IN TIP #7, we started in on the text portion of your America’s Coolest Stores contest entry. This time, we’ll finish the rest of those sections.
Our 2019 entry form allows you to select three or more of eight questions. We’re trying to get to know your business as well as we can without setting foot in it, so we’re looking for specifics.
Important note: Make sure you select the checkboxes for the questions you wish to answer. Once you do, the text boxes for those responses will appear. (See sample below.)
Here are the questions:
Provide three fun facts about your business.
This one seems to put people on the spot. Try these questions to jog your brain? Is there anything odd about your building, your decor, or the vendors you used to design your space? Are you or any of your staff accomplished in any unusual ways (and has it ever helped your business)? Have you ever held any especially awesome events or participated in any neat activities? Do you have any noteworthy clients? Is your city, town, or locale remarkable in any way (and does that tie into your business at all)? Do you have any unique business practices? Do you have any fun, quirky traditions among staff?
What’s cool about your staff? What cool things do you do for them?
Do you have staff members with any exceptional talents or abilities? Do you train your staff or encourage them to seek out learning opportunities?
What’s cool about your digital presence? (Including website, social media, online ordering, texting, etc.)
Everyone has a website anymore; we’re looking for what makes yours — and your social media — different from other businesses. Tell us about online initiatives that have worked for you.
What’s cool about your marketing?
In the age of the internet, marketing can mean everything from a Yellow Pages ad — which is so old, it’s new again — to radio, to social media. Let us know what has really worked for you.
What’s cool about your community presence?
The coolest businesses are often integral parts of their communities. Let us know what sorts of community outreach you do, even if it may not be jewelry-related.
What’s cool about the operational or structural part of your business?
Here’s a potentially wonky question. We’ve heard of some businesses that have novel pay or commission structures, that provide insurance even to part-time employees, that hire high school kids seasonally, that go high-tech when it comes to inventory, that build sustainability into all their business practices. Here’s you chance to fill us in on what might be boring minutiae to anyone but us here at INSTORE!
What’s cool about your customer experience?
We’re not just talking friendly service with a smile or walking a customer out to their car with an umbrella in the rain. Tell us what you do to make your customers want to keep coming back.
What’s one out-of-the-box idea you have implemented in the past year?
This could be a sales event, a promotion or ad campaign, a business policy, a training push, a sweet new product or service you’ve introduced. And remember: We value success, but we also admire courage. Maybe you tried something and it was a bust. That’s OK. If it’s sufficiently out of the ordinary, we’d love to hear about it — and why you think it didn’t work, and what you’d do differently if you try it again.
One final piece of advice: As you’re figuring out these answers, email the questions to your staff and ask for their input. This is the sort of project that is made to be crowdsourced.
That should just about bring your contest entry to a close. Next time we’ll go over what happens from here on out. As ever, if you’ve got questions, concerns, or suggestions, leave them in the comments below or email us at coolstores@instoremag.com.