"Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it. "

-- Henry Thoreau, Author

by Jami Petersen

In business, as in life, we often look for ways to enhance ourselves in order to be successful. Sometimes finding success comes easily while other times it may seem like the process lasts forever before we reach our destination.   One sure way to make the process simpler is to search out resources like newsletters, business groups, and support organizations.

Let us help you in the process. This week read when to put out news releases so they are the most effective. And, be inspired by a pizza guy who turned challenges into opportunity.

Jami Petersen
newsletters@a-z.com

Memory Mixer 

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Read all about it! When to put out a news release

To give you an idea of how extensively news releases can be used, here's a list of basic opportunities:

-- Opening of a new retail location or significant growth of an existing location.

-- Acquiring a new scanner or kiosk that's unique to your territory.

-- Reaching a business milestone (e.g., record sales, anniversary).

-- Establishing a customer "HelpLine" on your website.

-- Recognizing outstanding employee awards or expanding staff numbers.

-- Announcing the availability of a retailer-produced email newsletter for customers and prospects.

-- Announcing extended hours or planned renovations.

-- Participating in local community activities (e.g., scouting or historic celebrations).

-- Promoting in-store events (e.g., demos, exhibits, and seminars).

-- Promoting out-of-store events or dealer-sponsored field trips (e.g., the Spring Flower Show or Zoo Shoot). Remember to invite the local media.

-- Recognizing local dealer reaction to new technologies or products exhibited at major trade shows, like the international or regional PMA shows.

Be creative in developing ideas and situations. It may pay off with major coverage in a local newspaper. Look for daily or weekly news for anything that would make an interesting story for someone not familiar with your business.

The SMART Group 

Get SMART About Your Business. Join the SMART Group Today.

Benefits of The SMART Group include:
· Education programs provided throughout the year
· SMART Promotional Ideas and Turnkey Programs Throughout the Year
Business Services Discounts:
· Sales Success Profiles
· Insurance Benefits
· Product-Specific Promotions from SMART Manufacturers
· Consulting Services with SMART Business Consultants
· Premier Retail Store Advertising Programs at no additional cost.
 Get SMART about your business today!

Listen to this

Bruce Aldrich of the Photo Marketing Association International (PMA) and Dennis Conforto of A-Z Media Group have helped launch several efforts to combine the marketing power of the photo, custom framing, art and scrapbooking industries through regional teams and media projects.

They tell DECOR Magazine's Assistant Editor Daniel Mullen about the progress they've made and why the efforts can benefit all of the industries involved.
Click here to listen to the interview. (Duration: 23:44).

 

PSRO 

Dedicated to those helping consumers preserve treasured memories.

The Professional Scrapbook Retailers Organization™ (PSRO™) bridges together retailers and suppliers for insight into the memories market.

Through educational programs, business services, industry research, networking, and events, PSRO leads its members to discover, understand, and act on new business opportunities.

For more information, or to join PSRO, visit www.psro.org or contact our member service department at 517-788-8100.

by Dennis Conforto

I wanted to share with you a story about a retailer that has an important lesson regarding the nature of what it takes to be a great retailer today.

A new owner having never been in retail before bought a Domino's franchise. He opened his new store at a resort area near a lake. The first challenge he faced with his market area is most of the residences live there only six months out of the year. It's a place where people come in the summer and really nobody stays for the winter. Think about that, you’re in retail and now you discover you have to make all of your real profit in a six month period of time because for the rest of the year your business is going to be dead.

The second challenge he discovered shortly after he opened. Domino's guarantees pizza deliver within thirty minutes. There was no way that he could consistently make the advertised time limit because he was situated on a big lake with houses stretching all the way around the lake. This was quickly becoming a disaster for his retail business.

He needed to find the shortest route between the restaurant and homes so he began to deliver the pizza by boat. Every house was right on the lake accompanied by a dock. As a result, he became the first Domino's franchisee to ever deliver pizza by boat. You have got to love a retailer like this who just doesn’t understand the words, “it can’t be done”.

The next challenge he discovered was that boats don't stay stable like a vehicle. Although the pizza was getting there in thirty minutes, it was all smashed to one side of the box and stuck to the lid. Once again, he needed an innovative solution.

He got with the Domino's engineers and together they invented a device solely for his use. They invented a device that involved a heating gyroscope to hold the pizzas in the boat while keeping them hot and stable regardless of the boat’s movement. Now that’s clever retailing! And it shows what can happen when you work closely with your supplier to solve what is really a joint issue of getting more sales.

The next challenge he faced was that at night the docks and lake were dark. His delivery people were getting lost out on the lake and getting lost meant being late and being late meant the pizza was free. He decided to go around the entire lake and put solar lights on every dock at his expense. He also painted on dock numbers so when people ordered their pizza they could just give their dock number and his staff could get there on time with a perfect pizza. Retail invention and a set of clever ideas brought him profits and newbies for his product and services, ultimately making his pizza business work.

