Review of Jamie At Home

Multi-level-marketing party plan,
Jamie Oliver kitchen and dinnerware products

This is one of a few examples of Business Opportunity Watch Reviews which are freely available for everyone to read on the public section of the website. The reason for making a small sample of the reviews freely available is to help you to decide if you want to join, and also to communicate some matters of general interest arising in the case of some of the reviews. All the other reviews are available only to members.

Review from Business Opportunity Watch Reviews
January 2010 Issue 35

JAMIE AT HOME
Jamie at Home Ltd
19-21 Nile Street
London
N1 7LL
www.jamieathome.com
Tel: 0844 871 2010

- Extract from sales copy
- Review
- Your feedback

Extract from sales copy

Join me, earn money and have fun

"I can't believe what I've achieved in just a few short months. The additional income from my Jamie at Home business has meant we've managed to pay off our debts and book our first ever family holiday to Turkey." Katie Jones who joined Jamie at Home in March 2009 and now has 10 people in her team.

Want to share in Jamie Oliver's success, reap the rewards and become a Consultant?

What's in it for me?

Share in Jamie's passion selling his stunning designer-led Jme collection of kitchen and dinnerware and you'll receive 20% commission on all products sold at your party, plus additional bonuses and incentives with the opportunity to celebrate your success with Jamie Oliver himself! Work flexible hours to suit you and you can make it a lucrative career or just earn some extra cash on the side - it's completely your choice.

What we'll give you

For just £100 (plus £15 Public Liability Insurance), you'll receive a starter kit containing £400 worth of gorgeous Jme and Scent & Savour products. You'll receive support and formal training by the bucket load and will have a network of other Consultants in your team cheering you along every step of the way.

Review:

With the big advantage of the brand name of ever-popular celebrity chef Jamie Oliver, Jamie at Home sounds like a sure-fire opportunity to earn money from home with a flexible, part-time business selling kitchen and dinnerware products at home parties via party plan.

Jamie At Home is a social way of earning money which would be particularly attractive to young mothers who miss the contact with a lot of different people which they had whilst working, and who can organise their business to fit around their domestic commitments.

However, although most of the people who have joined the Jamie At Home gang are 25-40 year old women, with or without children, the opportunity is also appealing to men who like cooking. And it has to be remembered that, historically, a number of the high-flyers in top network marketing companies selling perfumes and jewellery have been men.

And Jamie At Home is a good opportunity for the recession because it has reasonably-priced products (60% of them cost under £25) and not only are people looking for ways to earn extra money but they are also more inclined to entertain at home instead of the more expensive option of eating out.

As Jamie Oliver himself said when launching his business, "Jamie At Home is all about empowering people to start their own small businesses with a bit of help. I looked at all those Woolies employees who lost their jobs before Christmas and I saw intelligent, capable people with a lot to offer. Those are the sorts of people that Jamie at Home can work with."

The Jamie At Home business has a multi-level marketing structure, so that there is an enhanced earnings potential - you can earn commission not only on the products that you sell yourself, but also on the products sold by members of your team when you recruit people.

Jamie At Home only costs £100 to start, plus £15 public liability insurance, and for that you receive products with a retail value of £400.

With all these advantages, did we find any problems with the Jamie At Home opportunity?

Firstly, let's look at what's needed to succeed with any party plan. A fundamental requirement is that it's vital that you share the company's values and you have a strong belief in the products. So if you share Jamie Oliver's family values and relaxed approach to eating, entertaining and enjoying life and if you are keen on his products, could this be the ideal part-time opportunity for you?

To earn money with any party plan opportunity, you clearly need to enjoy meeting people, and you also need to be well-organised and to have patience and persistence. Sustained effort with the business is required, and you should be prepared to put in three months of hard work before you start to see real rewards. Party plan is like a ripple effect: you need to hold at least one party a week to keep the ripples going so that your business keeps moving forward.

Your belief in the products is a must, because your enthusiasm will be infectious and will be crucial to building your team.

The key is to successful party plan is to hold regular parties and to encourage people attending your parties to go on to hold their own parties.

Your guests are more likely to be keen to hold their own parties if your parties are fun, lively and profitable for the hostess, so make sure that you do a nice "special ceremony" presentation of the gift to the hostess, and let everyone know how much money was taken at the party.

Most party plan companies have their own specific format for running parties, and no doubt Jamie At Home has such a format. To give you an general idea, however, most party planning goes like this:

Firstly, you need to ensure that you invite plenty of people - around twenty - since there will always be some no-shows. The traditional advice is to make a list of everyone you know and then, for your first party, invite the people you know best. Ask them to bring a friend.

Make sure that you telephone your guests a couple of days before the party to remind them.

