65 ThoughtFull Ways for Booksellers & Authors to Delight and Serve Customers

To become their top-of-mind choice when buying books, generate differentiating value and visibility – as you can best do with the right partners and methods. In an over-advertised world get introduced to prospective customer through organizations they already know and trust. With the right alliances you can also attract new niche markets, improve your cause support, create new profit centers, attract more of your most lucrative kind of customer, increase per-customer spending, attract unusual media cover – and enjoy your success with allies who are benefiting from it along with you. The 64 customer-attracting suggestions are based on three fundamental notions of "thoughtfull" outreach and service. 1. Hone your specific, vivid, valuable point of difference from your nearest competitors that customers can see and care about. 2. Continually offer more ways and reasons to buy from you, buy more and rave about you to their friends. 3. Third, that you must continuously seek ways to reduce the number of inconvenient, boring, or otherwise negative barriers to buying from you. Whether you offer order-by-fax with curbside book pickup or provide amusing things to see and do while a staffer is ringing up a sale, turn every customer moment into something more positive. Now to some specifics . . . 1. "Brand Your Bookstore" Constantly promote and reinforce the main difference between your bookstore and the two other bookstores your kind of customers are most likely to choose. "Bay Area's Liveliest Bookstore" is a more informative and memorable slogan than, say, "Bay Area's Best Bookstore." The first version is how the Petrocellis characterize their event-filled store in my county, and they live up to their motto. In one vivid phrase or sentence, describe your bookstore's main differentiating benefit. Is it specific, believable, and easy to remember? Does every store employee know it? How many customers would recall it when outside your store? Display it as your motto for staff and customers to see and hear frequently. Use it as your reference point in conversations with customers and for all store decision-making, from operations to book selections to promotions. 2. "Prove Your Point of Difference" What are the two most obvious and quantifiable ways your store demonstrates its differentiation (depth of titles and staff knowledge in a certain subject area, special subjects, variety of convenient ways to buy, wide-ranging and numerous book reviews, convenient location, more) that reinforce your main differentiating benefit in the eyes of your customers. Retail is detail - this "detail" is your main resource and you want to constantly find new business practices that reinforce it. 3. "Know Why They Buy" The most important question you can ask your customers is "What are the main reasons you buy from our bookstore rather than another?" Ask them at least twice yearly and reward them for answering with a drawing for prizes and by informing them how you've used their opinions to further improve your bookstore. Design a "Quick Poll" in which they can number their top ten factors (your list) that include two blank spaces for their own possible fill-in. 4. "Narrow Your Niches to Widen Your Profits" Some customers are more valuable than others (the top 5% who buy far more) so find more ways to treat them that way. Select two to three niche-within-a-niche markets - people for whom you provide extraordinary, sometimes premium service, sometimes for premium prices. Then consider the books, related products, and service policies and procedures you will implement to provide that level of service to them. A niche might be Koreans; a niche-within-a-niche could be Korean entrepreneurs. A niche might be computer professionals; niche-within-a-niche: home office workers with computers. Niche: women mystery readers; niche-within-a-niche: women mystery readers who are also frequent travellers. The more specific you get in picturing a narrowly defined market, the more easily you can picture them as people. You can see their lifestyle and ways you can reach and delight more of them, with less effort and cost, and in ways they will value. Plus, you can steadily go after one niche after another, knowing that their enthusiasm and loyalty will also spill over to attract others kinds of friends they refer. Select a niche by considering your own areas of interest or expertise (based on crisis, hobbies, or life experiences). As a former stutterer, for example, I tend to notice related inspirational or helpful books and services. as do many of the stutterers I’ve met. The more narrow the niche you target, the more streamlined, thought1` and profitable you can be in reaching and serving that niche. 5. "Make Buying More Effortless" Reduce the number of motions and amount of time it takes for a customer to buy from you. Literally walk through the steps with a co-staffer and/or customer and discuss alternatives to even the most basic ways you are currently doing business. 6. "Provide Pleasant Pauses" Make customers' waiting time at the cash register more pleasant by having various things to read (reviews, upcoming events, coupon offers), play with (magnetic poetry, small stuffed animals, "Quotes Here"), fill out (online newsletter request, review form), watch (video vignettes), smell (waft your store scent over this area). 