Aug
6
Mega Tips for the Mega Sale
Filed Under Organize Your Workspace, Sales-Increasing Strategies | Leave a Comment
This morning you enter your office and find a mega order waiting for you. A new client wants 500 gift baskets made and delivered to a local conference center. How can you complete this order on time, satisfy and client, and ensure that you’re ready for the next big sale?
Many designers turn to high school juniors and seniors or college students for help. They are full of energy and eager to get the job done.
Contact a high school or college counselor. Tell him how many students are needed, time length for the project, and per hour salary for the task. Salaries, on average, range from $7 to $10 per hour, depending on duties.
Set up your workspace in a well ventilated area with lots of room for busy hands. Determine which duties can be completed by the students and which tasks are suited for you.
You’re delivering the gift baskets, so it may be best to rent a small truck since most cars and personal vans are incapable of handling the load. You’ll only need the truck for several hours, which will keep the cost to a minimum.
Be sure to collect a minimum 50 percent deposit to cover the cost for products, salaries, trash disposal, and truck rental.
Keep meticulous notes about the project, including what worked and what didn’t.
Also list the names of the best students, keeping the information in a file to contact them again through the school’s counselor, and get their home telephone numbers in case the next mega order arrives during the Christmas break or the following summer.
This plan is crucial to grow your business. Get ready - Christmas is coming, and so are the mega orders.
How to Find Holiday Help provides more insight to prepare you for the big event.
Aug
3
Gift Basket Sales Tips, Where to Find Baskets, Corporate Sales
Filed Under Baskets, Corporate Selling, Sales-Increasing Strategies | Leave a Comment
SAVVY SALES TIPS
Before you buy that package of cocktail forks, ask yourself: How many of my designs are appropriate to sell this item quickly? Wednesday’s newsletter focuses on what to think before you buy and gives examples of outlandish items I may have bought before making better decisions. Also read the newsletter for three sales tips.
THREE WAYS TO FIND BASKETS
A Louisiana-based designer wants to know where to find baskets in her area. Wholesale suppliers are probably closer to her location than she realizes. On Ask The Gift Basket Expert, I provide her with three ideas to start her search. Join the conversation, and submit your own question.
OUT-OF-TOWNER OPPORTUNITIES
Meeting planners and other conference coordinators welcome attendees with basket and non-basket gifts. Are you ready to meet this lucrative demand? Here’s a number of ideas that make planners and guests happy while keeping your bank deposits high.
Jul
30
Many designers want to begin their careers creating gift baskets with items that either are not appropriate for people who will buy or untested in the gift basket marketplace. I was one of those designers.
Large, plastic tooth molds and miniature fish tanks were two containers I believed would be popular. I conducted no research for these conclusions. Thank goodness neither were available for purchase. Instead, I settled down and focused on containers and designs that appealed to customers and sold quickly.
Concentrate on making designs trimmed with elegant enhancements that can be changed according to the theme. Then listen closely to what customers say and even more closely to what they don’t say to amaze them every time.
That’s what works overall. Perhaps this lesson is key to selling more of your designs.
Here are three more tips to make your cash register ring often.
1. Build up, not out. Tall designs sell quicker than wide ones. Elaine Essary’s gift basket, featured in The Gift Basket Design Book, is one example.
2. Get a sale, make a sale. Ask the customer for referral business, which may be found in his office building (other businesses, tenants, etc.) or as part of his professional organization (attorney, accountant, real estate groups, etc.).
3. Market, market everywhere. Mention the benefits of giving gift baskets to your bank’s manager, insurance agent, and other independent professionals with whom you know. Isn’t it time to recoup your money and help them build their businesses at the same time?
You’ll find more ideas at Gift Basket Articles. See the complete list of topics on this page.
Jul
27
How to Sell in the Summer, Insurance Tips, Target Market
Filed Under Insurance, Sales-Increasing Strategies | Leave a Comment
YOUR SUMMER SURVIVAL GUIDE
July and August are two months with notorious reputations for slow sales, but that’s not true for designers who’ve prepared a number of promotions that turn the tide from slow to super. Wednesday’s newsletter explains why it’s not too late to increase your sales right now. Try one of the options next week.
COVER YOUR ASSETS
I operated my gift basket business without insurance the first year I started designing. Then I read how someone working in another industry might lose their personal possessions because they were uninsured. Are you also working without a net? Learn more here about business insurance and how protect what your own.
HOW TO TARGET YOUR MARKET
Who is your customer? What are their traits, and how do you find them? Here’s one definition of target market, and this quick article shares information I cover in my PR and marketing seminar, which I’ll share in detail next weekend at the Orlando Gift Show.
Jul
23
How many sales can you generate in July and August by offering customers a few perks that will easily accommodate them while adding to your bottom line? Here are two ideas.
Opportunity #1:
Declare July as Tax Free Month. For every order, customers will not have to pay tax on their purchases. This is a promotion that will not only draw new customers to buy from you but also encourage past clients to place orders.
Consider this: would you rather pay $3 (based on 6 percent tax) on a $50 gift, or would you rather not get the sale? An additional 10 sales at $50 per transaction during July is $500 for which, at an average 6% sales tax, you will pay $30 to your state taxation department. But don’t stop at 10 extra sales. Create a strategy and try to top your own estimates.
Opportunity #2:
Give everyone whose birthday occurs in July and August either a discount or free gift with purchase. If you have captured each customer’s birth month in your database, promoting this event specifically to them will be easier.
Take this promotion one step further by sending postcards to all customers stating that not only will those with July and August birthdays be eligible for the promotion, anyone who orders a birthday gift during these two months receives the same discount or free gift. It’s an offer that just might sway customers to buy during the summer months.
That’s two ways to raise revenue during a time often viewed as slow for sales, and you’ll find more ideas in 101 Ways to Market Gift Baskets.