On the day of the party, get your merchandise display attractively set up beforehand on a well-lit table and make sure that the room itself is well-lit.

It's important to note that a large display of goods is essential to achieve good sales. Most experts say that it's best to have at least forty items. Some of these items will be our best sellers and others will hardly achieve any sales at all. Nevertheless, do not cut down your display by getting rid of the least popular items else you will find that your overall sales decrease. People like to have a good range of items to choose from, and it helps them to make their choice if there are some items they can readily dismiss.

Keep it simple. Serve coffee, tea, soft drinks and nibbles, but nothing complicated else it could discourage other potential hostesses.

Allow about half an hour initially for greetings and getting acquainted so that you and the guests can get to know each other. You then do a presentation of your merchandise which would normally last about twenty minutes, in which you describe the items and show how to use them. You can then give your guests about ten or fifteen minutes to personally inspect the items, during which time you can mingle to answer questions etc.

Next comes writing the orders, which would normally last about fifteen minutes.

Don't let the party go on for two long - only about two hours. Longer parties do not achieve higher sales, and could discourage other potential hostesses from volunteering to hold a party themselves.

Towards the end of the party, when everyone has seen the presentation and the products, you need to do a brief presentation to say that you are looking for people to host a party and also for people to become Consultants. Don't say anything complicated or lengthy because people don't want to know your life story. If applicable, something would do nicely along the lines of how you were never intending to join a party plan company because it didn't seem like a proper job to you and you weren't sure if you could earn enough money to make it worthwhile, and then go on to talk briefly about the difference it has made to your finances and your life and how it has fitted in with your family life. (Obviously, in the early days it will be your upline who does this presentation rather than yourself.)

You should have some business information that you can hand out to people who are interested, and make sure that you have their contact details.

In due course, you could get together with local agents from other (non-competing) party plan companies to have a joint evening, so that they can access your customer network and you can access theirs.

Other marketing ideas include holding a stall at fairs and fetes and organising a charity evening in your local pub or hotel. Try to have some way of gathering the contact details of visitors, such as a prize draw slip. Keep in touch with your customers with regular newsletters.

That's the end of the general information on Party Plan, and now back to Jamie At Home. If you host a Jamie At Home party then you receive a commission of 15% of the products sold at your party, plus extra incentives. As a consultant, you receive 20% on sales made at parties you've organised plus - and this is where the real money is to be made - if you have recruited people into your team then you receive override commissions on sales made at parties organised by members of your team.

The Jamie At Home products are desirable and reasonably-priced. Most people would see several items they would like to add to their kitchens, such as oak platters, boards and bowls, table linen in white and pastel prints and various equipment for the kitchen and for windowsill horticulture. Examples of prices are £25 for a set of four porcelain designer mugs, a set of napkins for £15 and a chopper and an oak board for £22.

If you think you might be interested in joining Jamie at Home, then the best approach would be to attend a Jamie At Home party and then hold a party of your own as a hostess. Make sure that you invite some friends who can be relied upon to give an honest opinion. That way, you would have first hand knowledge of what it entails to hold parties, and - more importantly - first hand knowledge of how interested the guests were in buying the Jamie At Home products.

Essentially, to host a party all you have to do is to provide the venue and the guests.

A Jamie At Home party is quite different to the Pampered Chef parties (reviewed in BOW November 2008) where the equipment is used for cookery demonstrations. Although there is a "Jamie Special" recipe each month which the host or hostess can make if they want to, the idea is that it is prepared in advance to serve to guests.

And if you want to go on to become a Consultant then Jamie At Home provides full training.

Jamie At Home was launched in March 2009 and in that short time it's had resignations from two directors. A new managing director - Kim Claxton - joined on 1st January this year, to replace the previous Jamie At HOme MD who was a media lawyer. Kim has had 22 years' experience in direct sales and was previously one of the top 50 recruiters for Virgin Vie. She's been promoted from her previous position as Head of Sales at Jamie At Home.

As for the drawbacks which I see with Jamie At Home, I've written to the company about them to invite their response, as follows:

Business opportunities to which I can give a good review are in the minority, and when I came across Jamie At Home I was confident it would be one of them. Sadly, having looked into it, it seems unlikely that this will be the case for the following reasons:

1. Competition from jamieoliver.com

A major problem I see is that the company website at www.jamieoliver.com is operating in competition with the Jamie At Home consultants because it's selling the same items e.g. the Terracotta range, the Serve With Style range and the Scent & Savour range. Is this right?

I was very surprised to see this, because it's normally an essential feature of a party plan operation that the products sold are uniquely available via the consultants. This is important for boosting party plan sales because the products then have a genuine exclusivity which increases their value in the eyes of purchasers.

