell you something.
Now…I know this is a completely one-sided post. If there are any home party plan sellers or attenders who would like to guest post and give the other side of the story, please contact me and I’ll be happy to give you a sounding board.
Image: Morgue File
Hi! I enjoy your blog posts, and I understand about the home party plans.
But! I did one for a while and LOVED it, but the timing just didn’t work for me to continue. What was it? Overpriced candles? Plastic stuff? Nope.
I did Women only parties that had lingerie, bath items, and bedroom “accessories”. Believe me when I say that these parties were FUN. And tasteful.
But I don’t like the feeling obligated to buy thing part, which I do feel myself when attending these parties. But when I would encourage women to attend these parties or have them encourage their friends, I REALLY meant it, just come for the FUN and educational women’s only time.
I love your comments about home parties! I am an independent consultant for such parties but also attend quite a few of them. I have had some great consultants who knew their audience and were not pushy to make their sales. On the other hand, I had some consultants basically beat me down to book parties when I didn’t even like their products. Now I’m off to attend party ha ha ha.
I don’t mind the parties so much. I don’t spend a lot of money, I only buy one or two things at the most. Sometimes you find things that aren’t easy to get unless you go to a specialty store, and that’s nice to have it delivered to you. It’s nice to hold it and test it instead of just viewing it online and then be disappointed when it is delivered. I get disappointed when something I like is reserved as a hostess gift. I live out there and no one is going to come to my house for a party. I also don’t want to put in the work to host one, going is good enough, so I do without the hostess gifts.
I can totally understand your point of view but the thing is, without the home parties some people would never HAVE parties. They can be a great “excuse” to get together and entertain and for the hostess to get some freebies. They are almost always FUN right? I think there are 2 kinds of people, party GIVERs and party GOERs and we need both!
I’ve been to one of these parties and I know it is aggravating to feel forced into buying something. However, I did accept because it was for jewelry, an item I usually like to shop for anyway. I have been invited to cooking and cooking-utensil related parties, but have turned them down because I don’t like to cook. (Baking, however, that’s another story!)
My advice on these events? If you don’t enjoy the product or services that the party is about, you shouldn’t feel bad at all about not attending. It’s not an insult to the hostess – it’s just saving everyone a lot of frustration!
I just stumbled across this post while looking for something totally different, but I figured I’d throw my 2 cents in the ring. I have been a hostess, a guest, and a consultant (I do the FUN parties with the things that go buzz in the night). As a consultant, I do encourage my hostesses to over-invite, and to invite as many women as they can think of. However, I suggest this with the assumption that these women will be people that my hostess actually talks to on a regular basis.
Also, I feel as though things are a little different when it comes to certain party plans. The average woman does not want to walk into a sex shop to purchase romance products. Also, I understand party plans like Tastefully Simple where you get to sample the products. The key is having a party plan that gives you an experience you can’t get in a store or from a catalog. For this reason, jewelry and purse parties don’t make much sense to me.
I would say, though, that if you’re not interested in the product, you don’t need to go. My aunt tried to talk me into coming to her scrapbooking party a few months ago. I believe my response was something like, “I work full-time, I run a home-based business, I’m in school part-time, and you think I have time to come home and do whaaaa?” My aunt is awesome. I don’t scrapbook. I didn’t go. And that was ok! Just be honest about why you don’t want to go, and make a date to catch up with your friend later. No biggie.