Vendor information and Guidelines for Maryland Mommy Quarter Mania! Our advertising and vendor site is http://quarterauction.marylandmommy.com What is Quarter Mania? Quarter Mania is a fun evening of entertainment and bargains. When participants arrive they will purchase paddle(s), and a chip with a number matching each paddle number will be added into the draw bin. As each item is offered up for bid, guests will bid the number of quarters for the item for each paddle that they want to play (so if they have 1 paddle and it is a 2 quarter bid, you'll put 50 cents in the basket; if you want to play 2 paddles and it is a 1 quarter bid, they'd put 1 quarter for each of their paddles into the basket, or 50 cents). A number is then drawn and if it matches their paddle, they won the item! If they chose not to bid on the item and their number is drawn, another number will be drawn until a bidding number is drawn (you gotta play to win!) If no winning number is drawn after 15 number calls, the item will be awarded to the number closest to the 16th draw. (In the event that two raised paddles are equally close to the drawn number a 17th draw will be made and whichever of the two tied paddles is closest to the run off draw number wins the prize). As a vendor, a quarter mania is a great way to increase your customer base, advertise your products and if done correctly make a nice profit for a couple of hours work. You provide the auction items and you keep the bids. If you provide a $10 value item (which you may have paid $6-8 for as a consultant depending on your companies consultant discounts) that would be a 1 quarter bid. If 40 people each bid a quarter a piece, you’ve covered the $10 retail cost of the item. If you get 80 quarters in bids you’ve not only covered the retail value, but made a nice profit on the item. You may collect less quarters for some items than the retail value, but it generally works well over the course of the whole evening.
Date: Sunday, May 1, 2011 Where: The Knights of Columbus 6111 Columbia Way Bowie MD 21114
Time: Doors open at 1 pm, bidding starts at 2 pm. (Vendors should arrive at 12 pm). Vendor Cost: $20 in advance. To guarantee your place, funds must be received by April 10 to cover the cost of hall rental. After April 10th, the vendor position will be opened up and the first vendor to pay gets the slot. You will earn money from paddles sales so you can easily recoup this cost. Payment may be made out and mailed to me at Laura Harlow, 810 Windy Knl, Sykesville, MD 21784 or sent via paypal to laura@marylandmommy.com Please choose the PERSONAL tab and use bank transfer or paypal balance when transferring funds via paypal or add a $1 to your fee (to cover PP fees). Included in the vendor fee is a free 4x3 ad in our program and access to the registration list (guests will be asked to fill out a registration card to be eligible for door prizes). Alternately, you can be a DONOR. There is no registration fee for donors (and donors also do not sell paddles, nor do they collect and keep quarters). You would simply donate as many items as you wished to Maryland Mommy and MM will keep the quarters from the bids as a fundraiser. You will be listed in the program (4x3 ad) and on the website. This is a great advertising option for vendors without a lot of products; vendors unable to provide a full range of auction items, a vendor just starting out and wanting a taste of the quarter auction and companies wishing to donate gift certificates or services.
Successful Vendor Tips: Recognize that this is not a “get rich quick” opportunity, when done correctly, you will cover your costs and make some money, but their primary purpose is community exposure to help you build your business and contact potential recruits. Craft an attractive display highlighting your best products and business opportunity. Offer a special to anyone booking a show the night of the auction or requesting to join your team. Have plenty of information at your display. Bring catalogs, coupons, newsletters, recipe cards, etc. to place on each table where bidders will be sitting. Consider giving away samples or goodie bags to our guests. Use the event as a way to meet new people which will hopefully become new customers. When choosing items to auction, choose items that offer the best of what your company offers and select a wide-range of products so that customers can see what you have to offer and potential recruits see the products that may inspire them to join. Include your business card or mini catalog on all of the items you auction. The BEST way to make money at the quarter mania is to make sure that there are a LOT of guests in attendance. To do this, you should encourage YOUR customers and potential recruits to attend. Your customers already love your products and you know they will bid on your items and there is a snowball effect on bidding – even people not familiar with your products will often jump in and bid on an item with lots of bidders (because it MUST be a good item to have so many bids on it). The more of YOUR customers in attendance, the more money YOU will make. You may want to encourage your customer to attend by offering them a special for coming. You may want to offer your customers an incentive for attending or give them a special gift when they stop buy your booth (I saw a great idea of offering a “lucky quarter” to your customers – add a round sticker with your contact info on the back and you get even more advertising as the quarter goes into circulation). If every participating vendor encourages their customers to attend, all vendors will have a very successful day! Don’t rely on the OTHER vendors to provide your customers. If you sell a food product, you may want to consider donating a prepared product to our concession stand. Wrap each item and clearly identify the product and company on the label for added advertising as well as support for Maryland Mommy. It's a great way to offer taste tests of signature items. Non-food specific vendors can donate a labeled food item with advertising if you wish.
