From one season to another, the Candle Business is always booming. We just finished a great Christmas and Holiday season, and now we are heading for Valentine’s Day. After Valentines Day we will have Spring and Easter. So how does a Retailer take advantage of all the seasons and keep their marketing efforts fresh? Its all about the Three T’s of Retailing: Timing, Targeting and Thanking!
Timing your marketing efforts effectively is so important. You need to start your new marketing campaign even before your old one expires. You must give your potential customers time to see your add, consider your add, take action, have the products shipped and receive them before the holiday comes and goes. Depending on your marketing method (online advertising, banner ads, newspaper ads, etc) you must be careful not to start too early or to late.
So what is the best way to manage your marketing timing for best return? Pick a target date, such as February 14th, and start your marketing efforts at least 3 weeks, but no more than six weeks, before your target date.
Target dates are as important as Targeting your audience. That is the second T : Targeting. Now that we know how to target a date and time a marketing campaign, how do we Target an audience? It is actually much simpler than it first appears. Think about the reason behind your target date. In example, my target date is February 14th, Valentine’s Day. Who will be looking for gifts for Valentine’s Day? Mothers, women, grandmothers, grandparents, teenagers? None of the above. Men are the number one shoppers and searchers for Valentine’s Day gifts both online and offline.
How am I targeting men? I am offering them a way to be unique and special this year. The top gifts for past Valentine’s Day gifts has always been roses, jewelry and chocolates. For some men, that is the only thing they can think of. I offer them a way to be special and different this year, to have the ability to surprise their special someone. I created a marketing campaign and website with men in mind and focused on how I can help them make their Valentine’s Day gift special and memorable. I am Helping, not Taking (see Rule 3!).
Lastly, we have Thanking. For every sale, I will send a personalized Thank You email or card. I will share more about the products with them and I will see if they have any questions. You would be surprised how many will email back and ask advice on future gifts! A simple Thank You goes a very long way. Remember, you are building a relationship, not a just a sale.
February 4th, 2009
Happy Saturday everyone! Today I am going to address a part of network marketing that so many of us have trouble with. This post applies to anyone in a sales, public relations, or just about any type of business that requires communicating with prospects.
We all hate it. It is something that can sometimes make Network Marketing, an industry that is all about being yourself and having fun while talking with people, a dreadful experience. It can be that one thing on your agenda that keeps you up at night or makes you slow to get started in the morning. It ranks right up there with taking out the garbage, filing your taxes and eating spinach (well for me anyway!).
I am talking about the “cold call“.
A cold call is a phone call or point of contact with a possible sales prospect with whom you have no prior relationship. The cold call is usually someone whose information you garnered from a friend or purchased from a lead vendor. They may have filled out the form on your website, (I like to call these lukewarm prospects) and you are contacting them personally for the first time. The cold call can either go really well or really bad really fast. It really is about first impression, and you usually have just 15 to 30 seconds before the person on the other end decides if they want to listen or hang up.
I think that we network marketers tend to psych ourselves out and make that decision (hang up or listen) for our prospect before we even dial the number. I think it is time we put an end to Cold Calling. I want to offer the alternative of Share Calling.
When you call a person for the first time and it is not a sales call, do you try an sell yourself to them? I should hope not. You should be sharing, listening, understanding and giving. (Yes, that spells s.l.u.g.) You want to give them time to do the same to you, and trust me they will. When they find out you want to listen to them, understand them and give to them instead of taking from them, their attitude immediately changes. You need to take the old “sales call” attitude and throw it in the garbage. Embrace the idea of calling up a friend you just haven’t met yet and building a relationship with them.
5 Things to do before you call:
- Before you dial the number, think about the person you are calling.
- Reflect on any information you have about them.
- Think about how you would like to be approached if it were you receiving the phone call instead of making it.
- Write down what you would like to share with this person.
- Define some questions you want to ask. Do not force the conversation.
If you share and give the prospect a chance to share too, the conversation will happen naturally and a friendship will be formed. Building friendships is what builds a business. Most importantly, remember to be the messenger and not the message.
Happy Share Calling!
January 24th, 2009
Compaired to the average 46 hour work week most of us now grudge through, I bet a 4 hour work week sounds both amazing and impossible.
In an exclusve interview with Tim Ferris, author of The 4-Hour Work Week, you can gain some insight into how Tim accomplished working less while getting more done. The interview was done by a great fellow bloger, Leo Babauta, author of http://zenhabits.net/ blog and a great book, The Power of One.
