Archive for Small Retail Shops
How Good Customer Service Increases Sales
Posted by: | CommentsEarlier this month I spent 4 days in Eastern Washington’s Yakima Valley wine tasting. We rented an RV and set out on the road with some friends. For those of you who know that we (hubby and I) are avid boaters and home winemakers (hubby’s hobby) you might expect that we had a little bit of fun. (Big Grin!)
After the few hour drive across the state – we arrived at our first winery in the Yakima area. The tasting room server was great, we were very well received, and our journey started off on a positive note. Over the four days there was a lot of laughs a lot of wine and some insights for me. As we moved from location to location we noticed a trend.
The trend was that the better the tasting room staff was at sharing about the facility and engaging with us during our “tasting experience” the more we were inclined to buy before we left their establishment. Makes sense right? (And of course we liked and wanted the product).
Well, there were at least a handful of places that the experience was less than fair and I even walked out of one place because I couldn’t take the chill in the air anymore – as if she (the pourer) was doing us a favor by being there and we were inconveniencing her.
I won’t detail all of the trip but I wanted to make this point:
Customer Service is Critical to Your Sales!
As a small business owner most of the time YOU are that customer service person (along with chief cook and bottle washer).
Are you doing your best to take care of your customers?
Do they feel engaged in the experience and enjoy working with you?
Are you upbeat and friendly when working with them or do you treat them as if they are a hassle in your life?
If yes, AWESOME! Keep going. If you have a slight hesitation to any of the questions – then you have a place to start to seek to improve.
Keep at it. Keep going. Keep up the good work!
Tradeshow Marketing for the Entrepreneur
Posted by: | CommentsOver this past weekend I participated in a 2-day tradeshow event at our local expo center. It was a small event with about 100 vendors.
If you’re a regular reader, you’ll recall that I was very sick this past week. And Yes, I still went. I had already agreed to the space and I wasn’t about to lose the opportunity. As an entrepreneur, sometimes you have to do what you have to do: suck it up and smile.
Here’s me at the entrance to the show, with a smile on my face. 
Let’s start with this thought: What is one of the cornerstones of any business? Well, Customers, of course. How do we get customers? We prospect, we generate leads, and them we deliver information and value to those leads in exchange for (hopefully) making a sale. Pretty basic.
The trouble starts with how we generate those leads. There are all kinds of marketing tactics out there: yellow page ads, print and radio ads, direct mail, pay-per-click ads, etc. As marketers we can get pretty creative. I want to submit to you that there isn’t much better marketing than face to face marketing. We do this by participating in networking events and Chamber of Commerce meetings, etc.
I want to remind you not to forget about the Tradeshow or Community Fair, especially the smaller niche shows. If you’re a big company or have every worked for one, you may have been exposed to those gigantic industry trade shows where folks exhibit to end user prospects and the booths are elaborate and may even have booth babes and grand scale SWAG (Stuff-We-All-Get). That’s intimidating.
Therefore, a small company may not consider it an option. I want you to do the opposite and consider them. I started doing tradeshows back in the early ’90′s. I’ll never forget 1993 when from January – March we did one small event/tradeshow a weekend. Yes, that’s a lot of weekend time and we were tired but we collected hundreds of leads to prospect from, didn’t have to do any more marketing that year, and ended up making a ton of money while having happy customers.
This past weekend was a family/kid related event. Of the approximately 100 vendors there, most were independent small businesses or entrepreneurs with a niche in kid or family products. We had your network marketing company participants such as Tupperware, PartyLite and Scentsy. There was the purse maker, the photographer, the Edward Jones Rep, the Country Insurance Agent. All kinds of folks where there.
If the type of person you consider to be your client would go to the show, you should consider being there. One woman told me that she thought the $595/fee was a lot to pay. I disagree. If you have warm leads of people that you’ve spoken with face to face and you make anything over your $595 investment plus any costs, you’re ahead of the game. And if you don’t, then you’re out some time and I suggest you go back to sales school.
Think out of the box. If you’re an insurance agent, it still makes sense for you to go to the Home and Garden show. People who buy plants and new windows need insurance, right? Again, be creative.
I directly spoke and made a connection with a few hundred people this weekend and ended up with 75 solid leads to prospect from of folks who want to know more about my wares. It was definitely worth the personal contact and it makes a huge difference when following up. The upside: I’ll have those names in my database to market until they make a purchase or indicate they truly aren’t interested.
I’ll be happy to share with you some of my tips on a simple and cost effective booth set up and strategy.
Until then – happy prospecting.
P.S. I appreciate your feedback and look forward to your comments. For more information about my services or to find out how we can partner together call me at 503-780-3203 or email me at vanessa@vanessaduplessie.com.Don’t Like Being Bored? Try It Sometime!
Posted by: | CommentsI’m back from my Mexican siesta! It will take me some time to reacclimate and dig out from email and snail mail for sure but first I am going to share a lesson or two I learned from my trip.
As a self-employed working parent who is very involved in her community I am ALWAYS on the go. From the moment I wake up until the moment I fall askeep, someone or something needs or wants my attention. And yes, this includes the shows I have taped and stacked up on my DVR waiting to be watched. Thank goodness for Tivo!
In general I tend to be a very scheduled person who thrives on the chaos of my day. After all, I do have control over the things I say “Yes” to and know I do it to myself. While I may be deficient in the “No” gene arena, I am passionate about certain things and then work to fit them in. What’s the saying, “Want something done? Ask a busy person”. I fit that to my detriment sometimes. Anyone else relate?
Between my businesses, kid and family schedules, and volunteer efforts downtime is rare. So, we schedule vacation time and that gives me something to look forward to.
Obeservation #1: I could survive without constant connection!
I am usually fine when we travel somewhere and I have access to the internet to keep up with things. Well, heading to Mexico for a week panicked me – even though I knew I needed it. I was going off the grid and while I was excited, I was nervous.
As it turns out for an entire week I was 95% off the grid. The other 5% was spent calling the kids from Skype (through the internet), which then allowed me a few minutes a day to scan emails and manage for any crisis. For 15 minutes a day I was able to keep in contact with the outside world from my iPhone and that was all I needed. No crisis and all was well.
Observation #2: Boredom rocks!
The sun was great and my pool chair was aweseome. I devoured as much chips, salsa, and shrimp as I could in a week and life was grand.
About day 4 I declared to my husband that I was flat out bored. BORED! I couldn’t remember the last time or in how many years I have ever been bored! I had read 4 magazines and 5 books by this point and had spend a few hours in the Spa. I didn’t know what to do with myself so in the forthcoming 24 hours I ended up sleeping about 16 of them. (This included about 10 hours of evening sleep and 3 naps of about 2 hours each). I remembered what it was like to just be. And then like a bolt of lightning a bunch of creative thoughts came my way. It was as though I had cleared the way for my brain to tell me what was pushed aside by the day to day processing.
I am back and ready to rock and roll for the rest of 2010. I’ve got some items I want to share with you about and I’d like to hear what you’d like to know more about as well and I’m looking forward to it!
And don’t be surprised if I hang the “gone fishing” sign up now and again now that I’ve remembered why vacations are good!
VaNessa
