Can I actually make money being a Stampin' Up! demonstrator?
The short answer is yes, but you have to work at it.
There is no such thing as easy money. Working in an employment position, for instance casual employment, will earn you a definite hourly rate that will be higher than your hourly rate if you are doing direct sales but you don't have any flexibility. You probably have to work certain hours, which might change every week, you probably can't take your child to work with you or cook dinner while you are doing that work, and you probably don't have autonomy regarding when you take leave, how much effort you put into it or how you grow it.
First things first
While you can make money being a Stampin' Up! demonstrator, there is a learning curve both in terms of getting the hang of the business but also, finding and cultivating customers. Additionally, as with any business, you get out of it what you put into it.
I was often frustrated by Tupperware demonstrators who told me that you could earn a certain amount 'just for working for three hours on a Saturday', they were referring of course to your physical attendance at a party. In practice, there are many hours of preparation before that party, and many hours of follow up after the party. You have flexibility in relation to the work before and after (but not your physical attendance) and that is great, but you have to put the time in. The same applies if you are selling product online, running workshops or selling pre-made craft items.
How do I make money?
The basic ways to make money are:
Sell Stampin' Up! products to customers - you can sell products:
at a party in a friend's home or your own home
online through Facebook or an email list
sharing catalogues, for instance giving catalogues to your crafting friends
through workshops, if the ladies like what they are using
through Stampin clubs
Run a workshop and charge for attendance
Sell items that you have made with Stampin' Up! products
Develop a team and sell Stampin' Up! product
Selling Stampin' Up! products to customers
How much will I make?
You make 20% commission if you are a bronze demonstrator on everything that you sell. A bronze demonstrator has to sell 300 CSV a quarter, or $453 a quarter before postage and handling. This means you would make $90.60 a quarter if you met your quota. The theory is that $455 is an average in home party, so four parties a year.
You make 25% commission if you are bronze elite, to become bronze elite you need to sell 450 CSV a quarter, so $681 a quarter. So 25% of that is $170 a quarter. The theory is that if you have two in home parties a quarter you can make enough to be bronze elite.
In Home Parties
When you are starting out there are plenty of worksheets and suggestions on the demonstrator website to help you think of people to ask about hosting a party, and to prepare you for having a party. You can also host your own party at your house when you are starting out to show your friends what Stampin' Up! is, and then ask them if they will host a party at their house and invite their friends.
Online
This can actually require more hours of preparation than in home parties. While the idea of selling things online seems ideal and you will find lots of articles on Pinterest about how you can make money online, in practice there is a lot of work that goes into it. Again, the flexibility it why people do it. I have produced this blog post on a Sunday morning while my daughter was sleeping in, and then during her nap later in the same day.
You can create an online presence on Facebook, starting by inviting your friends and sharing pictures of your products and creations and hoping that their friends get interested too. You can create a group, which is great because only people who want to be in the group are in the group, and with Facebook's current filtering it seems that people get more on their newsfeed from groups they are in than they do from pages that they follow. You can also easily set up polls or invites that include everyone in the group. Alternatively you can create a business page, the advantage of this is you can set it to public so that everyone can find it, and so that when your friend likes or comments on your pictures their friends see it. The disadvantage is it tends to be filtered out more readily by Facebook's filters unless you pay for advertising, and you can get some odd people following your page.
You can also create an email list for your existing customers and let them know about items that are on the clearance rack, upcoming specials and sales, and pictures of projects to inspire them to create (and therefore to want to buy products to create with).
Things like Pinterest, blogs and Instagram are probably only going to be ways to keep in contact with existing customers rather than a way to generate new interest, which is important but what you generally need more customers.
Sharing Catalogues
If you have friends who are into craft, you should really give them a copy of the annual catalogue. Sure, the products are all available online but there is something about looking through a magazine/catalogue that is both enjoyable, and tends to increase a person's 'wish list'. Handing a person a catalogue is also a good opportunity to hand them a couple of other things, like a business card, or a list of upcoming events that they might attend.
You might be surprised by which of your friends are into craft, don't make assumptions, just ask. People generally feel comfortable saying that they aren't into craft if they aren't.
How do I run workshops?
Your biggest issue with running a workshop will be space. Some places, like Maccas or some Officeworks, have rooms that they are happy for people to use during business hours for free, but space on weekends could be an issue. Most people are happy to be a little bit cramped in your house, they come to spend time with you and have some fun not judge your home. If you have a friend who has a larger dining table, maybe you could ask them if they could host a workshop and they can make the craft for free. If those options won't work then perhaps you will need to rent a space.
