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Mary Kay consultations, Tupperware parties--God bless 'em.Some multilevel marketing companies will always have a high kitschrating. (C'mon--mini Tupperware bowls on a key chain?) Butthanks to Dottie Gruhler's Web-based party venue, The PartyProject, direct selling can move out of the '50s and into thefuture.
The 33-year-old Webmaster of an online women's community andan affiliate program partner is no stranger to how average Joes andJanes use the Internet. As a member of Mom's Network Exchange(thepartyproject.com's host server), Gruhler noticed anincreasing number of women offering catalogs or touting waresonline. "They were attempting to expand their businesses butdidn't exactly have the avenue to do it," she says."That's how [The Party Project] came to be: to give them aplace to show their products, have an online order form and notjust give people a catalog to look at but the [chance] to shop andtalk to the seller."
Luckily, Gruhler's knack for coding and her Frederick,Maryland, home computer let her provide a solution for less than$500 in start-up costs. Fifty dollars each month go to chattechnology provider ChatSpace (look, Ma--free plug), which hadGruhler's service up and running less than 24 hours after shefirst e-mailed for information last November. With ChatSpace'shelp, Gruhler can offer sales party hosts a framed environment,with a chat on one side and pictures of products on the other, for$25.99. Options are extensive: There's music, party games with"door prizes," ordering capabilities--you name it.
The events aren't limited to business pitch-parties, either:Gruhler now offers birthday party, baby shower and business meetingpackages so friends and colleagues can congregate online. The bestpart: Everyone involved can attend in pajamas if so desired. So farjust a part-time affair for Gruhler and partner Lori Callen, 36,The Party Project should bring in $50,000 this year.
Booting Up
Dale Tweedy's clients know he's not blowing hot air whenhe promises to make their businesses rise to a more efficient andprofitable occasion. The 36-year-old owner of System 5 TechnologiesInc. in Lake Norman, North Carolina, not only garners respect withhis reputable background, but also advances his business with heartand soul.
"[Entrepreneurship] adds a dimension of stress, especiallywhen you have [12] employees whose families depend on you to makethe right decisions," says Tweedy of running his $10 millioncompany, which streamlines the IT infrastructure of clients rangingfrom small businesses to Fortune 500 companies using solutions fromthe likes of Oracle and Hewlett-Packard.
Sales have nearly doubled since last year--a phenomenon that canbe attributed mostly to Tweedy's personal drive. Some examples:He "flung steel" at a mill post-high school to attendcollege at night. To afford better schooling, he joined the Army at19 as a paratrooper, staying until age 23, when he startedattending college full time. After graduating (in three years andfour months), Tweedy became an engineer. But "sitting behind acomputer 10 hours a day doing calculus problems" wasn'tdoing it for him. He took jobs selling software and hardware untilAugust 1995, when he founded System 5 in the room over his garage(with cat Lucky by his side).
The start-up story makes you want to shake this guy's handeven more: "I second-mortgaged my house and [used] 14 creditcards. So I probably started with about $60,000," Tweedyexplains.
System 5's endurance--even during first-year dealings withleery vendors and banks--has changed everything. "They'rechasing me now," jokes Tweedy. With four additional regionaloffices throughout the South, a growth spurt is the only thing leftto endure.
Contact Sources
The Party Project,http://www.thepartyproject.com
System 5 Technologies Inc., (704) 895-3456, dtweedy@s5t.com