Not only that, but it seems to me that the company is creaming off some sales from its consultants because customers who have been introduced to Jamie Oliver products by a consultant can then bypass the consultant by ordering online at jamieoliver.com. This is a real danger because there is free delivery for orders over £35.

How can this be when Jamie Oliver said, "Jamie At Home is all about empowering people to start their own small businesses with a bit of help"?

2. The products

A minority of the Jamie At Home products are consumable - only the Scent & Savour range, which is not central to the eating and entertaining theme.

Because most of the products which guests buy at parties don't need to be regularly replaced, Jamie At Home consultants are missing out on the momentum which sales of consumables would give to their businesses.

Furthermore, although the Jamie At Home products are very attractive - the kinds of products most people would like to have in their kitchens - they don't have the "special magic" air which would give a real wow to parties.

To solve both these problems, what about introducing a special range of unique Jamie At Home consumables - sauces, vinaigrettes, chocolate, jam, honey, tea etc - made highly prized because of a special ingredient. Saffron would be ideal since it's uncommon, high-priced, rich in health-giving properties and shrouded in legend since Egyptian times - and, as you probably know, it's reputed to spice up your love life.

3. Jamie DVDs

I read that "At the start of each party a DVD is played which Jamie made himself. He talks about the products and explains the thinking behind the Jme Collection."

Surely, even the most ardent Jamie-fan consultant would have had enough of this DVD after about the third playing? And do guests really go to a party expecting to watch a video of someone they can frequently see on their TV at home?

Wouldn't it would be much better to let the consultants hold the floor throughout?

A report at the end of November 2009 said that Jamie At Home had over 2000 consultants and 16,000 parties held. Although these figures sound quite good, if you assume that the number of consultants has grown steadily by 250 a month from zero in March 2009 to 2,000 in November 2009 then that works out at 30,000 consultant-months (i.e. like man-hours) so that means that on average only half the consultants are holding a party each month - or, more likely, quite a few of them hold a few parties initially and then stop. (Figures incorrect - see below.)

With its major marketing advantage and its resouces, Jamie At Home should have a much better retention rate than this. Hopefully, these suggestions might help to spark some new ideas - or ask the consultants!

John Jackson, chairman of Jamie At Home has replied as follows:

You make a lot of statements in your letter, without having full knowledge of the Jamie at Home business. Let me see if I can answer your concerns.

1. Competition from jamieoliver.com

The site comes under the Managing Director of Jamie at Home and is not in direct competition with the Consultants. It is a purchasing channel for those who want to shop on-line, and promotions on the site are not in competition with the Consultants - 96% of all Jamie at Home sales go through the Consultant base. We are also working on systems that will allow Consultants to have their own 'personal websites'. The Consultants are fully aware that we do not promote jamieoliver.com as competition to the Consultants.

If we wanted to we could increase the website sales tenfold, but we fully understand the dynamics and the motivation of Consultants in Party Plan selling. For your information, if you had cared to research further. Consultants orders are delivered free. A unique feature of Jamie at Home.

We stand by Jamie's statement that "Jamie at Home is all about empowering people to start their own small businesses" and we are proud of that statement. The commission Consultants earn at parties, is the amount of money they receive in their bank accounts. Unlike most other Party Plan companies, we ensure their out of pocket expenses are kept to an absolute minimum. Hence why we pay for all their deliveries.

2. The Products

Once again your opinion is incorrect. We are the fastest growing Party Plan company in the UK, with a higher spend per customer and a higher class of sales.

If you understand Direct Selling, as you think you do, you would realise that the selling prices for the consumables you highlight, would not give sufficient gross margin to allow us to pay the commissions that our Consultants and Mangers receive. We do not want to sell high price consumable products.

3. Jamie DVD's

We do let Consultants hold the floor. The majority of Consultants have the DVD's, and open their party by playing part of the DVD and then use the DVD to supplement their talk.

Can I ask how many Jamie at Home parties you have been to, or how many Jamie at Home Consultants have you spoken to? Or,is your research based on a few opinions, plus yours?

Your calculations are incorrect. Using your calculation of a steady growth of 250 per month for 8 months, would equate to 9,000 Consultant months not 30,000 as you state. Our parties per Consultant is once again higher than the industry average. We are very happy with the number of parties per month per Consultant. Plus our retention level of Consultants is very high.

A lot of people at Jamie at Home come from a Party Plan background and are very happy with the product offer, the commission plan, the policy of free delivery and the involvement of Jamie Oliver.

The business is performing well over budget, and in the year ahead we will achieve a minimum of 150% increase over 2009. Not bad in a bleak economic climate.

