Discovery Toys Educational Consultant Info

Make Those Service Calls!

2005-01-17T04:08:00.000-08:00

This is a great time of year to make service calls to Day Care organizations and even local libraries! Our products are guaranteed for life - and as a result, no receipt is required for replacement when a product is broken.

Get out the phone book and work through every Day Care, public library, hospital, or anywhere that would have toys that are used heavily on a regular basis. Take an hour a day to do this until you are done. The opener would go something like this:

Hi! This is April Wood, a local consultant with Discovery Toys, and I'm just making a service call to see if you have any Discovery Toys products which are damaged or broken that we can replace for free for you.

Hello, this is [your name], a local manager with Discovery Toys, and I am doing service calls to Day Cares in our area to see if you need any free replacements for damaged or broken Discovery Toys products.

This is a GREAT way to get your foot in the door and build a relationship. You don't have to sell anything on that first call at all, just connect and service. You might be surprised at how many of them have our products.

If they do have Discovery Toys products that are in need of replacement, you might consider going on sight to review them and make a full list. While it's not necessary to pick up the damaged or broken items, it is not a bad idea to do so as it gives you that face to face connection you might not otherwise have if you simply ship the replacement products to them.

Eventually, assuming they don't already have a Discovery Toys consultant they work with regularly, you want them to think of you when they consider purchasing new products. Give them a business card, ask if you can put them on your mailing list for sale items, maybe even discuss fund raisers!

Since Day Cares spend a good amount of their budget on toys, it only makes sense that they would buy products with a lifetime guarantee. Eventually they can reduce their budget as year by year they replace the cheapy toys with the quality Discovery Toys products.

My New Site is posted!

2004-12-06T05:40:00.000-08:00

My new website is posted! Check it out here:
Teach With Toys

Or jump directly to one of these topics:
Discovery Toys Fundraisers
Discovery Toys Read-a-thons
Discovery Toys Toyraisers
Information for Day Care Organizations
Hosting a Discovery Toys Party (online or catalog party)
Joining Discovery Toys

Or simply pop on over and sign my guestbook!!

Hope to see you there!

April

Discovery Toys Party Favor Ideas

2004-11-29T04:42:00.000-08:00

hat tip: Ashley McClure

Wondercolors project ($3.37 each)
Progressive Puzzle ($1.11 each)
Flip Flop Faces, 1 face & beanbag ($2.67 each)
Busy Bugs Critters ($.42 each)
Good Catch Nubby Ball ($8.99 each)
Opposite Pairs Puzzles ($.67 each)
Net catch, 1 net and 1 ball ($8.99)

WPVI.com: The Great American Toy Test

2004-11-27T14:11:00.000-08:00

The Great American Toy Test

In the story is a link to the video consumer report on the Great American Toy Test, featuring several Discovery Toys products.

iParenting Media Awards - Winners

2004-11-22T12:04:00.000-08:00

iParenting Media Awards - Winners

More winning products from Discovery Toys. The iParenting site includes the following:

Bears, Boats and Butterflies
Curly & Pals
Fire Hose Hero
I Can Write
Net Catch
Tot Rock
Tug-A-Bug
Wacky Wilderness

Christmas Toys Aimed at Needy

2004-11-18T18:04:00.000-08:00

Link to Full article.

This is an interesting approach. Great idea Laurel! This is a great way to get involved in the community, do something positive, and at the same time get your name out there.

Plug those Awards!

2004-11-17T07:53:00.000-08:00

All of these product awards we are winning again this year are great! (See my other blog, http://www.teachwithtoys.com for some examples). Don't forget to use them to reinforce the message that may seem obvious to you (since you're playing with and selling the products every day), that these toys are AWESOME!

They're educational, they're fun, and they're guaranteed for life. Convey this excitement to your customers, reinforce it with the award winners, and your Discovery Toys home business will continue to grow!

And as always, I'm here to help you out with ideas for generating leads or dealing with the mechanics of running a Discovery Toys fundraiser, or even just entering an order!

Help Wanted - Binghamton and Cincinnati

2004-11-16T17:14:00.000-08:00

I just posted a couple of things at iVillage.com mentioning that I have a couple of fundraisers (one in Cincinnati, OH and one in Binghamton, NY) which I would be willing to hand off to someone closer if they joined under me as a new Educational Consultant.

