RIP - DISCONTINUED ITEMS

Hi Girls!

Unfortunately no matter how much we sell a product or love a product, we can’t guarantee that it won’t become discontinued at some point in the future.
The vendor from which all of these discontinued items come from has made a lot of production changes this year, and we are of the understanding that this is what caused them to remove a lot of their gift items.

Obviously, we will be changing the catalog in 2010 and the website immediately to account for the discontinuation of these items.

Please advise your customers accordingly. If you have any current orders that are affected by this, we will be contacting you individually.

Thanks for your understanding, and rest assured that we will find even better items to replace for next year!

So Rest in Peace, our charming yet apparently unprofitable gifts.

We will miss you.

DISCONTINUED ITEMS:
WEEKLY CALENDARS - All
PHOTO CALENDARS - All
PHOTO NOTEPADS - All
BOTTLE TAGS - All

You Go Girls!!!

I want to recognize Darcy P., Laurel O. and Heather C. for posting some big parties last week! Way to go girls! We are definitely seeing a big swing in activity lately and it's all due to your hard work throughout the year! Great job!

Just say No to Discover:
Remember - We do not take Discover Cards. Accepted forms of payment are Visa, MC, American Express and checks. For some reason the website has accepted several Discover cards lately. This has caused some confusion as the website does appear to accept the card as payment, however the card payment is not processed. We are looking into the issue and I will follow up with each of you individually if one of your customers was effected by this issue.

Lead Referrals:
The website is generating lots of email requests from women interested in hosting parties and we are distributing these leads based on (1st) location and (2nd) round-robin. Even if you are not within the local area for a lead, please follow up to set up an e-Party. This could be some quick and easy money for you this holiday! I ask that you please respond at your earliest convenience to these leads!

November 20th:
Is the holiday order deadline. After this date, we cannot guarantee that any of our vendors will produce and ship orders in time for holiday delivery. Please refer to the website for individual product ordering deadlines. If you see a product that is listed with a deadline that is later than Nov 20th, then you can place that order with confidence that your customer will receive the product in time for holiday gift-giving.

Thanks again to everyone for your patience and hard work! You are doing a great job!
Cheers!
Heather

Update on Add-On Kits Availability

Okay, so lots of you are anxiously awaiting an update on the Holiday Add-On kit. Unfortunately one of the companies that we had identified as the primary vendor for our holiday line up fell through. They were not able to meet our requirements in terms of lead time and product image availability. For this reason, we are not ready with a holiday add-on brochure or kit. We are hugely disappointed by this, but ask you to understand that the decision was made due to our commitment to quality of service and it became clear in recent discussions that this potential partner was not equipped to work on our scale. As we are always seeking the most unique products, it is often the case the the vendors we discover just aren't ready on the supply side.

However, do not be discouraged!

Remember, Polka Dots Parties is brand new on the home party scene and you are likely showcasing your samples to fresh audience. Holiday gifts doesn't mean items have to don red and green stripes or be topped with holly berries. You've already got a great arsenal of holiday gifts in your Everyday Sample Kit! Position your samples as great holiday gifts for each person on their shopping list.

Badge Reels and Koozies make great Teacher’s Gifts!
PSA Stampers are fantastic for the in-laws!
Plates & Placemats for Nieces and Nephews!
Monogrammed Cosmetics Bags and Mousepads for Mom, Sisters and Girlfriends!

You are selling year-round gifts for the holidays. Work it, girls!

Remember - deadline for holiday orders is NOVEMBER 20th!
All orders after this date will not be guaranteed to be delivered before Christmas (even with upgraded shipping).

Stay tuned for more updates as we continue to push through the holiday selling season!

Nothing Says Thoughtful Like A Gift From The Same Place One Can Purchase Feminine Hygiene Products

In an effort to help rescue friendships across the country, I am putting forth the Polka Dots Guide to Fabulous Gift Gifting.

