MERCHANDISING
Freshen Up a Display
Want your cat or dog toys display to look like you have all new, fresh product? “Flip it,” says Toni Shelaske of Healthy Pet Products in Pitssburgh, PA says. Bring toys in back to the front, and move toys in front to the back. And flip products vertically. The “flip it” technique can make older items seem new to regular customers (to your staff too!) catching their attention and helping to make a sale.
MARKETING
Bank on Treats
The Green K9 in Mount Dora, FL, shared this awesome low-cost idea: “We supply our bank with Chicken Chip treats that have our business cards attached to them,” says owner Marni Lewis. “They give them out to their drive-thru customers who have dogs in their cars. New customers come into our store looking for more.” The folks at the bank will love you, because they won’t have to by treats out of their own pockets anymore.
ORGANIZATION
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Launch “Operation Inbox”
Let’s get your inbox organized, with some help from productivity guru Dave Allen. From now on, view your inbox as a repository solely for “Active” tasks, meaning things that need addressing. Everything else should be deleted or viewed as a “Reference” matter (receipts, photos, thank-you notes from customers — and archived; you can find them when you need them). Get this done, and your life will be less stressful, and you’ll get more done. Promise.
MANAGEMENT
Make Little Actions Add Up
Big dreams have their place, but it’s the sum of the little things that get you there, says John Jantsch of Duct Tape Marketing. To ensure you’re focused on the right things — making more sales calls, networking in the community and taking a local reporter out for coffee — Jantsch suggests you create a scorecard with 10 marketing-related actions and rate each one for importance, say five points for attending a local pet rescue meeting and one for writing on your blog. Set a weekly target of 20 points. This should help you stay focused on what’s important.
MARKETING
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Big Logos, Small Results
Are you one of those business owners who is always asking your designer to make your logo bigger? Or to fill that annoying white space with more text? If so, this oldie-but-goodie video will show you EXACTLY what those designers think of you. Note: In case it’s not obvious, this is a sarcastic video. Watch, and you should get the message: ppmag.us/biglogo.
STRATEGY
Stop Being Afraid
For all of you out there who are wondering whether or not you should take that big risk, we give you this quote from author Gaelen Foley: “Leap, and the net will appear.”
SALES
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Create a Memory Game
The most successful salespeople have a knack for remembering people. As a consultant for a major brewing company, author and consultant Marcus Buckingham devised a program to test a critical skill for a good bartender: remembering customers, by face and by their favorite drinks. Bartenders who could remember a total of 100 different customers and their favorite drinks were named members of “The 100 Club,” with a cash prize and a special button to wear on their uniform. There were additional levels, rising up to the world-class “500 Club.” But Buckingham underestimated — eventually, an English bartender surprised everybody by becoming the first member of “The 3,000 Club.” Could you come up with a similar program for your business?
STAFF
Don’t Hire Employees; Hire Talent
Do you think of your staff as “payroll,” “employees,” “human resources” or “talent”? Author Seth Godin thinks you should view them as “talent,” arguing that such an understanding holds the key to success in today’s skills-based business environment. “What if you started acting like the Vice President of Talent? Understand that talent is hard to find and not obvious to manage,” Godin writes on his blog. “Talent is too smart to stay long at a company that wants it to be a cog in a machine. Great companies want and need talent, but they have to work for it.”
