While our friends are great at being our friends, doing business can be a different beast. The number one mistake we make is not setting clear expectations! Many of us (Me included) have not been taught how to work with a partner or don’t have our policies and procedures in place, which leads me to this. Here is my super simple guide to vending with friends!
- Create Your Policies and Procedures – Plain and simple, if you don’t know how and what you do then how can you expect your friends? Take a day out, sit and type up your complete Policies and Procedures document. This way every time you have an event whoever is helping can read this in advance and know exactly what to do.
- Set Clear Expectations – Let’s be honest our friends are not apart of a Hive Mind with us even though we share the same inside jokes. If you need them to talk to customers while you prepare orders and not leave, let this be known upfront! The quicker expectations are laid out the faster you can get to work and focus on your portion of vending.
- Give Them A Break – I mean this in literal terms. Whether paid or unpaid give them 15-30 minutes to take a break, walk around and potentially do some networking for you. Depending on how long you’ll be at the venue the last thing you want is the person that is helping you to experience burn out. This can lead to poor performance or even worse, others not wanting to work with you.
- Develop A Script – Anyone is sales will tell you there is a script specifically for talking about a product or service and overcoming Sales Objections. This goes back to my Hive Mind comment, we can’t expect or friends to know our products as good as we do. Most of the time they are completely out of their element and doing the best they can with explaining your product or service to the best of their knowledge. Think of all of the Sales Objections you’ve come across and teach them how to overcome them. Take time and tell them the value of your product or service so when they are talking to clients it will be the closest thing to talking to you. Maybe you needed a break or need to step away, the show doesn’t have to stop when everyone is on the same page!
- Disagreements And Rewards – Handle any issues after the venue has closed and you and your friend are alone! No one likes to argue in front of complete strangers, take care of any disagreement afterwards and in a professional manner but make sure to speak on the positive things that they did by helping you as well. As far as reward goes this could be a simple “I’m paying for your meal today” or “Here is *insert dollar amount here*, thanks for helping.
It’s important to communicate clearly with your friends so you don’t sour your relationship. Comment about a time you and a friend had issues while working together and what you could’ve done differently to change things! If you’re anything like me friends are family and we should always treat our family with respect and integrity.
