An often overlooked area of marketing is how to increase the average transaction value of each customer. Many people only look for the low- hanging fruit. While you may be able to squeeze some extra profit out of the easy stuff, doing the easy stuff isn’t how you get home runs. Doing the easy stuff doesn’t make your dreams come true. Doing the easy stuff ultimately makes you exactly the same as your competitors, with price being the only factor that sets you apart. It is important to always be looking for unique ideas that you can adjust and bring to your business. When you see something cool in one industry, ask yourself if you could be doing something similar. This is how you get major breakthroughs. This is how you knock it out of the park. If you’re worried about copying or “stealing” someone’s idea, don’t be. This is how business is done. I once had a few drinks with a billionaire, and he shared some words of wisdom with me. “One of the ways billionaires become billionaires,” he said, “is by using all the good ideas they can find.” But for some reason, small businesses somehow feel this is unethical.
At an executive meeting, the CEO stated that they needed to increase their overall revenue. The executives started to discuss how best to increase the dollar amount of each transaction. The usual ideas started flowing: Change the product mix at check out, add new specialty products to the store’s mix, and offer a handful of really expensive items with free shipping as slack adjusters. Some of these ideas might have had an impact on average ticket sales, but compared to the promo they landed on, those ideas would have amounted to peanuts. Suddenly, someone in marketing said, “What if we offered our customers excess products that we would then donate to people in need?” Of course, there were a few naysayers, but by and large, the executive team was on board. The question then became, what charity? Would there be one that enough people were invested in to drive a significant increase in the average transaction size? Of course, the team talked about helping the homeless or hospitalized children. Then out of nowhere, someone suggests the troops. Like a spark hitting a puddle of gasoline, the whole room lit up. Of course, the American people can get behind the troops. Support for the U.S. military is always high. This idea eventually grew into one of the most profitable promotions the company has ever seen.
I travel by plane on a regular basis. I travel so much, in fact, that I have a routine for when I get to the Boise airport. Part of that routine involves going into the first store on the way to my gate, checking the temperature of the 1-liter bottles of water, and buying the coldest one I can find. Nearly every time I check out, I’m asked the same question: “Do you want to buy any jerky or peanuts to send to the troops?” I’ve seen this promo at dozens of airports over the years and have often marveled at the genius of its design. Last year, 1.7 million overpriced snacks were purchased and given to the USO, who then delivered the snacks to the troops. This promo has been running for years, and in 2017, the parent company of these stores broke the record for “most snacks purchased over 12 months.” If I had to make an educated guess about the origin of this promo, I would imagine it went something like this. Decoded, this question means, “Do you want to buy some of our overpriced snacks and donate them?”
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NDA ALK INTOABAR
Have You Heard the Good News?
sly Influence People’s Thoughts
Romans 8:28 — “ And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” Hebrews 12:11 — “No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.” 1 Peter 5:10 — “And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm, and steadfast.”
cognitive psychology to create a seven-step persuasion process that follows the acronym, METHODS: 1. Mold Their Perception, 2. Elicit Congruent Attitudes, 3. Trigger Social Pressure, 4. Habituate Your Message, 5. Optimize Your Message, 6. Drive Their Momentum, and 7. Sustain Their Compliance. Whether you’re trying to optimize your sales, expand clientele, encourage team members to embrace a new standard operating procedure, convince your kids that vegetables are delicious, or subtly convince your husband to pick up ice cream on the way home from work, “Methods of Persuasion” has some tips you can try!
guide our behavior without our awareness.” By applying his seven methods of persuasion, Kolenda claims that readers can ascertain the ability to control the strings of other human puppets, that they can “become a puppeteer in a world full of human marionettes.” While his authorial promise is certainly strong, Kolenda developed a “mind reading” stage show to demonstrate to millions of audiences his ability to subconsciously alter audience members’ mindsets, which he references throughout the book.
In addition to his experience serving as a “mind reader,” Kolenda deployed his knowledge of
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