Last week I was meeting with a new retail business for the first time. After taking a tour of the area locations I sat down with three of the key executives in the company for a Q&A session. They had one common theme..we want to increase business so we can expand to0 other parts of the country and the world. In the next few entries I will take you through the meeting and give you some in site on the ideas/concepts I brought to this business.
One of the first things that caught my eye when I walk into a location was this really large "fish bowl" on the front counter. You know "please put your business card in for a free...." My first thought was that it really needed to be replaced with a custom box, but more important to me was what was happening to the cards once the winner was picked? The answer I received from the manager was I have most of them on my desk, but not to long ago I through most of them out. So back at the corp office I started asking questions about do you know who your customers are..I mean do you have there Names,Addresses and Day/Night phone numbers. The answer was not really. So that's were we need to start.
First lets take all the business cards (and standard forms they will have going forward) and send them a hand written letter thanking them for coming in and inviting them back with a special offer. This will increase the number of times they visit the location and encourage them to bring a friend, maybe the offer is buy one get one free? Also this begins to build your data base of peoples names,addresses and Day/Night phone numbers.
My aggressive plan for them is to know every single persons name/address, day/night phone numbers that have come into there locations. Aggressive yes..but so important to the success and expansion of the brand. How are they going to do this..come back to find out.
One of the first things that caught my eye when I walk into a location was this really large "fish bowl" on the front counter. You know "please put your business card in for a free...." My first thought was that it really needed to be replaced with a custom box, but more important to me was what was happening to the cards once the winner was picked? The answer I received from the manager was I have most of them on my desk, but not to long ago I through most of them out. So back at the corp office I started asking questions about do you know who your customers are..I mean do you have there Names,Addresses and Day/Night phone numbers. The answer was not really. So that's were we need to start.
First lets take all the business cards (and standard forms they will have going forward) and send them a hand written letter thanking them for coming in and inviting them back with a special offer. This will increase the number of times they visit the location and encourage them to bring a friend, maybe the offer is buy one get one free? Also this begins to build your data base of peoples names,addresses and Day/Night phone numbers.
My aggressive plan for them is to know every single persons name/address, day/night phone numbers that have come into there locations. Aggressive yes..but so important to the success and expansion of the brand. How are they going to do this..come back to find out.
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