I recommend the interview, Tim’s book and Leo’s blog/book to everyone looking to simplfy their life and increase their productivity.
January 16th, 2009
Happy New Year everyone!
Today is a day of reflection for me. I am going over all of the wonderful (and even not so wonderful) things that happened to me in 2008. When I reflect back, the wonderful things stand out the most and I realize I have so much to be thankful for.
My 2009 New Years resolution is a simple one: Focus on the Wonderful.
I plan on making the most of 2009 and focusing on the wonderful things I know will happen throughout the year. Life is full of hiccups, but if we focus on those we end up tripping all over ourselves and falling down. If we focus on the wonderful, we can find the courage, strength and determination to get through whatever life throws at us.
I hope 2009 throws many wonderful things your way!
January 1st, 2009
I am going to skip Rule 2 of Success: Be Passionate or Get Out and go straight to Rule 3: You Get What You Give. Christmas and other important holidays are fast approaching us, and the importance of giving should be on every one’s mind. Religious significance aside, the true meaning of Christmas, Hanukkah, New Years, and other holidays this time of year is the joy of gathering friends and families together and sharing with them. It is not the gifts you receive that matter, it is the gifts that you give. I am not talking about giving expensive jewelry, flat screen HD televisions, video games or tools. I am talking about giving something much more valuable: your time, your effort, your passion or heart and your thoughtfulness.
You get what you give. If you give something that took more money than thought to purchase, wrap and give, then that is exactly what you will get in return. Sure, the person will act happy and will probably like that expensive object, but chances are that’s all it will be to them: an object, devoid of meaning and in a few months they won’t remember if they got it from you or from Walmart. We have forgotten what it means to really give.
Try making your gifts this year. Sit down and really think about each person on your list individually. What do they like, really? What do they need? What could they use? What can I give to them that could make a real difference in their life or mean a great deal to them? Does your mother have a recent picture of you? Have you called your friend in a while? Could your dad use some extra help around the house? The answers are usually much simpler than you think.
The true is same everyday of your business. You should be giving more than you are receiving, and you should be thinking more than you are spending. Once again, it is not about money! I am not asking you to run into the red. I am asking you to give to your prospects and customers and just watch as your business grows and prospers. Donate part of your proceeds to charity, give your customers promotions and coupons to other services they can really use, or even send a simple thank you card to let them know how much you really appreciate them. Don’t make every contact that you have with prospects and customers be about what you can sell to them. Treat them like friends and the sell will come naturally and without effort. Be a thoughtful business owner, be a passionate business owner, and be a giving business owner.
I hope that everyone has a very warm and happy Christmas, and that the holidays find you surrounded by your friends and family.
December 19th, 2008
I love how life can be so ironic sometimes. In a previous post I talked about these great Chinese Take Out gift boxes I found at the local dollar store. I did end up going back and getting about 5 bags more! Today I picked up my Candle of the Month Club package from UPS. This month’s scent is Oriental Teakwood.
The Oriental Teakwood is a very unique scent. If you close your eyes and smell the open jar candle, you find yourself in one of those wondrous furniture shops that sells ornate teakwood furniture made in India, China and Tibet. It gives a sense of ancient earth combined with the mysterious spice and magic we Westeners often associate with the word Orient. You can easily imagine you are on a desert caravan or in a glorious palace in India.
And wouldn’t you know it, the votive candles in this scent are a perfect fit for the Chinese Take Out boxes. Email me your mailing address if you would like a scent sample. I would love to share the experience!
December 12th, 2008
We are all faced with new challenges every day of our lives. How we choose to approach what life throws at us is the difference between a successful person and an unsuccessful person. You will notice, if you look hard enough, that there are many key differences between someone who is successful and someone who is not.
- A successful person will face life head on. An unsuccessful person will hide from the world.
- A successful person will give even the smallest task everything they have. An unsuccessful person will do the give the minimum effort required.
- A successful person will take responsibility for failure and learn to succeed the next time. An unsuccessful person will blame failure on anything and anyone but themselves, learning nothing.
- A successful person will never start a new challenge by saying “I can’t. They will say “Let me see how I can do this..” or “I can do this, not a problem” or “Give me a few minutes and I will figure this out.”
- An unsuccessful person will sabotage themselves before they even begin facing a new challenge. Often the first thing that comes to their mind and out of their mouth is “I can’t do this.”