What you need to provide: Vendors need: 8 items for auction (your choice – these need to be new items, but not necessarily current, however no more than 2-3 of your items should be retired products (unless they are hard to find collectible items); you keep all the quarter bids from these items, see below for the suggested break out on price points); 1 $10-15 items for the Maryland Mommy donation; 1 $20-25 items for the March for Babies donation and 1-3 small items for a door prize drawings (this can be a freebie type item or small goodie bag of samples, etc.) (11-13 items total).
You also need to provide a sturdy container, clearly labeled with your vendor name, to hold your quarters and bring $75-100 in quarters to sell. (We want to make sure that our guests don’t run out of quarters. We sold out of quarters at the last auction and had to raid one of the vendor buckets selling those quarters… we sold over $1000 in quarters!!) and $10-20 in $1 bills for change for your paddle sales baskets. You WILL get this money back (we will sell the quarters and you get the money). When you arrive you will check in your quarter amounts and when you leave you will either get paper money or the quarters back.
The bid breakdown will be $8 - $20 = 1 Quarter bid -- Vendors should provide at least 4 items at this level (plus 2 donations). $21 - $40 = 2 Quarters bid -- Vendors should provide no more than 3 items at this level. $41 - $60 = 3 Quarters bid -- Vendors should provide NO MORE than 1 item at either this level or the 4 quarter level – high bid items do NOT get as many bids as lower quarter items… and so there should be no more than ONE item at this level (unless you are doing a buyers choice of items). $61 and up = 4 Quarters bid -- Vendors should provide NO MORE than 1 item at either this level or the 4 quarter level – high bid items do NOT get as many bids as lower quarter items… and so there should be no more than ONE item at this level . You may sell a higher priced item for less quarters (i.e., you can sell a $50 retail item for 2 quarters), but you may not sell a lower value item for more quarters (i.e., a $20 item for 2 quarter). Please make sure your quarter bid is clearly marked.
There will be 10 rounds of bidding and we will draw a door prize after each round: Round 1: 1 quarter item (warm up so that everyone gets the idea of the auction) Round 2: 2 quarter item Round 3: March for Babies item Round 4: 3 or 4 quarter item Round 5: 1 quarter item Round 6: 2 quarter item Intermission Round 7: Maryland Mommy item Round 8: 2 quarter item Round 9: 1 quarter item Round 10: 1 quarter item All vendors need to provide a
typed description of your item on an index card size piece of paper (this will
be read during the auction and a great description will help increase bids on
your item). The description should include YOUR COMPANY, the retail value and
the quarter bid for the item and the ROUND the item should be auctioned during.
Large fonts appreciated! You may include a business card, mini-catalog or label
each item with your contact information. (If you are doing winners choice, please still provide a card that has the round listed, the bid for that round (i.e., if you are doing 2 or 3 quarter bids for the first half and then 1 or 2 quarter for the 2nd half or whatever you are doing) have a card for each round to help the announcer.
