e-ret@iler
from Profits+Plus and Tom Shay
ideas to sell more merchandise and services
September 2005 - Our 70th consecutive issue
The September
e-ret@iler contains:
1. The
article of the month: Dreaming and
Planning
2. e-ret@iler advisory of the month: Last
trip down the grocery aisle
3. Sales tip of the month: Add ons add up
4. Web tip of the month: Acid Ratio
5. The contest for September 2005: Swapping
links
6. Our Power Promoting idea of the month: A
Color Sale
7. Book of the month: The Tipping Point
8. Your e-ret@iler subscription, contacting
Profits+Plus and Tom Shay
O =>
Print the September issue of the
e-ret@iler so you can read it at your leisure.
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1. Article
of the month: Dreaming and Planning
I think
the subtitle of this month's article
says it best; Working ON your business. Hopefully
everyone has dreams for the future of their
business. If you want dreams to come true, there
have to be plans made. Plans have to have goals
and goals have to have deadlines. Take a look
at the September article and see if it doesn't
get you to work on plans for 2006 and beyond.
Dreaming
and Planning
O <=
After printing the September e-ret@iler, check
here if you plan to read the article of the month.
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2. e-ret@iler
advisory of the month: Last
trip down the grocery aisle
In the past two months we have talked about
grocery stores. There is a challenge to grocery
stores, just like there is with your business,
do find a way to have a look that is distinguishing
from the competition.
A sign
of a grocery store that has a poor manager,
is in financial trouble, or a company that just
doesn't pay attention is the appearance of the
business.
When
I first see your sign, is it all in working
order? Is it clean? Is the parking lot clean? Are
there stripes for the parking places? When I walk
in your business, are the floors sparkling? Are
the aisles wide and cleared of merchandise? Do
all the lights work and are they turned on?
You notice
things like this when you walk into
any store. And people are noticing this about
your business.
O <=
After printing the September e-ret@iler,
if you plan to review this material for your
business.
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3. Sales
tip of the month: Add ons add up
We all
want to see our average ticket increase.
As it increases, this can be caused by our
selling more expensive items or by our selling
more items to each customer.
Try this
idea with your sales staff the next
time you are having a meeting. (You are having
staff meetings every other week, aren't you?)
Take
a piece of paper and number it one through
twenty. Hand a copy to each person. Ask them
to name 20 items that you sell. Then collect
the papers and redistribute them so that no one
gets their own paper back.
As a
timed event, ask each person to write an
add on item next to each of the 20 items. The
first person to complete their list can win
a prize.
The idea
of this game is to get people to
constantly think about ways to make an add
on sale.
O <=
After printing the September e-ret@iler,
check here if you plan to use this tip.
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4. Web
tip of the month: Acid ratio
The web
tip for September comes from our really
neat financial ratios calculator page. There are
20 calculators on the page - all available to
you at no cost.
The acid
ratio gives a clue as to the liquidity
of your business. It is calculated by taking
the current assets (less the inventory) and
dividing that number by the total of your
current liabilities. The term "current assets"
refers to items that are likely to be converted
to cash within the next 365 days. Current liabilities
refers ti items that are likely to be paid
within the next 365 days.
The online
calculator will do the math for you.
All you need is your balance sheet to get
started.
Financial
Ratios Calculator
O <= After printing the September e-ret@iler,
check here if you plan to look at the financial
ratios calculator.
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5. The
contest for September 2005: Swapping
links
Instead
of a contest this month we are going
to suggest you join us in an effort to raise
the visibility of your website.
One of
the ways that search engines make a
determination of where to place your website
in their results is the number of links that
are made both to and from your site.
You can
easily solve the links from your site
by listing all of your vendors, your favorite
sites that relate to your area of retail,
consumer magazines, your chamber of commerce,
and other related ideas.
The other
aspect deals with the sites that link
to your website. And if the sites that link to
your site are higher in the rankings, then that
will help pull up your website.
The Profits+Plus
website already has over 350
outbound links from our site, and it is rated
pretty high. Of course, we are paying a company
to watch this for us and to help us constantly
tweak the site to keep it up there.
With
that in mind, we know that we can help your
site, and we will gladly take all the additional
help we can get. We are creating a webpage
of all of our reader's websites.
Send
us your website URL (this is your www.yourname.com
not the yourname@isp.com) and we will create
a link on our site to your site. Within days
the search engine spiders should notice what
you are doing by adding lots of links and
reposition your page.
Take
a look at the current links page on our
website to see how we have done it.
Profits+Plus
Links Page
O <=
After printing the September e-ret@iler,
check here if you plan to swap links.
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6. Our
Power Promoting idea of the month: A
Color Sale
When you think of the fall, you may think of
Labor Day, Thanksgiving, Halloween, Christmas,
Veteran's Day in the states, and a bunch of other
holidays. As you think about each of these
holidays, think about a color that you can
associate with that date - Orange for Halloween,
red for Christmas, brown for Thanksgiving, etc.
For the
days just before the holiday, offer a
discount on any merchandise that has that
particular color on it. The business where we
first saw this promotion offered a 10% discount
on any item that had that color on it, and a
20% discount for any item that was all of the
particular color.
The neat
part of this sale is that as you
promote it, your customers will come looking
for the color sale. This sure beats the idea
of having to place an ad in the paper for it.
Where
do we get all of these ideas for Power
Promoting? As you visit the resource center
on the Profits+Plus website, take a look at
the book with the blue cover and the one with
the red cover. The Ideas books are a great way
to jump start your store with some unique
promotional ideas. Each of these books is
only $9.95 US.
Click
on the link below to visit the Resource center
to order these books. There are two promotional
ideas books and two management ideas books in
the 100 Profits+Plus Ideas series of books.
Order
the Ideas books series
O <=
After printing the September e-ret@iler,
check here if you plan to visit the Resources
Page to order the Ideas books.
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7. Book
of the month: The Tipping Point
This
is a neat book that was suggested by a vendor
recently. While the examples it gives are not the
usual "mainstream retail", I think you can easily
translate the three main ideas into retail
applicable information.
I think
you will enjoy it. It is entitled, "The
Tipping Point" by Malcolm Gladwell.
Book
Referral List
O <=
After printing the September e-ret@iler,
check here if you plan to read the book of the
month.
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8. Your
e-ret@iler subscription and contacting
Profits+Plus and Tom Shay.
The subscription is free. Just remember if you
are changing your Internet service provider, you
will need to enter your new e-mail address
to keep the e-ret@iler coming.
Here
is a link to the front page of the site
so you can easily add your e-mail address.
Subscribe
to the e-ret@iler
Contacting
us is just as easy:
The phone is 727-464-2182
The fax is 727-898-3179
The mailing address is:
PO Box 1577
St Petersburg, Fl 33731 USA
And click
on this link to send an e-mail:
Thanks
for visiting with us this month. We
appreciate your taking time from your
busy schedule. Our goal is to help you and
your business to become more profitable. We hope
we have done that.
We encourage
you to seek out and do business
with other independently owned businesses. If
you are wanting people to do business with you
because you are a locally owned business, then
it stands to reason that we should be doing
what we are asking others to do.
Get your
Profits+Plus. May God bless you and yours.
We will see you in October.
Tom Shay
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