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I am not a former SU demo but probabaly will be at some point. For me i thought it would be great to do this becuase it something i love but now it has become a chore and not as enjoyable. :( That does not mean it is like that for most. That is just my view. I also did not have a good upline unfortuanately. :( I think that might have made a difference. Although you know i tried like heck and boy i did good. It's just i want to go back to enjoying and making things for fun and not just for demo and camps. :lol:
I was a demonstrator from '96 to '02. I loved the experience, but in '99 we made the decision to start homeschooling our 8 children. I cut back on doing the parties and just had a workshop once a month with 10 women, where I would demo different techniques. They were committed to purchasing at each workshop so I could meet my quarterly minimums. But even the monthly workshops got to be too much.
In '02 we moved from UT to TN, where I knew no one (except my MIL). I knew what it would take to get my sales up (having moved 4 times since joining SU), and I decided I didn't want to give that effort to being a demo at that time. It's all a season.
My season right now is to be with my children (7 girls and 1 boy - the girls are all just as addicted as I am to stamping! so we can stamp together as part of homeschooling - arts and crafts, journaling, personal histories, etc., etc.). I also have a group of women here who are just as crazy about stamping as I am. That helps.
I just have to swallow once in awhile when our local demo (who is a fantastic lady and friend!) shows us terrific stuff she got at convention or from SU's monthly mag.
When my kids are grown (right now they range in age from 19 to 5), I will probably get back into SU.
I know there are those who are dissatisfied with SU, but I had a great experience.
That said, I was spoiled when I lived in UT and could get my order within 2 days of getting it on their computer system. Now I'm almost 2 weeks waiting here for our order from a party that I just hosted!
I have really missed being able to access Stampin' Discuss (is it still called that?), and am SOOOOO glad to have found SCS!.
Im a former demo. I keep to myself a lot and dont really have many friends because of moving several times in a short period of time after high school, and being a stay at home mom really didnt help to look for customers at my job lol. I was very excited when I first started and when I hosted my first shows in my own home with my family and friends and only had 2 of the 20 or so show up, it was kind of a let down and I wasnt sure where to go from there. So I was my best customer for the first couple of months because of the nice discount and stuff, but then I couldnt make my sales due to the fact I was a SAHM and we are not well off lol ...oh well...
Id rather support my demo with an order whenever I can and have time to stamp when I can for me, and I love putting gifts together for christmas (i do packs of cards prior to THIS year ....BEFORe SCS lol) I also make samples for my demo when I get current sets
Hi, I am about to become a former soon. Only because I have had no upline for 6 years. I have been more of a hobbiest. Then I will take the 6 months off to rejoin up with a wonderful group here locally. This will time with the new catalog too. That is the plan as of today.
Kim
i too am a former demo. July was the last month of active status. :( I really enjoyed it more for me then doing parties. I had 2 real parties. My first one had about 15 people at it..only sold for 500..which was fine. Then had another for the same lady and only 2 people showed...didn't do too well. The other orders i did get were from one person who made a party out of just herself...each time buying around 450 dollars. So i did fairly good. I just didn't go out and find customers but if they came to me i would sell. We are military and just moved to Florida from Washington state. I know all of about 4 wives and none do stamping. So i ended up not being able to get my quota. I'm also a SAHM so i didn't have a job to find people..LOL I couldn't keep myself afloat...hubby wanted me to sink...haha...so i went inactive.
SU was good and i had lots of fun. I would do it again...maybe when we stop moving around so much...hubby only has 8 more years left..about 2 more moves...so maybe then..
thanks for the question..
I have been a demo for 2 years but I just recently moved from Minnesota to Maine and I am a SAHM who is too shy to go out and recruit new customers. My stamping group in Minn was mainly family and friends. My dh just started medical residency so time and money are at an all-time low. I am just not sure I want to try booking workshops around his schedule, so he can babysit. And if I have to pay for a sitter, it's not worth it. I waver back and forth on the issue (I have until Jan) as I really enjoyed demonstrating and loved the money to fund my hobby. But, I spent all my energy on workshops and really neglected my scrapbooking. So, we'll see.
