National Independent Retailers Week - July 15-21
Your customer is your best advertising

Get your local media to help you make this a special event. Celebrate National Independent Retailers Week. Now is the time to start planning.

I did get my madras sport coat. Thanks to the readers that sent tips of where to shop. Again, that shopping experience provides another lesson. We all want and need repeat and referral business. However, we have to make the proper investment to get it.

I watched a man wearing a new suit at an event recently. You could tell he was one that did not often wear a suit - he wasn't very comfortable in it. Worse yet was the way the clothing store let him make his purchase. The length of the slacks were about four inches too long. The sleeves of the jacket were down past his knuckles. The jacket did not fit properly around the collar and even worse, the clothing store never took the tags off of the sleeve.

Imagine a friend of his that needs to buy a suit. When the friend sees how poorly the fit is, do you think the friend will go into the same store? The store saved money by not doing alterations, but the store did not see how they were hurting themselves by letting a poorly dressed customer out in public.

If you want your customers to talk about you and your business in a good way, then you have to educate your customer so that they are an intelligent walking advertisement for your business.

The debt to net worth ration is a measure of the health of a business. The Debt to Net Worth compares the total debt to the net worth of a company. The answer to this calculation is stated as a ratio (i.e. 2.0:1). It helps to answer the question that is often put in the form of, "I wondering if I am getting in over my head with this business".

While using the calculator will not give a 'yes' or 'no' answer, it gives you some data by which to make that decision. Debt to net worth is calculated by taking the total debt of your company and dividing it by the net worth. Your net worth is the difference in your assets and liabilities.

Go to this link to visit this page: Debt to Net Worth Ratio

Buy their time for your sales pitch

Do you have a sales pitch that you want to make to your existing customers and prospective customers? Of course, your sales pitch is an interruption to their workday. So, how can you make it more pleasant? The idea we observed was the business where they asked their customer if they could make a trade. They held out a calling card that had 30 minutes of time on it, and offered to trade it for 10 minutes of the customer's time.

The front side of the calling card had an imprint with information about the business, and after using the 30 minutes, the customer can refill the time on the card.

This looks like a pretty good opening pitch; "Can I give you 30 minutes for 10 minutes of your time?"

I have also seen this work where the salesperson hands the customer a soft drink as an offer for the customer's time. Both ideas work well.

June and July are the favorite months around the Shay household. It is when we have "Camp Dad". This means I am not on the road as much and having a great time with the twins, Darren and Blake. We have a bunch of fun projects for the summer, but here are the dates and cities I am in.

June 4 Denver, CO
June 22 Westminster, CO
June 26 Starke, FL
June 28 Cincinnati, OH
July 9-13 San Diego, CA

On a closing note, we had one of our vendors that made a mistake with a shipment last week. Being the professionals that they are, they asked for the names and phone numbers of the parties involved and then called each of them with an apology for their error. Then we received this note,

Hi Paula, (Paula is the person that runs Profits Plus and is usually the first person you speak with as you call or write)

I have called and extended apologies. You work with very nice people - no wonder you enjoy your work. Thanks for your business.

This person is right on all counts. And Paula said I should share this with everyone this month.