You may not recognize yourself as a Lame Gift Giver, so here are a couple of exercises to go through and determine if you have perhaps strayed from your lady-like upbringing and given in to the temptation, convenience or forgetfullness that breeds the condition known as: Lame Gift-Giving Syndrome.

If you bought a gift from a store that had shopping carts, it is probably a Lame Gift.

If you picked up your gift along with any of the following: your prescription/your dry cleaning/a frozen pizza/a package of tube socks/a tank of gas, it is almost definitely a Lame Gift.

If you placed your gift on a rubber conveyor belt prior to paying for it, it is very likely a Lame Gift.

Don't stress. It happens to the best of us. Here's how to avoid letting it happen again.

Shop early - as in one full calendar month early. You know who's birthdays, anniversaries, and weddings are coming up, right? (If not, get an Agenda Book already!) So at the beginning of each new month, see what gifts you need to order for next month and get it done BEFORE this month ends.

Congratulations. Kiss your nightmares of being tagged a Lame Gift-Giver good-bye.

Sadly, this doesn't always mean that you won't be a Lame Gift Receiver.

A Party Girl's work is never done... (sigh).

Cheers,

Heather

Is That A Challenge?

We love a challenge. What other explanation could there be to the insane amount of work we so eagerly heap onto our proverbial plates here at Polka Dots.

Assuming (and in many cases knowing for sure) that our Party Girls are cut from the same cloth, we figured you'd be up for a little healthy competition.

Here's the deal:

Be the FIRST to Register 6 Holiday Headstart Parties

Open Houses & Trunk Shows (no e-parties)

Party date must fall between September 1st and November 14th

and receive $200.00 in Polka Bucks

Oh, and by the way, we're pretty quick on our feet so if your party was registered and "fell through" they won't count toward your total. The prize will be awarded on November 15th

Holiday catalogs will be emailed out to you on September 1st so you will have everything you need to host a Holiday Headstart party for your neighbors, PTO, co-workers, girlfriends, family, etc.

Start thinking and make a list. Who loves you? Who owes you? Who knows a lot of people and loves to shop? Get yourself motivated and give them a call!

I'll be counting...

;) Cheers!

Heather

It's Pay Day!

Hey Party Girls!

Time to take those manolos off lay-away 'cuz it's PAY DAY! Be sure to check your @polkadotsparties email for your July comm reports.

Polka Bucks were also rewarded if you surpassed an imcrement of $500 in cumulative sales and/or hosted your 6th party! Cheers to all of you!

If you didn't receive a report for July, just remember... it takes a while to get yourself going. Don't get disgruntled! The holidays are right around the corner and everyone is going to be grateful to you for reminding them to get a jump start on their shopping. And by ordering their gifts now, they have plenty of time for personalization.

Keep up the great work and stay tuned for new items!

Cheers!

Heather

Excuses, Excuses

Well I'm back. It's been almost 2 months since my last post and I was trying to come up with a compelling yet plausible excuse and after much thought, here it is: I've been busy.

So it's not as colorful as my original thoughts (gummy lifesavers induced sugar coma... bad manicure that caused me to temporarily lose the use of my fingers, kidnapped by angry toddlers... tied to a plastic chair with bubble tape and forced to watch Yo Gabba Gabba for 36 days straight...).

Turns out, the truth seemed like the best excuse of all. In the past few weeks I've negotiated the addition of several new product lines including Personalized Tees, a funky back to school assortment of products which includes Retro Lunchboxes, Water Bottles, Mousepads (all personalized, of course) and (drumroll please...) the Boatman Geller line (coming very soon). In addition, I took a vacation, hosted and attended several fabulous parties, and oh yes... re-designed the website.

Check out the new site. We're still working out some kinks and populating some new categories and as always, please report any hiccups via email.

Still to come: Jingle Dots - yes I know... it's overdue but I'm STILL in negotiations with our choice vendor. Just need to make sure they can handle our sales volume... if so, stay tuned for some charming holiday aprons, monogrammed stockings, initial wine bags, personalized ornaments and much more! We may not be able to distribute the samples in time for your fall parties, but we can send you a printable mini-catalog!

