How To Boost Sales Early In The Year

The new year brings an abundance of opportunity to sell to your customers and attract new ones. Any opportunity you have to communicate to your existing customers use it. January brings Stocktake Sales, Back to School as well as the opportunity to tie into the whole new years resolution thing.

Almost everyone sets goals for the year ahead - be it to loose weight, quit smoking or to call mum more often. Yet, when you boil them all down, they all revolve around doing some things that are going to make you feel better. As a clothing retailer you have the opportunity to leverage this by promoting new wardrobes for the year ahead. You could run 'style consultations' with a local image consultant advising people of what best suits their natural features.

The right clothing can make people look and feel more attractive, confident and slimmer almost instantly. Now surely this is one of the easiest ways for people to feel better about themsleves and it is definately a lot easier than busting a gut at the gym.

Ask yourself, how I really capitalised on the sales opportunity that January brings?

210 Million Payout For Retailing CEO

You may find it interesting to know that the recent CEO of Home Depot (an American based retail homewares store chain) Bob Nardelli has come to an agreement with the company's board to resign as chairman, and to accept a $210 million severance package.

Yep, he done a crappy job and still got paid the big bucks. Most retailers moan and groan about how someone can be paid that much, it's disgusting, they don't deserve it, all that garb. If this is you wake up and change your perspective, ask yourself what does someone have to do to put themsleves in the position to be able to receive this type of compensation, then relay it back to yourself, what do I have to do to make more money, be more successful. Look for the learning's in all situations, not the shortcomings.

Those dollars alone should be enough to help make you think better, grander, bolder in your aspirations, even if the numbers are out of the states. Raise your expectations and hold yourself accountable to higher standards and watch out for the results that follow.

Make This Year Your Best Yet

Welcome to 2007. I hope you had a profitable and enjoyable 2006. The start of a new year always brings with it new possibilities and opportunities. The only question is whether or not your mind is open enough to see them and act upon them.

Given that the new year is the time when most people are open and receptive to making changes in their lives and their business, I would encourage you to use the next few weeks wisely. Start by doing a quick 10 minute recap on the year that was, what you achieved, what you didn't achieve, signifigant events etc. Then look forward a year and note down what you would like to achieve in the next 12 months. But don't stop here, also note down 2 or 3 longer term goals that you would like to achieve over the next 2 and 5 year periods. Doing this forces us to be more strategic in our thinking and raises us from the day to day mindset that pervades most business owners.

This should only take 20 - 30 minutes. When you have done this try and break down the goals into small bite sized action steps. For example if one of your goals is to increase turnover by 40k, you might break this down into the following actions. 1. Raise prices 2. Start loyalty program 3. Set up joint ventures with strategic partners 4. Implement sales training to increased conversion rates.

When you have done this make sure you continue to review your goals daily, keep them in a place where you can visually see them and ideally read them and write them out daily. This implants and embeds them into your subconscious mind which will automaticlly help direct you towards their achievement.

Wach out for the next post ... it's one your going to want to read.