At a recent management retreat in Phoenix, about 40 shop owners and managers came

together to discuss the major profitabil-ity issues facing our industry today. The consensus was that most shops need to boost their sales to match their produc-tion capacity or increase their produc-tion capacity to match their sales. In other words, sales and production ratios are out of whack and the first step that makes any sense is to get them in bal-ance.

I covered this concept in a previous article about Adjusted Capacity. The name of the article is The Basic 8, and you can find it at www.atra.com in the GEARS archived articles.

Now back to the retreat and the subject of this article, which is an excit-ing idea on how to boost your sales. One of the guest speakers was Yuvi Shmul, a successful entrepreneur from outside our industry. Yuvi has written a number of business books under the banner “Make It Big with Yuvi,” and he’s a fascinating speaker. He brought many new perspectives into the discus-sion and opened our eyes to tremendous marketing ideas including a new spin on an old marketing concept: outside sales.

Yuvi spoke about a concept known as cross-promotions. Most transmis-sion shops have, in one fashion or another, used this concept to encourage other automotive repair shops to refer transmission work to them in exchange for some form of consideration. The consideration could be anything from a simple thanks to gifts or cash. We always called this outside sales, and it formed a natural basis for a win-win relationship between two non-compet-ing businesses.

However, today, many of the repair shops have started installing reman

units, and these types of mutually-rewarding relationships are slowly dis-appearing. Yuvi simply asked the ques-tion, “Why not cross-promote with non-automotive businesses?” The premise is that all small businesses have the same challenge: they all need more customers to visit their places of business. Every visit creates the potential for immediate and future sales. As always, you have to establish some win-win basis for the program to work.

This set my head spinning with all the possibilities, and I’m going to share what I think could be a million dollar idea for just about any of you. Through my radio show, I recently came across an idea you can use to attract new cus-tomers, and make an impression that will last a lifetime. At first, I didn’t see how it fit with our industry, but thanks to Yuvi, it’s now perfectly clear that it’s perfect for us.

Who wouldn’t want a free vaca-tion? Imagine if you could give pros-pects and customers complimentary 3-day / 2-night getaways. Nobody forgets a vacation… we even take pictures to make sure we remember. Talk about high perceived value! But how can you afford to give away free vacations? Frankly, you probably can’t do it alone, but through a unique cross-promotional program, it’s very affordable. I use it on my radio show all the time now.

For years, resorts have used free stays as incentives to attract custom-ers. The problem has always been that they’re a trap! The vacations end up being nothing more than high-pressure sales pitches for timeshares or land sales, and literally trillions of dollars of timeshares have been sold using free resort stays as an incentive to attend their sales pitch.

The point is that vacation incen-tives do work, but you wouldn’t want to

force a good customer go through this type of treatment and call it a gift. That would make the wrong kind of lasting impression. I wouldn’t do that to my radio show listeners, either.

The good news is this program is different. Here’s how it works:1. A Private Discount Travel Club

that isn’t a timeshare or land sales scheme offers businesses an oppor-tunity to partner with them in a unique cross-promotion in which you can affordably give the gift of travel as an incentive to attract and reward customers.

2. You purchase a supply of full color business cards, which are printed on 30-Mil plastic stock and have the look and feel of a high quality gift card.

3. The face of the card is your busi-ness card, and the back of the card is 3-day / 2-night vacation gift card.

4. Each business/gift card is good for a complimentary 3-day / 2-night stay at hundreds of fine hotels and resorts across America.

5. The back of the card has step-by-step instructions for redeeming the complimentary vacation right on the internet; no sales pitches to attend and no gimmicks or catch-es.

6. The travel club just wants people to visit their web site and watch a 7-minute introductory movie about their discount travel membership program.

7. They know some visitors to their web site will want more details and some will choose to become members.

8. Don’t worry about your customer feeling preyed upon; the program is so packed with value, it liter-ally sells itself. If they want to

by Thom Tschetter

PLAYING TO WIN

24 GEARS April 2007

24tschttrplayx.indd 2424tschttrplayx.indd 24 3/13/07 12:32:07 PM3/13/07 12:32:07 PM

join, they do so on the web site; no salesperson will contact them.

9. After the customer watches the movie, they email their contact information to the program admin-istrator directly from the web site, and they send the complimentary vacation package to your custom-er.

10. The administrator replies by email to your customer and for your records, copies you, as well, con-firming that the package is going out. In this email message, they make another impression on your behalf with a favorable reference to you as the gift giver.

11. If you supply them with a personal letter or brochure, at no extra cost to you, they’ll enclose it when they mail out the vacation package; so you get yet, another marketing impression.

12. In any event, your customer gets a complimentary vacation, and they’ll always remember you and the gift you gave them.● There is no catch… it truly is a

win-win concept.● You win because grateful

customers will remember you for years to come.● It’s something they’ll

talk about.● Nobody will throw

your business card away, and they’ll show it to their friends.

● Your customers win because they get a com-plimentary vacation stay and watch an informative 7-minute movie on the internet.

● The hotels and resorts win by filling otherwise vacant units with people who are likely to spend money at their gift shops, restaurants, bars, etc.

● The vacation club wins because they get more visitors to their web site.

Here’s the best part: Because this is a cross-promotion and to make it a true win-win, the vacation club subsi-dizes most of the cost. The cards alone would likely cost you about $1.50 each

just to have them printed on your own, but through this program, you can get the cards, including the complimentary 3-day / 2-night vacation gift for as little as $5.95 each. This is because they want you to give them out liberally. The more you give out the more everyone benefits!

Here are 8 great ways you could use these cards to promote your busi-ness. The list is sure to grow as you put your creativity into play. 1. Use them to attract new custom-

ers by offering them FREE with a qualifying purchase.

2. Use them as a loyalty cards by offering them FREE for complet-ing a qualifying number of ser-vices.

3. Use them to reward customers for sending referrals.

4. Use them when you need to make things right with an upset custom-er.

5. Use them to drive your outside sales referral program.

6. Use them to attract new fleet accounts.

7. Put on a drawing to get people to stop in just to enter to win a vaca-tion.

8. Use them to make donations to ser-vice clubs, churches, and charities when they come in seeking your support.Try it for yourself. You can expe-

rience exactly what your customers will experience when using this cross-promotion program. You’ll even get a complimentary 3-day / 2-night getaway, just like they will.

For more information on this pro-gram and to take a virtual tour, visit www.globalresortclub.com. You can also contact me by phone or email. My phone number is (360) 815-2055 and my email is thom@globalresortclub.com.

This is just one of over 25 profit-building strategies that I cover in the ATRA Playing to Win management seminar. Each month I’ll cover one of these moneymaking ideas, but be sure to register for the live seminar when it comes to your area.

GEARS April 2007 25

24tschttrplayx.indd 2524tschttrplayx.indd 25 3/13/07 12:33:35 PM3/13/07 12:33:35 PM