Home-run businesses become more popular

First there was the cooking gear that she sells outright for the Pampered Chef.
For that she smashed the handle of a chopper, cutting onions into smaller and smaller pieces, like the star of an infomercial. She showed how a cutting board had a built-in measuring cup, just for those onions.
"That's something," Belva Johnston said as she watched Bennett measure right from the board. "Yeah, that's pretty slick," said her friend, Patty Scales. Neither woman bought the board.
But Bennett also was selling her job, or one just like it, as a representative of the Pampered Chef, which has shows in people's homes that are sort of a remake of the Tupperware party.
Her pitches for both were made in the kitchen of Rene Carr's home in North Huntingdon, Pa.
As children rode scooters outside, 18 friends, co-workers and relatives of Carr sat in the kitchen and living room watching as Bennett, in her backless high-heeled sandals and capri pants, sliced peppers to a uniform thickness with her $59.50 Ultimate Mandoline.
Bennett then put them in her $149, 12-inch, nonstick skillet to be used in ground turkey Italian hoagies. The skillet, she pointed out, can go in an oven up to 400 degrees and has a stay-cool silicone handle for use on the stove. It is, what she called, the right tool for the job.
And Bennett said this was the right job for her. She said she was making as much selling cookware at eight parties a month as she did in her previous job working full time for Mellon Bank. Plus, she said, she can work around the schedules of her family.
That was part of her pitch: By demonstrating cookware one night a week, any of the women there could earn an extra $500 a month. And as their coach and team leader, Bennett would earn some extra money, too.
As wage increases slow down and the unemployment rate climbs, more people are turning toward creating their own businesses, or business franchises, and away from traditional employment.
The Direct Sales Association's estimates for 2007 were that 15 million people across the country sold $30.8 billion worth of products through direct sales. The largest percentage, (64.5 percent) of those sales were individual face-to-face sales, such as door-to-door selling. Selling through parties to larger groups accounted for 27.7 percent of the sales. Of those direct sales, nearly a third of all sales were for clothes and accessories which includes cosmetics, but another quarter of the sales were for home/family care items.
Andrew Shure found a niche that had not been covered before. Five years ago he started Chicago-based Shure Pets because he was always interested in direct sales and didn't see anyone selling pet products that way. Now, with the current uncertainty of the job market, a different sort of people are now joining his sales force, he said.
During the first years, he found the people attracted to selling his products were making a good proportion of their sales to themselves. "A lot of the people who got involved with us were more of a buyer," he said. Since the economy turned, "It's now, 'How can I be a seller?'"
Edwina Kaikai decided she needed a plan B for her career when she saw the business she was working for faltering. For the last 2-1/2 years, she has been selling Mary Kay cosmetics a few hours a week. She kicked up her hours about a month ago when she lost her job in corporate communications.
Before getting into Mary Kay, Kaikai talked to another saleswoman, the one who became her own team leader, about the products and the process.
"The atmosphere was so positive and so supportive," she said. "Sometimes what looks like a terrible situation -- it turns out it's a blessing."
By the very nature of cosmetics, Kaikai builds relationships with her clients. The products run out, then people call her for more. In addition, Kaikai said it was a good fit for a bad economy because while the Caribbean cruise may be on hold, a woman still may splurge for the affordable luxury of a $13 lipstick.
At Carr's house, where the women were choosing from wine, beer or iced tea, Bennett had asked them to write on their name tags what they would do with an extra $500 a month.
Scales wrote "buy more jewelry," while her daughter, Kelly Sobczak, whose husband was home painting the bedroom for the son they are expecting, wants new countertops.
Johnston said she had an extra $500 a month already. The others in attendance all offered to take it off her hands.
As women filled out their orders, Bennett said she takes cash, checks, debit cards and credit cards or, in what she called "the husband protection plan," a little bit of each.
She wound up with orders from the women who attended Carr's party for $750 worth of products, with the single most popular item being the $10 Mix 'N Chop, which breaks up ground beef in a fry pan and can be used to mix that meat with eggs and breadcrumbs for meat loaf.
The average order was for $45. The evening had put $240 in Bennett's pockets.

(Contact Ann Belser at abelser(at)post-gazette.com.)

(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
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