REMINDER! If you have been waiting for the summer vacation season to come to an end before hosting your first party, wait no more! Get on it, girl! Now is the time to book your fall open-house! Host it in your home ASAP. Your Open House parties will help you line up more party hostesses. After they've seen what you have to offer, they'll be thinking of their own holiday shopping list and will easily see the advantages of hosting a Polka Dots Party for their friends this holiday season. Even if you've already hosted an Open House this year, host another one to take advantage of holiday shopping.

HOLIDAY PARTY CUT-OFF: Parties hosted AFTER November 20th will NOT be guaranteed to receive their items before the Christmas! Use this as a selling point to go back to your interested hostesses and get them signed up!

Time to get back to work... Thanks again Party Girls for being a constant source of inspiration and motivation for us here at Polka Dots, Inc. As always, please let us know how we can help!

All my best!

Heather

My New Niece!

Emerson Avery arrived this afternoon! She was a healthy 7 pounds, 1 once and 20 inches. A peanut compared to my boulder-babies who each weighed in at just over 9 pounds. (Yes - my heavyweight championship belt is still safe.) I am so proud of my little sister... she was a champ! Incredible through the whole delivery which was not an easy one.

Seeing my OBGYN again made me wish for one short-sighted moment that I could have another baby just so I could see more of him. There's no McDreamy-thing going on here... just my complete and unapologetic adoration that I have for the wise, soft-spoken man who made me calm and talked me through the combined 6 hours of pushing during my two deliveries. Wait... 6 hours... is that right? Oh... yeah. Okay - moment over. 2 kids is plenty and (sigh) we'll always have papsmears...

So what wisdom for my Party Girls can I take away from todays events? Got it! I think that we're doing the right thing with making our program adaptable and standing by our decision to keep it quota-free. (We took a lot of heat from lawyers, husbands and other advisors on this point when we created our program - but it's something we've always felt strongly about.)

If my sister were a Party Girl, I'm not sure how I could expect her to organize a party in the next 3 months to keep her status with us active? Stressing out a new Mom, an old Mom, a soon-to-be Mom, a single Mom, etc with our program demands is a big NO NO where we come from. So I'm patting us on the back for bucking this trend of the direct sales model.

Live your life, Party Girls.
And love your job, too!

Ahh.... we truly can have it all! ;)

Talk soon,

Heather

The Practice Party

Okay, so you just received your Polka Dots Start Up Kit (or you just ordered it) and you're head is full of ideas on how to get started, right? If so, great! If not, don't worry. We have a fail-proof idea that will let you work out the jitters and start your sales flowing!

Who loves you, girl?
Make a list of your girlfriends, neighbors, family, co-workers... all those ladies in your life that would be thrilled to support you as you start this new adventure. Now schedule yourself to host a Polka Dots Open House! This is a non-threatening way for you to get your feet wet and gain some experience talking about the products. Remember, we don't want you to be "salesy" anyway. Just be yourself. Talk about the products, why you like them and who you would give them to as a gift. Be sure to mention the Hostess Incentive and let them know to contact you if they are interested in hosting a party. Plug the website AND YOUR REP CODE so they will earn you credit ANYTIME they shop on our site.

Hostess Anyone?
So the whole idea here is to build your business by lining up your hostesses. As you must have figured out by now, we don't like to put people on the spot or harass them until they give in and host a party to make you go away.

When I wrap up a party, I like to put it this way:
"If you found that you liked a few things tonight, go ahead and order them.

"If you found you liked a lot of things tonight, consider hosting a party. As a hostess, you will earn 10% of your party's sales in free product. You'll also get a number of products at 50% off, depending on your party's total sales.

"If you absolutely loved everything I showed you tonight then consider becoming a Polka Dots Party Girl. (Go on to briefly talk about why you became a Party Girl and what you love about it. Remember you'll earn $100 Polka Bucks for every activated recruit.)"