They look like they will be annual, and I have all of the paperwork, forms, etc and would help get you up and running.

Email me or call if you want more info on this opportunity in Binghamton, NY or Cincinnati, OH as a great way to jump start a Discovery Toys business.

Binghamton, NY Discovery Toys Opportunity

Cincinnati Ohio Discovery Toys Opportunity

Yorktown Indiana Library

2004-11-16T15:29:00.000-08:00

The Yorktown Library is collecting the money from their Read-a-thon - due tomorrow. We'll see how it went!

The idea was to have a "win-win-win" (love the buzzwords...) The children participating were encouraged to read (win!), they are involved in their community (win!), and they will raise funds to purchase educational, life time guaranteed Discovery Toys products for children who may not have anything this holiday season (win!).

Tax on Shipping?

2004-11-16T03:59:00.000-08:00

I have found that one of the most confusing items of all time is the fact that many states charge tax on shipping.

If you are holding a fundraiser or read-a-thon, be sure to check the laws in the state before you make up all of the packets which describe how to calculate the tax and shipping.

As an example, Ohio changed their law effective August 1, 2003. It is discussed here.

Under prior law, separately stated delivery charges were not included in the definition of the "price" of a sale. As part of the tax reform and revenue package in H.B. 95, the Ohio General Assembly included "delivery charges" in the definition of "price." As a result, for sales made after August 1, 2003, where the vendor makes a taxable sale to a consumer and charges the consumer a delivery charge, as defined in R.C. 5739.01(H)(1)(a)(iv), that charge is part of the taxable price of the sale.

The best place to find this is on the Educational Consultant Business Tools on the Discovery Toys ECO website. You can jump straight here if you are logged on.

How to Get the Intro Kit at No Cost!

2004-11-15T17:44:00.000-08:00

Here is an awesome way to get a new recruit off to a great start. It may seem a bit confusing at first, so bear with me as I explain, but it is the way to get started.

Have them host their own party before they sign up. They should target a $500 party, which translates into about $90 in free product. But rather than enter the party under your EC#, the new recruit signs up (for the $25 deposit, or the full $149 + ship + tax) and then enters the party under their own (newly assigned) EC#. And when they do so, do not take any free product, rather simply reduce the PSV of the order. They end up earning roughly $70 (adjusted free product value), plus the profit on the sale itself (25% of the PSV, which ends up being $350ish), roughly $85. In this way, they have just earned $155 toward their $149 kit, so it costs them virtually nothing (other than a bit of the tax and shipping).

If you want to work through the math on this, or if you happened to be reading this and want to sign up as a consultant this way, please feel free to drop me a line at aprilwood@discoverytoyslink.com.

Join Before December!

2004-11-15T17:16:00.000-08:00

In addition to this being the hottest time of the year to become a consultant with Discovery Toys, the company has added the extra incentive of only requiring an initial $25 deposit on the intro kit!

The kit is $149 (plus tax and shipping) and is a $350 retail value.

For details on what is included, click here.

Off to Ohio, then New York

2004-11-15T08:27:00.000-08:00

I'm off to Ohio this morning for a Discovery Toys ® fundraiser at Adonai Fine Arts Center, in Ashland. I'll be there with a display for a couple of days, passing out packets, order forms, etc, and then it's on to New York. My husband's family lives in north eastern Pennsylvania, and I will doing a fundraiser at the Discovery Center in Binghamton, NY, mixing business with pleasure.

If any other Educational Consultants would like copies of the paperwork I'm using, let me know and I'll forward them on to you and hopefully save you a bunch of time. Next post will probably be between bites of turkey!

Up and Running!

2004-11-15T08:03:00.000-08:00

Ok, it's about time I got to this. I probably won't focus too much on this site until the beginning of 2005, but wanted to get started and ready to roll.

I plan to use this site as a resource for Educational Consultants in my organization. I will probably put documents up here that you can use (or can pass links to an interested organization) for Discovery Toys fundraisers or read-a-thons. We'll see how the content of the site shapes itself as the need of you, the readers, dictates.

Drop me a line of you have anything specific you would like to see here!