Coffee! Hot Chocolate!

“Coffee! Hot Chocolate!” The expressions are always mixed when I being the morning calls for the offerings from our Lenexa United Methodist Church’s concession stand at the Kansas Speedway. It ranges from an absolute die-hard coffee drinker needing their additional cup to get going taking advantage of the immediate offer to mimics from those who get tired of hearing my constant calls. It even makes fans that love an afternoon sweet treat stop back by.

One race day, it was so cold in the morning that people were walking briskly and heard my calls, but the crowd was so dense they could not make it over to our window. I was told that in the down line neighboring stands people were stopping in asking for the hot chocolate they heard about from my calls. It created such a demand they sold out of their hot chocolate and people were scrambling to find more cups. The guys in charge of the cups fortunately rounded us up a few more just before ours ran out that morning. We too eventually did run out of cups. It was great when they located a stash of remaining cups and sent them to us that afternoon making us the only ones at the track with hot chocolate. With the new supply of cups, I began the calls immediately and it was like fishing. By that time in the day it had warmed up so many were no longer interested in a warm drink. Yet, there were those who really had the sweet crave who would hear my call and make their path directly to buy from us.

In sales, it is that way. Call and let people know what you have and understand that some will and some won’t take an interest. It is up to you to shout out the offer and it is up to the prospect to determine if they will become your customer. Working the Speedway has been a great money maker for our Church, so stop by our booth. I would love to serve you a coffee or hot chocolate.

Simple Classification for People in Your Contact Database

I was asked for a quick suggestion on a simple and easy way to classify the people in a customer management database. The quick three would be:

1. How did this person become a part of your contacts? Olathe Chamber, purchased list, signed up for the newsletter from your web site, and so forth. Getting this will help you know more about the benefit of specific sources.
2. What is their relationship to you? Customer, friend, vendor, business development resource, referral partner, and so on. It is possible for people to fit in more than one, but you may want to consider the 3rd classification before confirming exactly how you want to organization your specific database.
3. How do you feel about working with this customer or vendor? Ignore getting an 80/20, 80/80, or any such ration. Go for your take on the value of the relationship. There will always be some who will be a better fit for your company and life is too short to spend time on a poor fit relationship.