Yes we are proud of the statement Jamie has made "Jamie at Home is all about empowering people to start their own small businesses with a bit of help".

Write to me again in January 2011 and I will be quite happy to demonstrate our success to you and show that we have a very sustainable business allowing our Consultant base to build good businesses.

We also talk to our Manager and Consultant network on a regular basis - and listen to them!

Apologies for my incorrect figure. John Jackson's figure of 9,000 consultant months is correct, so with 16,000 parties held this means that on average Jamie At Home consultants are holding slightly less than two parties a month, which is a much more respectable average.

As for the lack of any consumable products in the Jamie At Home range, the company says that "We do not want to sell high price consumable products". The type of consumable products I had in mind, as indicated in my letter, was consumable products which contain something high cost, high value and special - like the saffron that I mentioned. With attractive, gift-type presentation, surely an out-of-the-ordinary high-value ingredient with unique properties should allow a decent mark-up?

Affordable "treats" sell well in a recession - witness the robust sales of chocolate and lipstick for example.

Consumables are good for party plan not only because they offer good potential for repeat sales, but also because some people are reluctant to buy non-consumables which take up their limited drawer and cupboard space. Also, particularly in these difficult economic times, some people may be put off going to a party where only non-consumable kitchen and dinnerware is sold because what they've got already is perfectly serviceable and if they bought new items it would mean ditching their existing stuff.

Overall, I'm rating Jamie At Home at six out of ten because, although the pull of the Jamie Oliver name is a very strong advantage, it doesn't have a central dining-themed range of consumables and I see the competition from the jamieoliver.com website as a real problem.

The fact that the company says that "The site comes under the Managing Director of Jamie at Home and is not in direct competition with the Consultants" and "we do not promote jamieoliver.com as competition to the Consultants" doesn't remove this problem because you have to look at it from the consumer's point of view. The consumer neither knows nor cares which Managing Director a web site comes under nor whether a site is or is not promoted as competition to a party plan operation.

A consumer who wants to buy products will simply choose the easiest route, provided it doesn't cost them any more. Keying in the Jamie Oliver name into Google and landing on the company's website at the top of page one of Google (with its offer of free delivery for orders over £35) is an easy route.

For party plan, it's important that not only should the products themselves be special or unique, but their availability needs to be unique, too: they should only be available via party plan and via party plan consultants. This is important for two reasons.

Firstly, it boosts party plan sales because the products then have a genuine, strong air of exclusivity which increases their value in the eyes of purchasers.

Secondly, party planners stand to lose some commission if the products they sell are easily available elsewhere. The scenario then is that customers who've been introduced to the company by the party planner can buy their further stocks elsewhere so that the party planner risks losing out on the commission from repeat orders.

It's human nature that customers will tend to buy from the source that's easiest for them. A corporate online shop is a potential source of competition for party planners. Some companies are very good about this and they effectively remove themselves from competition by not taking orders on the company site and instead directing site visitors towards their local consultant.

Other companies, as Jamie Oliver says they are going to do, try to partially solve the problem by giving each of their consultants a website. However, in this case, consultants will still only receive commission if their customers are painstaking enough to enter the consultant's particular website address instead of simply going to Google and keying in the company's name to land on the company's main site.

Canny consultants will of course try their best to make sure that their names and their websites remain fresh in their customers' minds by sending out a monthly newsletter or equivalent. Even then, though, they're going to lose repeat business from busy customers who prefer to order by post rather than ordering through a consultant who then comes knocking at the door to make a delivery and you feel obliged to invite her in. This problem is increased if the company's web site offers free postage on orders over a fairly low threshold amount.

For the company, party planning is a great way of bringing them new customers at low cost. But unless there's a structure to ensure that repeat purchases by these customers are credited to party planners for commission purposes, then it's not so easy for party planners to build up a business in the longer term.

However, if you're only looking for a party plan opportunity for a short timescale, then any problem of competition from the company might not be a real issue for you.

If Jamie at Home had exclusive ranges for its party planners - products which were not sold anywhere else - then I would have rated it eight out of ten. If it had an exclusive range of consumable food products, too, I would have rated it nine.

As it is, I can only give Jamie at Home six out of ten, although that's a decent mark by BOW standards.

However, readers don't need to decide whether or not they agree with my analysis. A massive advantage of choosing a party plan opportunity (as opposed to other types of home business opportunities) is that you can see the business in action before you decide if you want to join it. All you need to do is attend a couple of Jamie At Home parties and hold one of your own - you'll soon find out whether you feel the real passion for Jamie Oliver products which is required for you to achieve good sales. And you'll be able to judge for yourself how easily the Jamie Oliver products sell to other guests at the parties.

Rating:

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