Hosting your own Product Review Event.

Just to avoid a bit of confusion. I do many things. I'm like most moms...I'm a multi-tasker. And I'm like many moms in another way...I want to stay home with my kids. Mine are still pretty young and I've found a number of things to do to help with the income so I can accomplish this goal.

I started out getting a vendor's license and my husband and I (along with our first-born) would sell miscellaneous antiques and old books at the flea market. Then I added doing childcare for others. Then I got out of the flea market selling and started selling on Ebay. This year I added a dropship business to my mix. While I continue to sell online and do occasional childcare for others I have been teaching myself and learning from others how to do affiliate marketing online.

Affiliate marketing makes sense to me. If you work smart, you won't have to work quite as hard at some point as your work continues without you having to have your hands on it all the time. Its online! Just be confident of the people and products you are promoting. I've been very fortunate to find some very good quality work at home mentors. You'll find them at my website www.HallofFameMoms.com formerly known as Hall of Fame Affiliates.

And now for my talents!... I cook, clean, change diapers, and rearrange our furniture! All while working from home :)

I belong to a Yahoo Group called The Mom Pack (www.mompack.com). Last I heard there were somewhere around 6 or 8,000 plus members. This is a free group to join and its about moms helping moms in business.

I was wanting to start doing product reviews on my blog for other moms or businesses in general so I posted a message to the Mom Pack offering to give some of them some free business exposure to a group of ladies I'd have over to help me review their items plus- put the reviews of their products, pictures and website links in my blog. I had a good response...about 16 interested ladies, plus a coffee company that I found elsewhere that sent me some coffee to sample and review as well.

I emailed alot of my friends, family and acquaintances of my event. I'd recommend doing more word of mouth though. Email isn't always the best communicator. Unfortunately a death in our family occurred and I had to move the original date of the review event to the next month. I also chose to do this event on a Thursday morning while my 4yr old was at preschool. Knowing that many women do work during that time, I knew that my guest count could suffer. So, if possible, I'd recommend a weekend. I did have a few guests and to be honest...it was a relief. I had just had a small speaking engagement the night before and had a lot of prep for that so to be able to relax with a few ladies I've known for awhile was nice.

But, prior to my event- I had posted a picture of each item that was sent to me early one to review along with the websites/contact information. Sort of a "thank you" extra goodie to these ladies for trusting me with their products. I also told everyone that these items would not be returned but would be given away in drawings.

In the end, I had several different items to show and give away at this event and I had some other items that were donated for the Preemie support group I was speaking at as well. During the Product Review Event I made a Tastefully Simple Almond Pound Cake with some variation and served it along with the coffee we were testing. I had each item numbered and as my guests sat around the table they wrote down there thoughts on each product presented.

This week I plan to start sharing these reviews on my Hall of Fame Moms blog. I have the RSS feed on this lens so you can read from here or come visit my website and leave a comment if you'd like.

Below I am leaving you with the websites of the women who were so kind as to send in their products for review. Please check them out and come back here to see what we thought of their products as well.

Thanks for taking time out to read my lens. If you have a moment and are a Squidoo member, would you leave a rating? I thank you so much in advance if you do! Thank you!