The End. Writeup your orders. Collect $. Easy as pie, as we say down South. ;)

Cheers!

Welcome aboard!

I hope everyone had a great weekend!
Last week a new group of Party Girls received their kits...
Welcome to Bethany, Meghan, Kimberly, Mary and Vickie! We hope you enjoyed unpacking!

Couple of things to review with everyone this morning...

1. SEND IN YOUR EMAIL LISTS

If you haven't already, please send in your list of email contacts (to hlux@polkadotsparties.com) so that we can announce your having joined Polka Dots Parties. We'll also customize emails to your contact list to direct them to you for more information or to place an order. This month we have 4 emails going out highlighting product specials and hostess specials, so be sure to get your lists in ASAP. We just need the email address - no names. Let us get to work marketing YOU!

If you've already submitted your email list, then make sure you send us updates regularly. Don't forget about your recent party guests, customers and any other new contacts that you've added since your last submission. This is an easy way to increase your sales without lifting a finger!

2. LAPTOPS @ PARTIES
We've had some party girls ask about brining their laptops to their parties to allow party guests to enter their orders directly. This is ideal for someone who cannot stay for the whole party or presentation. We have no rules against this and we think it's a great idea - just be available for any questions as these guests enter their orders. One tip - print up a cute little sign to attach to you laptop or place next to the laptop reminding the customer to use the Party Code assigned to the event.

3. START FALL BOOKINGS NOW
Now is the time to start lining up your fall parties. I know it seems early, but the fall selling season is busy and short! The latest party dates for holiday-guaranteed delivery is November 20th this year, that's a Friday. So start talking up your holiday gifting ideas now and get your hostesses lined up and your open house booked! We highly recommend you host an open-house early in the season so you can book parties following. Early September is a good time as school is back in session and people are starting to think about the holidays.

That's it for now, Party Girls! I hope you're enjoying your summer and look forward to hearing more from each of you!

Take care,
Heather

Hostess Gifts

Hostess Gifts are gesture that exemplifies your kindness and appreciation of being invited into someone's home. Whether you're gifting the gal that organized her friends for a Polka Dots Party or your heading over to a neighbor's dinner party, a hostess gift is always in order.

Something small - cocktail napkins in a stylish holder or tied with a bit of ribbon. Or a bottle of wine wrapped in a lovely new kitchen towel. And since we rarely have time to pick up a hostess gift before you're on your way... Stock up your gift closet with an assortment of little things that you find lovely.

Hostess gifts ensure you're invited back!

Earth Day Giveaway

Free Monogrammed Coffee Travel Mug!

In honor of Earth Day, enter our contest to win an earth-friendly travel mug!
http://www.polkadotsstationery.com/giveaway.html

Winner will be notified via email on April 30th.
Good luck!

Party Girls Speak Up

Not much time today so I'm just going to publish a quote from an application we just received because it makes me feel excited and happy and re-energized. My thanks to Leah-Kate for making the corners of my mouth turn up at the end of an otherwise grueling day!

"I've been considering a direct sales job for months now in hopes of supplementing my school teacher salary. I've considered at least a dozen options, but just found the usual make-up, skin care, candle, jewelry, etc parties to be so boring and overdone. I was so excited to find polka dots because it's so fresh, and something I'm genuinely crazy about. My husband honestly gets me new stationery for every occasion we celebrate! I also feel like I have a large network of family friends and co workers who will be so excited by your line, and who will be thrilled to have some extraordinarily unique gift giving options!"

Happy Easter Monday

Good Morning Party Girls! I hope y'all had a great holiday weekend filled with colored eggs, chocolate bunnies and cute-as-a-button little ones running around in their Sunday finest! Of course, our sweet peas were sporting the latest from Polka Dots monogrammed clothing line... Check it out! http://www.polkadotsstationery.com/miva/merchant.mvc?Screen=CTGY&Category_Code=Monogrammed_Baby

We are working on putting together an add-on kit full of monogrammed kids clothing. If you think your customer base would be a good fit for this line-up, then stay tuned!