7. "Find Your Quotes Here" Place a large container - perhaps a large, clear plastic salad bowl - near the entry door and/or by the cash register. Label it "Quotes Here," with a sign: "Take a quote and create one or write a favorite book excerpt to leave in the bowl." Directions invite customers to sign their fortune-cookie-size paper contribution. Fill the bowl with at least 200 multi-colored quotes from classic, new, and upcoming books. Periodically include a collection of the quotes and the customers' contributions in your outreach (Web site, newsletter). 8. "See Smiles in a Sunshine-Filled Store" Many clothing and make-up retailers and restaurant owners have learned the magic of soft lighting, and you'll see an improvement in the mood of your staff and customers when you install "full-spectrum" lights that replicate the range of sunlight. Unless your store is already awash with natural light, these bulbs and tubes are an inexpensive way to encourage customers to linger, especially during the dark winter months. Ask your local lighting specialist for brands they carry. 9. "Scents of Life Create a "signature scent" to further reinforce the unique character of your bookstore and establish a mood from the moment customers walk through the door. Also scent the store for special events (chocolate for the week before Valentine's Day, pine for December holiday time . . .) The most directly emotional sense, scent, can now be used without the fear of adverse effects such as provoking allergic reactions, because of the sophistication of at least one "environmental fragrancing system," AromaSys (612-924-0730). They design a scent with you and then install their unit in your heating or air conditioning system or offer a stand-alone unit. They've installed systems in restaurants, casinos, homes, public aquariums, and hotels. 10. "Offer Three Minutes of Fame" Create videotapes of "Video Vignettes" book readings by local notables and visiting and local authors who visit your store. Ask each to pick a favorite passage in someone else's book to read for up to three minutes. Keep a video camera (securely stored) in your store for in-store videoing when notables arrive for the appointment you set. The video session itself will be a fun in-store event. 11. "Fame Fosters Fans" Contact public figures and people with a local constituency. If one of your niche-within-a niche markets is avid gardeners, invite the local garden society's president to read and lead a pre-Spring mini-seminar. If you specialize in mysteries, invite the police chief. Invite the presidents of major locally based companies, high school honor role members, radio sportscasters, United Way's new campaign chair. Make allies and share constituencies as they gain "bragging rights" through their relationship with you, so their colleagues drop by to see them on the video you run on a continuous feed loop. 12. "See Book Recommendations from the Street" Display the video monitor in a place where people enter the store, wait (by cash register), converge (cards or magazines display), or walk by (in store window for 24-hour viewing with piped-out sound.) Show your videos of authors and local celebrities. 13. "Spread the Fame" Offer "free rental" copies of these videos to the people who appear in them and to their "constituents," for them to play in their lobbies, office waiting areas, or employee cafeterias - or at their events or at meetings of organizations to which they belong. 14. "Watch Words Featured Here" Near each video monitor that features the Video Vignettes for the month, display a sign, "Celebrities and Books Featured in [month's] Video Vignettes," listing the celebrity readers and appropriate titles in the order they appear, along with the titles of their book selections. Within two feet, display the books (and a bundled price for them), in the sequence they are discussed on the video. 15. "Hear Readers at Work" As an alternative to vignettes of celebrities' book recommendations, show another video of your selected celebrities actually reading from their favorite books, also with an accompanying sign that lists their name, title, and favorite book from which they are reading. Each reader might read one passage, so the viewer gets to sample many readings. 16. "Proffer Bragging Rights" Give all Video Vignette book recommenders and readers a "Celebrity Appearance at [your bookstore name]" certificate or symbolic souvenir (such as bookends or framed photo of them reading) so they can display it and further your store's visibility. Thus you are marketing to and through each book lover to reach more people, some of whom might not have stepped into your store. 17. "We Coddle Avid Readers" Offer $500 and $250 "Avid Reader" gift certificates. Those who purchase a certificate get a free product they can pick up from your nearby cross-promoting partner. Your partner makes a similar offer to his customers, for which you provide a comparably priced set of books to her certificate-buying customers. 18. "Add to Gift-Giving Fun" Offer major gift certificates of $500 for which the recipient receives a bonus gift along with the certificate, from one of your cross-promoting partners. At an "Attention-Getting Gifts" display, list the reasons for giving books and the products from your cross-promoting partners that can be delivered with your gift certificate. 