The difference between being a successful person and being unsuccessful comes from your Mind Set. Your mind set is the daily dialogue we have with ourselves. Every day we talk to ourselves, evaluate our selves and our abilities and we judge ourselves, often harshly. The conversations you have with yourself will effect every aspect of your life. The good news is that you mind set can be changed by changing the way you talk to yourself.
- Never talk negatively to yourself. If you think something negative, pause, take a deep breath and say something positive instead. ”I am such a failure, I lost that sale…” should turn into “I lost that sale, but I will figure out why I lost it so I can learn from it and be successful next time.”
- Remove the word “can’t” from your vocabulary immediately. Every time you think it or say it, put a quarter in a jar, snap a rubber band on your wrist or do something that reminds your mind that “can’t” is not a word.
- Do not shy away from challenge. You should challenge yourself each and every day. If your mind, body and soul are not challenged often, your spirit wilts and becomes a heavy weight that can hold you back. When you challenge yourself, your spirit feels accomplished, light and happy.
- Do not judge your success solely on if you succeed in the challenge or not! Judge your success on how well you tried. If you focus on the success of failure of the final result, you miss the entire point of the challenge.
Life is a journey of experiences. Sometimes you will succeed and other times you will need to go back to the drawing board and try again. The important point is that you do try again, and that you keep trying. Anyone can do anything. Period. If you tell yourself anything different, you are lost before you begin.
Don’t believe me? Maybe you will believe Jessica…
(If you can not see this video, please
click here)
Remember: You will never learn to fly unless you go out there and try
December 7th, 2008
I love the dollar store. Some people call it cheap. I call it a treasure trove of hidden diamonds just waiting to be found a use for. You always find something different, so it is a new adventure each time. Two weeks ago I was in to buy a few odds and ends and found bead “stackables” containers, perfect for storing sent samples. Today I was in to get a few Christmas cards and I found the perfect grater for grating votive candles to make scent samples. I also happened down the craft aisle (my favorite place in the whole world) and came across something that almost made me yell woo-hoo.
I found small plastic Chinese-takeout boxes… the absolute perfect size for a votive candle. Put in some tulle for a touch of fancy and you have a wonderful and unique sample gift! They game 3 in a package, one blue one pink and one white. I got two packages and am kicking myself for only getting 2 now that I see how perfect they are. Hopefully when I head back that way, they will still be there!
So, always check the dollar store when you are nearby. You never know what you may find!
December 5th, 2008
With a small amount of disappointment looming as the days remaining on
my online ad run down and the ROI (return on investment) not being anything to cheer about, I have had a good deal of joy today to put that looming gloom back in its place. (In a locked box at the top of my closet, of course!)
On my way home from my family Thanksgiving trip in West Virginia, I stopped at a few rest stops on I-79 and I-90. When I stopped to stretch, I also left some pull tab fliers behind. These pull tab fliers cost me just the paper they were printed on and the 20 minutes I spend cutting the tabs. So far, I have had a few positive responses. A very nice woman from Kentucky, who by chance was passing through on her way from Pennsylvania, took a tab and now she too is going to join me in this amazing and fun business.
It is all about chance, remembering to leave your card and having a stack of pull tab fliers and a roll of scotch tape in your purse! Chance is what you make of it…so make sure you give yourself the best chance you can by being prepared.
Never leave home without at least a few flyer sheets, your business cards, a catalogue and a sample of the products. You never know when chance might smile on you and present you with the opportunity to share your business and make a new friend.
December 3rd, 2008
Well after spending Thanksgiving weekend with my boyfriend’s family, I am home again. My boyfriend decided to stay down for a while longer. It does feel good to be home in the familiar, but I miss the family and my boyfriend a great deal. The commute from West Virginia to Ontario today was long, wet, and exhausting. Work tomorrow will be interesting.
I brought down a bunch of candles to pass out to family members and introduce my new business to them. They were impressed, i think, with the quality and variety of scents. I also left some fliers and catalogs at some of the rest stops along the way. I will have to wait and see if anything works out.
So far the ad I placed on cuteoverload.com hasn’t given me the results I had hoped for, but it is just the start of the week and tomorrow is supposed to be the number one day of the year for online shopping. For now, I think I will worry about it tomorrow and concider it lesson learned if it doesnt have the ROI I wanted.
December 1st, 2008
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