“Mom, I need a morphsuit.”
“What? What is a morphsuit? Why do you need it?”
“It is kinda like a body suit. It covers your entire body even your head and hands and feet. And at school it is Blue Day tomorrow. I want to get a blue morphsuit so I can be ALL blue. Come on, you know me Mom, I am going to put myself all the way out there!”
My son Christopher’s high school has many traditions during the week of homecoming. One day, each class dresses in a different color. Blue was for freshman this year. Christopher was not satisfied with just wearing a blue tee shirt and shorts. That is his personality – he always wants to max out the experience. So the morphsuit allowed him to be completely blue! He invested $50 of his own hard earned money to buy it. (When I asked him when he would ever wear it again, he said that it would be good to have in his closet for later. What?!)
The lesson here is to take your events and promotions “all the way out there”. There are 2 ways to do that. First, if you are spending the time, energy and money to do a promotion for your customers, commit to following through entirely. Think about how you can extend the experience for your customers. The second way to maximize an event for the store is to add your personality to the message. That can completely change the impact of it.
One of the best retailers I work with shared with me a mistake that he made. His sweater sales weren’t up to plan for the month and at the last minute, he decided to do a 20% off promotion to move them. He posted it on Facebook and moved a few. His staff asked if they should offer it to everyone and he told them that it was only for Facebook fans. Now this isn’t a bad idea if your purpose is to test your Facebook fans. But he forgot his purpose and didn’t go all out! Sweater sales needed to increase and so everyone should know that he was offering his magnificent assortment of handpicked sweaters at a lovely discount for a limited time only. How could he go all out?
- Signs should go in the window.
- Photos of the staff’s favorite sweaters with the before and after prices should go on Facebook.
- Every customer that walks into the store should be told that they were here on a very special day.
- Signs should be posted by the displays of sweaters in the store.
- Signs should be placed in every dressing room taking about the great promotion.
He realized his mistake while talking to me and complaining that sales still weren’t improving! Now don’t write this off and think that this is obvious and that you would never make the same mistake….I bet you have.
How else can you go all out?
Share your personality.
Terry has a toy store and decided to do a sale while she was gone to a trade show. She sent out an email about it and posted it on Facebook. But instead of a regular sign in the store look what she did! This small touch adds a big impact to the event. Everyone smiles when they see it. It adds her personality to the event.
If you are going to do an event or promotion, commit to going “all the way out there”. Ask yourself two questions:
- How else can I commit to following through more?
- What can I do to add my personality to the message of this event?
Print those out and put them in front of you. These two steps will always increase the impact and the cash of every event that you do!
Commit to Playing Full Out!