19. "Foster Forget-Me-Not Giving" Help customers avoid the guilt of forgetting several special occasions. On the upside, show them how they can give gifts to several people without showing favoritism and how certificates will keep them in the mind of the recipient each time that person uses the certificate. 20. "Make Giving Convenient" Encourage book-certificate giving by providing forms on which givers can write their name, recipient, where to be sent, and when. Show the convenience of their listing several recipients at once who may receive their certificates at different times. Offer a free gift certificate to givers who register a minimum number of intended recipients at one time. This option will be especially attractive to forgetful or time-pressed people. Later, send a note suggesting the giver might want to send gift certificates again the following year and/or to others, and put their gift-giving pattern in your computer. 21. "Exchange with Your Partners" Your cross-promoting partners can make a similar offer of a comparably priced product for their customers who buy gift certificates. Thus all participating retailers gain credible, attention-getting access to each other's big-spending customers and can exchange what you can least expensively provide - your own products. 22. "Stick with Your Customers" Offer your customers free and elegantly designed gift stickers, with your bookstore name on them. For your major customers, offer book owner's name stickers that discretely include your store name and contact information. 23. "Help! I Need a Book Now" Get customers accustomed to buying your books (and more) as last minute and impulse buys, even when they can't visit the store - for example, when they forgot a birthday or have an unexpected opportunity to celebrate. They might want to send a book, with a card, or - with less thinking needed on their part - a gift certificate inscribed with their message. Offer a gift bag and card, with their message, delivered fast for a reasonable fee. Your cross-promoting partner might be the messenger service you use. 24. "Be a Good Business Neighbor" Display a sign in your store for a nearby outlet's limited-time offer for a specific product or service, using a headline on the sign that gets smaller as it continues into body copy. Use descriptive language that is reflective of your kind of customer and your kind of bookstore. For example, "In just three minutes you can walk around the corner and pick up a bouquet to go with that gift book you're buying. Tell Lily Hills at Flowers Forever on 385 Sausalito Blvd that we suggested it and get a free gardenia to go with your book. What an easy way to brighten someone's day!" 25. "Cross-Promote to Attract New Customers" As an alternative to Tip #24, cross-promote with a bike shop, asking them to superimpose a sign on one of their bike posters: "For those adventuresome enough to take bike tours elsewhere, see three great bike touring books we recommend at Bellamy's Books just down the street. Tell them we suggested it and get a free greeting card with your purchase." 26. "Where Do You Do Your Errands?" Ask customers what other places they often visit before or after your bookstore so you can recognize what organizations would be the most valuable allies for cross-promotions. Make it easy for customers to answer by providing a form at the counter, listing 30 or so organizations and leaving blank spaces for them to fill in others. 27. "Give Them Another Reason to Buy" Because bookstores, like most other stores, display products and signs in the categories in which they are purchased (mysteries, cookbooks) but customers' needs or interests don't always correspond to these categories, create displays and signs that relate to special interests. Base the displays on time of year or life, special human conditions or situations, passionate interests or causes, hot current topics or celebrations, newsmaking events, local leaders' pronouncements, and the like. Don't rely on customers to seek out a title they might want (but don't know exists) or to buy for a reason they would value (but haven't yet considered). Sample messages might be "Graduation presents here," "Plan Summer Trips Now," "Most Widely Read Mysteries This Month," "Stay Fit This Winter," "Books Made into Movies," "Starting a Business?" 28. "Provide Third-Party Endorsements" Increase your per-customer sales by showing them that people they respect or find interesting recommend certain books. Let customers see brief book recommendations by notable people, displayed throughout your store: on shelves, in window displays of their five favorites, on your web site, on lifesize cardboard cut-out photos of the reviewer, on floor-to-ceiling paper posters. 29. "I Love This Book!" Make it easy for people to review books in their own way - offering anything from a quick one-to-three sentence recommendation to a thoughtful, longer review - by designing a distinctive "I Love This Book" form they can fill out and fax back, drop off, or email to you. Place the reviews near the books and in your other outreach (Web site, CitySearch site, newsletter) to stretch the value for the reviewer and your store. 30. "Be a Well-Read Reviewer" Show talented reviewers the value of contributing a review, so they'll keep contributing. Displayed reviews help authors stay in the public eye, local business owners stand out from their competition, public officials gain more positive visibility, advocates further their cause, experts display their knowledge, heroes and other newsmakers make more news while they're newsworthy. Build a coterie of diverse and interesting experts with well-known names and interesting jobs or expertise, who get in the news or whose titles or achievements make them credible and/or just plain interesting reviewers. 