For me, February means two things:
1) It’s the month of love and
2) there is 1 less month of winter to worry about. and as of today 8 weeks left in Miami! I never did hear…did the ground hog see his shadow or not?
February being the month of love is more relevant to our discussion in this letter because we know that it takes love to be successful in sales. Love what you sell, Love who you sell it for and love who you sell it too! Speaking of which, how often do you show your customers the love? Do you show them appreciation for your success? After all, if they weren’t customers, you wouldn’t be in business! This month show them some love, send them a thank you card, some chocolate, a small gift. StarbucksTM cards work well because they mail easily and have an air of luxury about them. Not everyone will pay $5 of their own money for a coffee but they gladly appreciate you if you are buying! Make your appreciation fun, do something unusual. Remember, that if you want to make sales, you need to make people feel special AND you need to stand out from your competition. So ask yourself…what is my competition unwilling to do? AND what will make my customer feel special? Some great sources of unusual and highly appreciated food gifts are www.elenis.com for gourmet cookies; www.harryanddavid.com; for gourmet food in general, www.omahasteaks.com for delicious grade AAA steaks and beef products; www.tiffanys.comfor luxury items that are surprisingly reasonable ($40 and up for gifts that are wrapped and delivered FedEx to your unsuspecting and now VERY HAPPY customer). Your choices are endless my advice is to just do something! Anything that shows appreciation is a good thing. If you missed valentines day use St Patrick’s day in March as an excuse to celebrate with your customers. Don’t like “holiday marketing? (I’m not sure why you wouldn’t but that a whole other discussion…) then just thank them and appreciate them for no reason at various times during the year.
An appreciated customer spends more!
Colleen
Yes – the crazy animal saw his shadow!
Everyone is so busy…but I am trying to reconnect with my partners so that we can continue the “friendly referral” network we have set up for business!