BIRTHDAY WISHES
Send A Card
Here’s an idea from David Geller that you could be doing right now to get last year’s holiday customers into your store again this year. Send birthday cards to the jewelry you sold last year at this time. Write something like: “Happy Birthday, emerald ring. You’re one year old and were created at Smith’s Jewelers. Come in for a free bath and polish in honor of your first birthday. Tell your mom Barbara hello!”
FEELING SATISFIED
Pay For Happiness
There are many different ways to compensate your sales team. But one of the most innovative is the approach taken by the Walser Automotive Group in Hopkins, MN. Sales associates don’t receive straight salaries, and they don’t work on commission. Instead, their pay is based on measured levels of customer satisfaction. Could you work out a similar system for your jewelry store?
BE RIDICULOUS
Word That Works
If your ad copy is sounding old, dull and tired, we’ll give you one a one-word vitamin perscription. “Ridiculously.” Really. Just about everything sounds better when prefaced with the word “ridiculously.” Ridiculously low prices! Ridiculously cool products! Ridiculously great service! Try it. We think you’ll find it … ridiculously effective.
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OUT OF THE OFFICE
Interview Outside
Where do you conduct job interviews? You might get better results doing it outside of your office, says Harvey Mackay, author of the best-selling business book We Got Fired … And It’s the Best Thing That Ever Happened To Us. Says Mackay: “If they are golfers, I’ll play with them; if they are bowlers, I’ll go bowling. If they like the opera, I’ll take them to the opera. I want to see them in a different territory.”
TRANSER STUDENT
Send Staff Out
If you’re a young store and don’t yet have a standout salesperson on your team, a good way to help create one is by sending staff members to other stores to watch their great salespeople in action. Have a relationship a non-competing retailer with great salespeople in your state or region? Write a letter to them, starting with “Hey, I’d like to ask you for a really big favor …”
ACCIDENTS HAPPEN
Test Candidates
Another good job interview idea from Selling Power magazine is to have a little accident. Tip over a trash can, or spill a cup of coffee on your desk. If the job candidate immediately leaps up to help … well, then they have cleared another hurdle in the interview process.
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DISCOUNT CLOTHING
Your Logo Here
If you sell clothing with your store’s logo on it, why not give customers an incentive to wear it? A 10% discount on any purchase made while wearing your store’s shirt will do the trick, says Kelly Mooney, author of The Ten Demandments.
ONE-PERCENT SOLUTION
Know Who to Call
Want a formula for offering charity that will really impact the community in which you live? At Internet software provider Salesforce.com, the company uses the “one percent” formula — one percent of company profits, one percent of company equity, and one percent of employee hours all go to the communities it serves.
TRAIN OF THOUGHT
Don’t Stop Moving
As one year ends, and you start to plan for the next, here’s an inspirational little nugget to consider from Will Rogers: “Even if you’re on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there.”