31. "Recruit Valuable Reviewers" Look for book reviewers in at least three ways: a. Experts. Looking at each book category, consider whose opinion on that kind of book would be credible or interesting to others. For example, for reviews of mysteries, contact the owner of a local detective agency. It's good public visibility for public officials (the police chief reviewing books on security or police mystery, the mayor on government or politics). Leaders of a cause, civic or other non-profit organization, offer reviews that spotlight their concerns. b. Newsmakers. Seek reviews from people in the news now. Peruse your paper for local people who made "good news" for a heroic action, their work, a personal or civic achievement, a school honor. You help make them an ally with your store, gain access to their constituency, and add another interesting feature for people visiting your store to see. c. Authors and Other Celebrities. Just as Vanity Fair gets interesting reactions when they ask high- and lowbrow celebrities what book they're reading, you'll offer your customers another fun feature to read. 32. "Cultivate Reviewers as Marketers of Your Bookstore" Make it an honor for some reviewers to display their book review or a book excerpt at their work site by preparing it in a way that helps them, and then display their work at your bookstore. For example, ask the best bike shop owner to review books about bike tours and borrow one of her bikes for an in-store display that includes the review. For her bike store display, enlarge and frame the review with a frame that includes your bookstore's name and address 33. "Be a Local Columnist" Offer your local shopper's newspaper a regular column - perhaps titled "What We're Reading" - in which you recap three to eight of the various book recommendations by locals and others of interest to the readers. Also consider offering your services for a "Book Bite" one-minute book review for your talk show or news radio station and/or for a weekend morning call-in show of books to read or avoid. Invite opinionated readers to join you for different shows for a lively back-and-forth discussion to stimulate callers. 34. "Help with Their Errands" Where else do people often visit and shop before or after visiting your bookstore? Whether those sites are stores, offices, restaurants, gyms, government offices, or not-for-profit agencies, their managers might be interested in gaining visibility in front of your customers just as much as you'd like their positive reference to your bookstore. Encourage your staff to refer customers to their place, and vice versa. Agree on the actual reasons and language you would like the cross-promoting partner's staff to use about your store. 35. "Neighborhood Sights to See" Whether you are in a mall or on a street, find nearby organizations (per #34) that you respect. Suggest to the managers that you all pitch in to create a map, with numbers for each of your outlets to correspond with outlet names, addresses, hours open, phone, calendar of neighborhood events, and such. All agree to distribute the map at your sites, mail it as a joint postcard, and/or drop it in an envelope of coupon offers that reaches every household in your service area. 36. "Cite Similar Tastes" Below an author's books, place a shelf memo, "If you like books by [author's name] then you might also enjoy books by [another author's name]. 37. "Posters to Pull Customers In" Co-create posters and reduced-size handbills with nearby business owners that feature a quote from a book, with the phrase "from [book name], available at [your bookstore name, address, and Web site]" and a headline offer from your partnering business. A travel agency might offer a "Travel Tuscany" package along with your travel book quote. An excerpt from a book for expectant mothers could be combined with a "New Mothers Kit" from a store for infant clothing. Get introduced to each other's “nutual market” of customers by displaying the poster and distributing the handbill version at your sites. Booksellers have endless possibilities for such partnerships. 38. "Blue Sky Time" Recruit a group of disparate, interesting experts, your "Blue Sky Advisory Committee," and make them feel honored to advise you on how to reinforce your main differentiating benefit. Select people who might enjoy knowing each other at two fun, idea-packed, and tasty meetings a year. Each person represents free consulting, access to their constituencies, possible SmartPartnering opportunities, and in-store event resources. Seek out about eight participants, such as a copywriter, behavioral psychologist, expert in your niche market, avid customer, store window display designer, Web site marketer, direct mail producer, theatre lighting director - the list goes on. They get to brainstorm in the company of other creative people, propose ideas they The experts get to brainstorm in the company of other creative people, propose ideas they can't execute in their own organizations, and meet people who might help them in their work. Begin by briefing them on your plans to make your bookstore stand out from the competition, give a store tour, and then sit around a table to hear their suggestions. Ask an outside person to facilitate. Tape the session, and follow up with your list of questions. Serve a tapas-style dinner of easy-to-eat finger food so the conversation can flow. Commit to reporting back to them in writing with how you're implementing some of their ideas. When you use an idea, provide visible credit to the expert, in your store and with their colleagues 39. "Give Instant Response" What if you could respond in "real time" to prospective customers who visit your Web site and ask a question? The immediacy of your response increases the chances they'll buy by helping them at the moment they are most interested in your bookstore. Use Simple Text Messaging to offering lightening quick customer service. 