Housewarming Baskets Get Healthy
New home and condominium owners love receiving gift baskets with ready-to-eat snacks, but they’re also glad to receive products that help them keep a clean, environmentally-healthy home.
Gone are the days when supermarkets were the only place to buy household cleaning products. Not everyone wants a sanitizer with a pine scent.
All-natural cleaners are a huge trend for today’s homeowner. That’s why many manufacturers exhibit home cleaning items at trade shows.
If manufacturers have their way, homeowners who wash dishes by hand will throw the typical plastic bottle dishwashing liquid out in favor of cut-glass bottle designs filled with all-natural lemon or lavender colored dishwashing liquids with corresponding fragrances. These products are usually housed in six ounce containers that resemble gourmet vinegar packaging.
This type of product makes an attractive and affordable gift for your corporate customers, including insurance agents, relocation specialists, real estate companies, the recipient’s in-laws, friends, and other relatives looking for something new to welcome the homeowners.
There are more ideas for the not-so-typical housewarming gift basket, and many of the items are found at the OrganicWholesaleSupplies.com site. What’s in your new home baskets?
Who Will Receive Your Retreat Gift Baskets?
June signals the end of the elementary and high school education seasons, but not all teachers are on hiatus until September.
Many sign up for retreats at resorts, hotels and conference centers. They upgrade their own education while catching up on rest and relaxation.
Find out what your local teachers will be doing before the last bell sounds. If you have children in school, it will be easy to get the details.
Ask your child’s teacher about educational activities that some of them will attend. Also, speak with the school secretary and principal. There’s bound to be a retreat where gift baskets can be used as a welcome gift.
Whether creating a basket of soaps and lotions or healthy snacks and the latest fitness or diet magazines, the facility where teachers will stay may find your baskets beneficial to the educators and to their bottom line.
Those same teachers will be planning an event for next year, and that same facility will want the scales tipped in their favor as the place for the 2010 retreat.
My retreat baskets include easy to open-and-eat snacks and grooming implements for feet and hands, many of which can be found at GiftBasketWholesaleSupplies.com. What’s in yours?
When I Receive An Attorney’s Letter, I…
In the book, How to Start a Home-Based Gift Basket Business, there’s a mock letter in chapter three from an attorney that states you are using the same name for your business as another firm that has trademarked the name.
The letter continues by demanding that you stop using the name and shred everything in your possession with that name, and it’s all to be done within a certain period of time.
That’s just one type of letter that can end an otherwise great day, and designers worldwide can tell you about other types of attorney demands that they’ve received in the past.
This problem is one of the reasons I spoke with attorney at law, Robin Gronsky, and recorded the conversation on the CD Legal Tips to Keep Your Company Out of Court. Robin continues to be a source of assistance to me as I operate my business.
What if you’ve not retained legal counsel to handle such letters? When you receive an attorney’s letter, it’s a situation that’s best not addressed on your own.
You may hope that the problem goes away or think you cannot afford legal advice, and you could be right. But are you willing to sacrifice all of your hard work?
In the late 1990s, I can recall traveling to New York City for months as I navigated my way through Manhattan courtrooms. It’s not fun.
Legal counsel did not accompany me to each appointment, but the counsel I retained was extremely effective, and best of all it didn’t cost me anything outside of money for postage. I was very lucky.
If you open your mail and read a letter sent by an attorney, how will you proceed?
If There’s Not Enough Cash for Inventory, I…
One problem facing product-based businesses is that while we have a lot of inventory, there are still lots of items we want to buy.
That’s one situation that may happen to you during the upcoming holiday trade shows. You’ll attend but look at your budget and see that there’s not much money for buying containers, foods, and enhancements.
What are some of the ways you can raise money? Are you comfortable buying on credit? How about establishing a loan at your bank’s branch? What about selling some slow-moving items on Ebay?
You can also enter contests that give away cash as top prizes, but the money may not come fast enough if you win.
All of these solutions may seem far fetched, and they will surely take time to increase your cash flow, but many designers consider these options and more.
Back in 1998 I was in the same type of cash crunch. I had risked a substantial amount of money by exhibiting at an event thousands of miles from my home base.
That meant I not only spent money on a booth but also had to book airline tickets, a hotel room, and pay for meals.
The risk didn’t pay off, and I was not happy. Now, instead of having $3,000 for my holiday inventory, I had nothing and still had to earn a living.
It wasn’t easy, but I fought my way out of a bad situation and sold lots of gift baskets later in the year.
If you’re struggling to maximize your funds in order to buy products at this season’s trade shows, what’s your plan for finding money?
When a Customer Gets Upset, I…
Monday morning starts smoothly after breakfast as you review a list of daily tasks and prepare to fulfill orders in the morning and market in the afternoon.
The phone rings just after 10 o’clock. It’s a customer, and she’s not happy.
The gift basket she ordered for delivery on Friday didn’t arrive. She wants a full and immediate refund and says if you don’t take care of this right away, she’ll call her credit card company and start a chargeback.
You apologize and begin opening your file to see all the order and delivery details. You assure her that you’ll find out what happened to cause the problem and promise to call her back right away. She’s not listening; all she wants is a refund no matter what you learn.
Now your day is disrupted, and if this is your first call from a disgruntled customer, the call actually makes you nervous.
This situation happened to me in the late 1990s, and I can tell you that my heart was racing as I spoke to the customer.
When you own a business and are in charge of every detail, there’s no one to investigate this dilemma except you, and because of that fact you take every problem personally.
What is your first move? Do you have a written plan of action for this situation, such as mailing the client one of the Top 10 Letters, or will you start to document a procedure as you go through this morning’s motions?
I remember how I handled my first dissatisfied customer. What did you do, and if you’ve not yet received this type of call, what will you do when it happens?
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