Calling All Shoe-aholics

I'm a shoe-aholic. It's true. My husband says if I bring home anymore shoes we'll have to build an addition onto our house. Okay, it's not really that bad, but I do love shoes.

So think about this: Shoe shopping at a party with your girlfriends! Could it get much better than that? Margaux Jordon took this idea and launched a successful business -- Footprints International, a company based in Orange County California that sells shoes through home parties. I met Margaux at a publicity summit in New York City and when I heard about her business I had to know more.

Margaux explained that she had, and has, a very large vision for her company. She wants women all across the country to be able to earn money by having fun and doing something they love to do. It is a company built on a true team spirit with women supporting other women. To date, Footprints International has 30 representatives in 11 states.

"I knew that bringing fashionable fun shoes into the living rooms of women would be a great business idea, and it has been. We are all so busy today with so many commitments and obligations that shopping even for shoes can be difficult to squeeze in. But being invited into the home of one or your friends and being able to buy shoes together – just too much fun!," she explained.

Earlier this week, I received an email from Margaux announcing a contest she's sponsoring all about shoes. By submitting a 200-word essay about why you adore your shoes, you have the opportunity to win a new pair of shoes every month for a year. Second and third place winners receive six and three pairs of shoes respectively. Every single entrant gets a 20 percent discount off a shoe purchase from Footprints. Click here to enter the contest. The deadline is May 1, 2008. I wonder how many times I can enter?

By the way, the practice of direct selling dates back thousands of years. Direct selling is the sale of consumer products or services, person-to-person, away from a fixed retail location. As a result, it requires less capital to expand your business reach. According to the Direct Selling Association's (DSA), annual industry sales in 2006 increased to $29.7 billion dollars and the industry's ten-year growth rate is almost 80 percent. There are about 14 million Americans who work in this industry, and over 80 percent are women. For more information about this industry, visit the Direct Selling Association's web site. Plus, you can read more about other women-owned businesses that are succeeding through direct selling growth strategies in my book The Girls' Guide to Building a Million Dollar Business.