40. "Offer Flexible Ways to Work 'at' Your Bookstore" Implementing the tip above in a staff-friendly way, your assigned staffer might be someone who serves a back-office function so they're often on the computer or - with the wonders of our computer age - an at-home person (because of disability, circumstance, or choice) who is working on the computer during the day. That person might also be your Webmaster, email and fax book-order taker, or online newsletter editor. 41. "Give 24-Hour 'Ask and Order' Service" Establish a team of staff-at-home from different time zones who collectively provide 24-hour "instant" coverage online. Flex, part-time, and job-sharing work can take on a new dimension as staff have the opportunity to co-design their work schedules in times that are convenient for them and also meet your 24-hour guarantee. 42. "Offer Your Niche Market Valuable Help" Serve your narrow niches by asking a staffer to cultivate relationships with other organizations with a Web presence that also serves your kind of niche customer anywhere in the world, getting involved via forums, chat rooms, articles, and reviews on related sites and online conferences. By promoting immediacy of service, you further differentiate your bookstore from others for "want it now," time-pressed prospective book buyers. 43. "Sidle to Get Along" People get along better when they "sidle" (standing or walking side by side) rather than face each other. Find opportunities to be facing the bookshelf together as you talk to customers. At the counter, stand at a slight angle away from the customer, perhaps angling the cash register so it seems natural to do so. 44. "Move Toward More Sales" Make customers more receptive to your book suggestions. Customers are literally able to hear staff suggestions and other comments sooner and longer and are more receptive when they are physically "in sync" with the staffer. The fastest way to get in sync is to be like them, in motion. Walking is the most natural example. In motion together, your vital signs (eye pupil dilation, skin temperature, and so on) become more alike, and you experience each other as more similar. People like people who act like them, and are more open to their ideas. 45. "Be Plainly Supportive" It is harder to get and hold the attention of another person when you wear patterned clothing, especially near your face. Avoid highly detailed clothing or jewelry, above the waist most of all. 46. "Take a Field Trip" Load up a minivan of employees and visit other successful sites - restaurants, amusement centers, hotels, museums, or corporate lobbies - to see what specific kinds of service, decor, product mixing, or whatever makes them stand out from their competition. Take tape recorders to record comments while onsite and - more frankly and thoroughly - right after you leave each site. While you're there, note customer reactions. See what draws them to certain places; what they discuss, touch, pause at, buy; how they are helped. Look at national brand outlets that have spent more money than you might have to establish what works best in creating avid fan customers. Even if their target market is not yours, you can get insights to adapt. Nike provides a total store atmosphere like a stadium facility. Whole Foods offers inviting displays, informational booklets, and friendly, knowledgeable staff. Nordstrom's creates understated and friendly elegance. The Gap provides a reliable mix of easy-to-find products. Tip adapted from Mark Sanborn, author of Teambuilt: Making Teamwork Work, http://www.marksanborn.com. 47. "Make a Mascot" Customers can get warm feelings about your store when they associate it with a friendly or otherwise positive and distinctive character - human or animal or a combination thereof - who can "personify" your main differentiating benefit. Display the mascot in the store where it can be seen upon entering. Better yet, suspend it from the ceiling so it can be seen from most anywhere in the store. Include the mascot in all of your outreach materials. Attribute a personality (dry-witted, literate, nerdy, given to puns), unusual physical feature (large glasses or feet, purple plumage or hair), and sayings (offer advice on book selections, upcoming events). 48. "Create Clubs" Invite your niche markets to join a related bookstore club so they can receive email and/or faxed bulletins on new releases in their interest area (reviewed by a club member), meet at the bookstore, and have private, pre-event gatherings with relevant visiting authors. 