I'm still active but I am really thinking about either just becomming a hobby demo and making the minimums myself if I can, or just letting it go. Like it has already been said- it has now become a chore for me and I no longer feel the joy of stamping. I have taken the month of October off to see if I can get the feeling back again by just doing projects for myself. We will see how it goes after that. I'll be overseas for another 6 months or so and there are no minumum requirements over here so I'll be a demo at least another 6 months. Then if I decide to stay active it will depend on where we move next and what the market is like there.
I'm happy to hear I'm not alone! I've been a demo since March 2003 and started out gangbusters! I had no customers, but friends helped me get off the ground.
I've found that trying to make my business grow beyond my friends has exhausted all of my energy and I no longer stamp for the fun of it. I've completely neglected my scrapbooking (which is why I got started in the first place--to use my stamps in my scrapbooks).
I've kept my active status by holding monthly Stamp Camps but am starting to feel burdened by those also. I'm planning on really thinking things through and see what it is I want out of this. I'm thinking I might just go "hobby demo" come January and stay active as long as I can. I really want to get back into "crafting, scrapbooking, and stamping" for the fun of it, not because I "have" to.
I've been a demo for just over a year. I've stopped having workshops for lack of interest from my customers. I was trying to make the minimums myself, but I can't do that anymore. Unless someone comes up to me and tells me that they have $300 worth of SU stuff they want to order from me, December will be my last month.
Like a few others have said...It became a chore and stamping was not fun anymore. I work full time and am a single mom...so I just didn't have the time to invest to make it work. Plus, I work with my upline, so using my job to get customers isn't really an option.
It's different for everyone, and I have enjoyed the benefits and perks of being a demo and am sad to see it come to an end :(
I am at that junction myself. I would love to continue but being a SAHM now and trying to live here on one income is becoming difficult. My cc stay maxed and I stuggle to make my minimums. I love my upline but I feel like I am hitting a wall everytime I talk with someone. I am going to give it another quarter and see if business picks up otherwise I will go back to ordering from my upline. It's kinda depressing when I think about it as I love being a demo but I have yet to make enough to justify the money I spend. When I was working it was not a big deal if I supported myself. Now things are different. Maybe my classes will pick up as well and that will keep me going but I still have to decide on what is best for my family and finances right now.
__________________ Melissa Wadkins (Mel)
Peace begins with a smile.
Member #3785
My main reason for leaving "Demo World" was that I wanted more flexibility in the tools and supplies when stamping. I love SU products, but I have SOO many of them and there are other wonderful products I also wanted to use (i.e., Twinkling H2Os, Albrecht Duhrer Watercolor pencils, watercolor paper, etc.). I felt constrained because if I bought something non-SU I couldn't demo it.
I was mostly a hobby demo anyway, and for the first 2 years my friends/customers and I had a wonderful time. However, I never turned a profit. I loved demoing from my home for my friends and enjoyed hosting numerous swaps, but did not push myself to recruit or to have lots of outside workshops. After the 2nd year of large tax losses for my business, I resigned rather than send red flags to the IRS for a 3rd year of losses.
What do I miss most? The large Christina Crawford meetings in my area several times as year - they and the swaps that occur there - were sooo much fun!
I sell my cards, and have found that to be much more rewarding for me than being a demo.SCS has been a wonderful inspiration so that I continue to stamp and hopefully grow as a stamp artist of sorts.
__________________ You can always tell a real friend; When you've made a fool of yourself, he doesn't think you've done a permanent job.
- Lawrence J. Peter http://community.webshots.com/user/neighbor_nancy
Well, I have to say I'm relieved that there are others here who have been or will be former demonstrators. I did not make my minimum for the third quarter and will probably not make it for the last quarter so it looks like I too will no longer be a demonstrator after this year. Is there anything that you miss besides the monthly magazine and occasional swaps?
I am a former demo. When I signed up I was so gung-ho but just a couple of months into it my brother died and I wouldn't even look at a stamp never mind try to sell them. I was still buying to keep up my minimum but eventually dropped it altogether because by the time I was ready I had lost all of my fire for it. My best friend is a demonstrator and I just order from her now with the same discount so I didn't lose anything except the extra expenses.
-Diana
__________________ Behind every successful mother is a basket of laundry!
Former Demonstrators?