I generally find that the workshops take three hours, if you are making three or four cards. You cannot make these cards all complex though, you need some easy quick ones, one complex one, and one moderately difficult one.
Think about your friends and what they like before you decide what workshops to run. Just because something works for another demonstrator doesn't mean it will work for you. I mostly ran workshops aimed at adults with some crafting ability for the first few years, I did all the prep work, and charged $15 a head. This may not work for your friend group. I have recently started doing coffee and a card workshops where I charge $10 a head and we make one project but it is much more complex, they go for an hour and a half. Perhaps there will be a number of children at your event and you need to make less cards and make your cards simpler again, and therefore the workshop can be a bit cheaper. Maybe you have friends who don't have good fine motor skills, because of age or disability, then you need to have not simpler cards but you need to rethink which products you use. Perhaps you want to run beginner level workshops, how to stamp, how to create your own cards, that sort of thing.
You have two potential income streams from a workshop, the fee for attending, and any sales you make as a result of your friends getting to play with the SU products. The workshop fee of course does not add to your quarterly CSV unless you use it to purchase more products (think of it as permissable gifts for yourself :D )
I generally found, early on, that I would get six people a month (on average) attending across the two workshops, so that was $90 a month. I set up a pay pal account recently, I wish I had done it earlier, so that people could pay ahead of time. They take a small percentage of your money but you don't have to take cash to the bank, and you know ahead of time how many people are committed to coming.
What are Stampin' Clubs?
There are many versions of Stampin' Clubs floating around. The unifying feature is you have a group of people who are committed to spending a certain amount each month. It is like a workshop, except the attendees commit to spending the money whether or not they attend.
There are two versions that I have come across, one where you still physically meet and make craft together, and one where the products are mailed to you and you do it from home.
In the first version the attendees take turns being the host, so you might have a group of ten, you meet ten months of the year, and you have a minimum spend of say $30 a month. That way the host always gets the benefit of some Stampin' Rewards (free product).
The second version involves the demonstrator posting out the makings fore the cards, some people do this on the assumption that you have already purchased certain stamp sets and ink pads, so you are just paying for the card stock and the instructions. Some do this on the basis that you get some products as part of the deal, and you also learn how to use them. Obviously the latter option is more expensive, good for the demonstrator as they are selling more product, but perhaps harder to find customers who want to participate.
Sell items you have made
There are lots of items you can make using your Stampin' Up! toys, have a quick look at Pinterest for some ideas. Obviously you can make cards, and everyone needs cards, these days I frequently see cards in teh shops for $7 and $10. There are also lots of other things to be made with paper craft or Project Life. You can sell them directly to people, you can ask your doctors or your boss if they mind if you display some on their reception counter, you can try advertising on Facebook or Etsy or Ebay.
You get two potential sources of income from this, the card sale itself, and potential new customers or sales of products you have used to existing customers. Again, the cash from selling the card doesn't add to your quarterly CSV, unless you use it to purchase goodies for yourself.
Where does that leave you?
I will cover team commissions and volume rebates in another post, as this post is long enough.
If you run a couple of workshops ($90) and sell a couple of cards a month ($10) then that is $300 a quarter. If you spend that on Stampin' Up! supplies for yourself, remembering with your 20% discount you only need to buy $124 a month, then you only need to sell a couple of items to existing customers a quarter to make the minimum. You would have the craft supplies you need to fund your hobby (or craft addiction) and so you have guilt free play money, and the potential to make more in the future as your business grows. Remember that you also won't have to buy anymore birthday cards or wrapping, and gift giving is another opportunity to grow your business.
If you host an in home party and meet your quarterly minimum ($453 in sales, $90 commission) and host your workshops or sell some cards you can make $390 a quarter.
If you reach bronze elite status you would earn $171 a quarter, plus the $300 from workshops and cards sales, so that would be $471 a quarter.
Obviously there are a lot of other options, like adding in some sort of Stampin' club, but it is difficult to come up with all of the possible combinations of money you might make, and I am sure you get the idea.
As I stated at the beginning, the hourly rate is much lower than you would get if you picked up some casual work, but the flexibility is what makes this sort of earning attractive. Additionally, if you are like me, you will enjoy the challenge of running your own business and organising your own events.
