See below for more great articles and information to help you with your new business!
Proper Care & Handling of Food
Food Safety sounds rather boring to discuss, but if you have ever gotten sick from contaminated food, it’s not a pleasant thing to experience and can be life threatening. As an AP rep, it is your responsibility to handle the products you deliver for the company. Currently we don’t require a food handler’s permit to work as an rep AP, but it is very good idea for everyone to obtain one and to use the principles taught there in your own kitchens. It’s also a good thing to review from time to time.
Finding New Customers
We’ve got some great information to help you build your business by finding NEW customers! From rewarding existing customers for referrals to tasting parties or fair booths, to advertising. You’ll find the perfect ideas for you!
Advertising Your Business
Now that your an Alison’s Pantry Representative, you’ll want to get the word out that you are a sales rep and grow your customer base. Click here for some great Advertising ideas that have worked great for other sales reps. Also see below for more advertising tips.
If 50% of American Business is done by word-of-mouth advertising, what’s the word on you?
Do you want your customers to talk about you and share their Alison’s Pantry catalogs with their friends? Did you know that customer referrals are the best way to build your business? Here are some great tips for encouraging your customers to grow your business for you:
Be Friendly
- When interacting with a customer, concentrate on the person, not the personality. Your first job is to help the customer—not yourself.
- Be a friendly person on the inside. Start with a good attitude. Be friendly to everyone, not just your customers.
- Answer the phone like everyone on the other end is a friend you haven’t seen in years.
Be Available (no I am not talking for a date)
- Will your answering machine accept messages or is it full? Does your voice mail say you work with Alison’s Pantry? Please fix it if it doesn’t. Clear out your messages so you can accept more.
- Answer your phone, or get back to customers within 24 hours. Text back. Call back. Email back. Be prompt. People are not going to trust you with their money if they can’t get a hold of you.
Be Knowledgeable
- Know and use AP products yourself.
- Attend the webinars each month to learn more about our products and how to use them. It’s only one hour per month.
- Be enthusiastic about what you love with your customers. Tell them how much you love a product and be quick to find out information for them on products they have questions about.
Small and simple things make all the difference and as you do those things with your AP business you will see it really grow!
-Julie, RSM
What is one of the best kinds of advertising for your business?
The answer, Great Customer Service!! Not only is it one of the best ways to advertise, it’s also one of the cheapest and everyone can do it with a little extra effort!
What are some great customer service tips you can use and what do they cost you?
- Put a smile on your face when greeting a customer in person or talking to them on the phone. The cost is FREE and definitely worth the effort! Who wants to be greeted by a grumpy person?! Not me, so put that smile on, exercise those facial muscles and reap the rewards of happy customers!! Customers who are happy with the people they do business with are more likely to increase what they purchase from them and purchase more often. A Win Win for you and your customer!!
- Have a positive attitude when dealing with customers, especially a difficult one. The cost is FREE but sometimes difficult to execute. When dealing with an unhappy customer, listen to their complaint and then let them know you are sincerely sorry they are unhappy and assure them you will do everything you can to correct whatever is wrong. DO NOT be afraid to accept responsibility if you have done something wrong. No one is perfect and mistakes happen. A sincere apology goes a long way to making things right again. Consider offering the customer something for FREE (such as FREE shipping or a FREE item) to appease them and keep them as a customer. It’s much easier to keep a customer than to find a new one.
- Be consistent. This is especially important when doing reminders each month. The cost is FREE but does require you to plan and make the time to do them every month. If you are consistently sending reminders 4 or 5 days before order deadline, you are giving your customers enough time to look through the catalog and put their orders together and get them to you. If you procrastinate until the last day, one or more customers may not have time to look and will just pass placing an order until next month and you’ve lost a sale. Being consistent with your reminders is key to great sales!
Great customer service is one of the best forms of advertising because when you take care of your customers, they are going to take care of you by telling others about you and how happy they are having you for a sales rep and having someone else vouch for you will speak far loader than you tooting your own horn!
Great Customer Service is treating EVERY customer as if they were your BEST customer!
Getting that 2nd Order
You’ve been working hard at growing your Alison’s Pantry business and you are starting to pick up new customers! Yeah! But then, you notice that you have several new customers who place one order and then never order again.
Unless you know the new customer, you probably haven’t had much time to build a strong relationship with them but there are a few things you can do to get that second and subsequent orders from them.
Repeat Customers
You’ve worked hard and got that customer to place their first order and maybe even their 2nd! Great job! Now to get them to order again and again, month after month. That is the heart of where our orders come from – our repeat customers. We are in a great industry that does not have to continually find new customers because the market is saturated and everyone has what we are selling. We sell a consumable product that needs to be replenished constantly so our largest sales volume is from repeat customers. What should we be doing to get our customers to order what they need from us month after month?
Follow Up
We’ve got some great information to help you build your business by finding NEW customers! From rewarding existing customers for referrals to tasting parties or fair booths, to advertising. You’ll find the perfect ideas for you!
Growing Sales
Fair Booths, Tasting Parties and Open Houses are great ways to introduce a large group of potential customers to Alison’s Pantry products. It gets our company name and logo out in front of people so it is more recognizable. And it gives you the opportunity to grow your customer base by getting catalogs into people’s hands, giving people a chance to sample some of our products, as well as a chance to sell additional products. Click below to learn more!
Taxes & Deductions
Tax Season is always a stressful time of year. How can you make filing taxes for a home based business easier? Document, document, document! This can’t be stressed enough. Accurate and up to date files must be maintained in order to be allowed as deductions for a home based business.