Here's the amazing part of the story. In a six-month period that franchisee out sold two-thirds of what the Domino's franchisees do all year long simply by delivering pizza by boat on his lake just a portion of the year.

The moral of the story is either you want it badly enough to do what it takes or you don’t. What would your sales look like if you applied this tenacious attitude towards looking for the newbie?

Well, two years ago I was talking with some of the executives of Cord Camera. They have 37 stores nine of which have a great scrapbooking section. They are an independent retail chain who has to think outside the box like everyone else. In this case they thought with the box, a pizza type box.

Like everyone else they had some slow moving inventory they needed to clear. They came up with the great idea of Scrapbook Pizza! They purchased some boxes that where the shape and size of a pizza box and created a clever list of scrapbook ingredients. The result was a great sales event that creatively moved older inventory without their having to heavily discount it. It also drove up the average size of the transaction, and by thinking outside the box they found the solution in a pizza box.

Simply stated we should be reaching to move past the $2.1 billion mark we are at today. To do that the industry needs newbies and we need to grow from 4.5 million scrapbookers to 40 million with new products, new ideas and new ways of doing business that will only happen by working together.

Like the pizza guy we need more business more often and in our case we need it all year long. We need more men buying products and we need real solutions that appeal to them on a mass scale. Like the pizza guy who was worried about time we need to worry about the time our core customers have to shop and how much they have to spend. We can’t afford to have scrapbooking be seen as a luxury expense because it is now costing on average $16.50 cents per three photo scrapbook page. Nor can it be seen as a category that takes too much time. We must fit into today’s reality for women whose budgets are tighter because of rising fuel prices and who have less time now than ever before.

We have the potential so the question is can we be as SMART as the pizza guy to shine a light on those consumers addresses we would like to sell to even in the middle of the night? When we think and act before the box is closed is when we will reach the goal at hand. And that is what being business SMART is all about.

If you would like to comment directly to Dennis about this article or have him address a subject matter in future articles feel free to email him directly at dconforto@a-z.com.

2007 Trend Report 

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What could possibly more important than knowing what excites consumers, your customers? Our National Scrapbookers Trend Report, will do the work for you, highlighting emerging consumer trends and offering insights that will help you make the most of your business in a direct and targeted manner.

Can you afford not to know what your consumers think?

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Lucidiom ships new version of award-winning EQ Software

Lucidiom EQ 6.0 Features New Creative Products and Customer Connections,
System Integration, Increased Order Speed and More
 

Lucidiom Inc., announced it has shipped a new version of its award-winning software. Lucidiom EQ 6.0 features new creative products and flexible imaging solutions that continue to take Lucidiom photofinishers beyond 4x6 profits.

“As the industry evolves from photo to social expression, the most successful businesses will be those that embrace this evolution and acquire the tools to help their customers realize their full potential. Version 6.0 of the Lucidiom EQ platform has all the requisite tools and more,” Lucidiom President Steve Giordano, Jr. wrote in a letter to Lucidiom customers and the photofinishing industry at large regarding the latest imaging solution from Lucidiom.

Lucidiom EQ 6.0 consists of four pillars: APM 6.0, new Lucidiom kiosk software that allows photofinishers to act as the consumer’s personal publisher; Lab 50 6.0, the ideal open production tool that requires no new equipment purchases; the flexible EQ-9850 printer; and Photo Finale 6.0, the next generation of Lucidiom’s web-based imaging solutions, which will be released later this summer.

Lucidiom retailers already enjoy more than 200 unique, printable creative product sizes in photo books, calendars, flat cards, folded cards, posters, collages and scrapbook pages, with thousands of theme and layout combinations. Version 6.0 boasts several new sizes and enhancements to these profitable products, including 6x8 photo books, notepads, banners in four sizes, 8x12 calendars, mini books and new features like a folded card categorization system and Card Catalogs/Quick Books. The Card Catalog, or Quick Book, is an impulse book that can be purchased by a customer just like an index print. The order process also has been improved in version 6.0 with an auto-fill system for posters and collages, the ability to drag and drop photos and to add or remove pages from photo books.

A significant enhancement in this software build, Lab 50 and the APM photo kiosk now are integrated, allowing Lucidiom customers to do business smarter by managing all their kiosks and pricing promotions from a central location. For instance, with Lucidiom EQ 6.0, a photofinisher now can plan pricing promotions for a particular timeframe on select kiosks or his entire fleet with the click of a button, rather than configuring each individual kiosk.

Lucidiom retailers also will enjoy the customer membership plans available through EQ 6.0. These managed plans of products, discounts and promotions put photofinishers in greater control of customer relationships through tracking, targeted promotions and customer rewards. Membership plans, which can be offered to customers for free or for a nominal charge, are completely configurable to suit the retailer's specific customer audience.