Sample Auction Card
A Word Template for bid cards will be available in the files section of the quarterauction.marylandmommy.com/files site. Optional: Catalogs or sales flyers for tables (many of these you’ll get back at the end of the night) and cash and carry items. You also may want to bring your calendar in case anyone would like to book a show that night. Each consultant will be given the opportunity to briefly introduce herself and talk about any specials or incentives that you are offering (for instance an extra ½ off item if a show is booked that evening or a free prize or just what the special is for the current month). Additionally, we will be doing a printed flyer/booklet with all of the vendor information/ads (4x3”) and community sponsors Paddle
cost: $3 for the first paddle, $5 for 2 and $10 for 5 (each additional
paddle outside of these specials is $3 (you may offer “coupons” or flyers to
your guests that they can get a third paddle for free (i.e., 3 for $5) if they
mention your name and provide the printed flyer/coupon). As guests arrive to
buy paddles, they will be asked how they learned about the auction. By saying
they were invited by you or your company, their sales go into your basket. YOU
MAY NOT RECRUIT GUESTS AT THE DOOR AND EXPECT CREDIT FOR THEM. YOU MAY PROVIDE
YOUR EXISTING CUSTOMERS WITH A COUPON AT THE DOOR IF YOU HAVE A PRE-ESTABLISHED
relationship. $1 from each GUEST will go to Maryland Mommy (regardless of how
many paddles they purchase). Paddles purchased by anyone who comes in through
community advertising or not specifically invited by a vendor will be split
50/50 between all the consultants and Maryland Mommy. Only vendors who have sold at least 10 paddles (not counting free giveaways) will receive the
community advertising money. This is out of fairness to the vendors who ARE
bringing in guests to the event. We have open consultant spots, so if you know someone interested in participating, please feel free to forward them this information or give me their email address and I can contact them. We can only have one vendor from each company (with the exception of Maryland Mommy members), so if that spot is filled I can add a consultant to the mailing list, but it is first come for booking a space. Maryland Mommy members are given priority, and have exclusive registration through MARCH 31, 2011. I will not book a community vendor for a company represented by a Maryland Mommy vendor. I will also not book more than one community vendor for any product (only Maryland Mommy vendors have the option of splitting a vendor spot). Companies we would like to see represented (not an all inclusive list):
All of
the vendors will be working during the evening, so if you want to bid on items
you may want to designate a bidder for you and arrange a signal to tell them
when to bid.
You may offer paddle specials to your guests, but they MUST present a coupon to get the paddle special (paddle sales go directly back to you to offset the hall fee, so you can do what you want, but we need to know in advance what you are doing so that the paddle sellers know who is doing what. If you choose to run a paddle special (and you do NOT have to), I would suggest that you do something like buy two paddles for $5 and get the third paddle free. The more paddles we have out in the audience the better for bidding. Guests may choose how many paddles to bid on an item (if they have three, they do not have to bid all three, but having three gives them the option to bid all three on an item they really want). You may offer gift certificates for product as an auction item. I’d suggest limiting these to no more than 1 or 2 since people love to leave with product in their hands. Positions that we will be staffing during the evening will be (ALL vendors are expected to work during the actual auction): Before bidding positions:
During the Auction:
After the Auction We will need cleanup help. Clearing trash from the tables, sorting catalogs to return to the vendors and breaking down the concessions. It shouldn’t take more than ½ hour to clean up if everyone helps. Please let me know if you have any other questions! I’m getting excited – it will be lots of fun!! Registration page follows, so scroll down! How to register:
Contact Laura Harlow with your intention to participate. Email ivykeep@msn.com or laura@marylandmommy.com, via facebook or through MarylandMommy.com.
Provide your vendor information – your name, your MM screen name (if you have one), your email, your phone number and your company name.
VENDOR COMPANY: ______________________________________________________________
VENDOR NAME: _________________________________________________________________
ADDRESS: ______________________________________________________________________
Home Phone: __________________________ Cell Phone: _____________________________
Website: ________________________________________________________________________
May we link to your website on our Quarter auction page: ___________ (YES / NO – if your company prohibits online advertising, you can link an email address)
Email Address: _____________________________________________________________________
Are you a member of Maryland Mommy? ________ Screen Name? _____________________
Email your vendor ad to ivykeep@msn.com. Please make sure that it will easily fit into a 4”x3” space. You can send a pdf, jpg, gif or word document, but do NOT send a 8”x11” ad.
Submit registration payment $20 Payment may be made out and mailed to me at Laura Harlow, 810 Windy Knl, Sykesville, MD 21784 or sent via paypal to laura@marylandmommy.com (Please choose the PERSONAL tab and use bank transfer or paypal balance when transferring funds via paypal or add a $1 to your fee (to cover PP fees)). By submitting your payment, you are agreeing to our guidelines and policies. |
