Ho, Ho, Ho, and Away we go!

by Don Sanders, 08/15/2002

August is only four months away from the December holidays, which means now is the time to pitch that special holiday campaign to your clients. You should be setting up your sales for December now.

The fact is, people always think they have more time than they actually do. This belief usually leads to headaches on our part when clients have to rush an order since they didn't place the order well enough in advance. Mistakes and misunderstandings often happen in these instances--and we are often the ones who have to absorb the costs of waste incurred by our clients' haste.

That is why it is important to create a sense of urgency among your clients. Help them see they must begin planning now for the gift-giving season. One way to do this is to pitch custom-made products.

For example, we are talking to one of our customers about buying custom-made leather note pads. To create a sense of urgency, and to get her to buy now, we told her that the leather used in the product must be special-ordered. We even painted a longer

lead-time than is actually needed in order to book the sale now. This proved to be an excellent way to get a jump on holiday sales!

Moral of the story:

Create a sense of urgency to get clients to buy now.