Until then... cheers!
The Party Divas

Polka Dots Inc FLOODED!

Okay, so this week CANNOT be any worse than last week... the bar is set low: as long as our offices do not flood, it's a winner!

Yes - We arrived bright and early at the Polka Dots, Inc. world headquarters last Tuesday (April Fools Day, no less!) to the sound of pouring rain INSIDE our offices! The water foundtains upstairs decided to burst and poured water all night long.

Computers, printers, electronics, inventory, furniture - all was a total loss! Thanks goodness for a great landlord who is completely letting us replace everything ASAP! As of Thursday, we were back to printing, shipping and monogramming, but whoa - the loss of two days of production meant overtime this weekend! And the clean up... you just don't realize how much you have until it's all soaked in water. What a mess! I'm happy to say that thanks to a great staff, helpful husbands and a blank check from the big L - we're partying it up once again!

Cheers fellow Party Girls! Here's to a much better week!

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Valentine's Giveaway (from Make Mine A Mojito Blog)

Uh-oh. It's gonna be a lot of time at the gym if this Party Girl wins this giveaway... Check it out!
http://makemineamojito.blogspot.com/2009/02/valentines-day-giveaway.html

BTW... This is one of the Polka Dots Party Girls favorite blogs to follow... Considering one of our most successful Polka Dots Parties was the "Monograms & Mojitos" event, we figured we'd tune in to see what this fellow "Mojito Maven" thinks about the world... Enjoy!

Top Trends of the 2009 Atlanta Gift Market

The Polka Dots Party Girls just got back from our annual trip to the Atlanta Gift Show and here's the scoop on the trends we saw:

1. Eco Style - from monogrammed coffee tumblers and stainless steel water bottles in preppy colors, to hot patterns on recycled materials, grocery and wine totes... going green has never been so stylish!

2. Initials & Monograms - Not surprisingly, personalized gifts are still hotter than ever! We saw initials and monograms on everything from mouse pads to bag tags. If it wasn't moving, it was monogrammed.

3. Giraffe Print - Move over cheetah. Step aside zebra. There's a new animal print on the scene and she's sleek and lean and sporting her signature markings in every color, from preppy brights to earth tones. On paper and fabric, we could not escape from the Market Jungle without taking notice! We've already added it to our line-up of monogrammed gifts!

So get shopping and stay tuned for more new product news...
This Party Girl is signing off to pick up her Mini-Dots!

The Gift of Retail

Okay, so we've all grown tired of hearing all the doom and gloom about the sad state of the economy and even the most Diva of Divas has cut back on her pedis and lattes. But here is one little ray of sunshine on this foggy topic... Gifting is recession-proof.
Yes. It is.

While we're not treating ourselves to much these days, are we not still attending baby showers, bridal showers, weddings and birthday parties? Of course we are!

And do those little darlings born during the ill-timed economic slump deserve less than their budget-surplus-born siblings? Of course they don't.

One savvy practice to excel in gifting during these times is to go with something a little more meaningful... Keywords: Monogrammed and Personalized.

I give you the example of our our dear cousin who is getting married later in life and has attended oodles of weddings prior to her own and now that her trip down the aisle is aligned with the worst-economic-crisis-since-blah-blah-blah, should we skip her big day or send an IOU?
No, I should think not.

A set of monogrammed notecards costs half as much as the obligatory blender on a registry, but it's more personal and likely to be far more useful and memorable than those cluttering and bulky appliances.

Remember to shop ahead as personalized gifts often require a little more time for monogramming and/or printing, but it's time and money well spent!

Let's Stay Connected!

Welcome to the official blog of Polka Dots Parties...
The aptly titled Dot 2 Dot!
This is where we will let our Party Girls know about new product lines, gifting trends, sales contests, and other tips and tricks to make your parties the most successful they can be!
You will also be able to share your own success stories or party tips here as well.
Be sure subscribe to Dot 2 Dot!
We look forward to connecting with you!

The Polka Dots Divas