49. "Consider Curbside Service" If your store and street layout permits, let customers call or fax in an order and a credit card number to get drive-by service in a way you can provide. Perhaps you have line-of-sight to the street. Perhaps you can provide convenient parking to let a second person in the car walk in to get the already sacked book(s). 50. "Create Community" Jointly sponsor in-store events (lectures, classes, demonstrations) with organizations that have a large, and different constituency than your usual customers, thus drawing new crowds into your store. 51. "Foment Fast-Flying Ideas in One-Hour Events" As people become accustomed to getting what they want, when they want it, offer programs that help them feel well served and entertained in just one hour. Offer in-store convenor-led panel discussions by three varied experts who each offer their best three pieces of advice on the topic in ten minutes, followed by questions from the attendees, fielded by the convenor. Ask each panelist to recommend several books on the topic. Make the panels' recommended book list a part of the event promotion, displaying the books prior and during the event, perhaps offering a bundled price to anyone purchasing more than one from the list at one time. This format is responsive to people's desire to get information quickly and be able to participate to learn more about their specific interest. The hour will fly by, and those interested can linger and talk afterwards. Each panelist will have a different view, personality, and constituency to pull people in. Topics can be as varied as "How to Write an Article," "Marketing Tips for Small Businesses," or "Chinese Filmmakers." 52. "Move to Mass Customization" This stell-relevent book is pivotal for booksellers to learn new ways to serve each customer as they most want to be served – especially the lucrative tp spenders. The One to One Future by Don Peppers and Martha Rogers offers a goldmine of practical ideas about how to "mass customize" your outreach. See their Web site, get their well written, free online newsletter, and sponsor an in-store event for local business owners to describe how they have implemented these ideas and how others in your community can too. Along with Build to Last and Jack Stack's books on open book management, this book offers ways to be efficient and thoughtful in how you attract and serve your customers, staff, and vendors. 53. "Southwest-Style Can-Do Attitude" One of the most corrosive behaviors for destroying relations between staff and customers is staff complaining. Nip complaining in the bud before the insidious habit spreads like a weed. Robert Bramson, author of the original Coping with Difficult People book, found complaining to be the most contagious of the "difficult" behaviors. Ask that every staff concern be accompanied by a proposed solution or an offer to find a solution. If it isn't, then ask, "What do you suggest we do to make it better?" If the person continues to complain, interrupt to reiterate more briefly, like a broken record, "What will make it better?" If they continue on a negative track or say they don't know, offer the "two-choice" gambit: "Let's discuss a solution later, after you've had a chance to think about it more. Would you like to meet at the end of today or first thing when you come in tomorrow?" 54. "Make Your Guests Feel Welcome" Greet customers 100% of the time. If one bookstore staffer greets a customer, the customer thinks that's a good person. If two offer a greeting, the customer thinks that's a good bookstore. If three greet the customer, the customer is likely to tell others it is a good bookstore. From the moment customers step into the store, see that some staffer can look at them with a smile. 55. "Would You Like French Fries with That?" Just as McDonald's trains staff to suggest additional items when taking an order, ask your staff to make helpful suggestions that encourage customers to buy more or to share information that will help your store serve them better so they are inspired to buy more later. "Because you like [author's name], you might also enjoy [author's name]. Her most recent book is [title], and [person's name] wrote a review you might want to look at, on the shelf above it." "To get a preview of new books due in, would you like to receive our online newsletter? Here's a form you can fill out right here or at home and return by email." 56. "Choose Chameleon Lighting" Become your local landmark by turning your bookstore into a kaleidoscope of color at night (a range of 16.7 million colors) with a new plug in digital light introduced at a conference called GlobalShop where I spoke. This light offers an incredibly economical and flexible way of producing color lighting effects simply by plugging the digital "smart" light (with built-in microprocessor) into an "MR" socket such as those in your track lighting. Their Chameleon and other Chromacore lights are, in effect, an unlimited lighting "paintbox" that can generate virtually millions of colors and many lighting effects such as saturated color washes, strobes, random color changes by utilizing microprocessor-controlled light emitting diodes (LEDs). See http://www.colorkinetics.com. Imagine, every week or every night you could attract passersby to your store windows with a color-lighted interior and display in-window signs or video monitors (see Tip #10) that give passersby a reason to visit your bookstore in-person or visit your Web site when they return home. 57. "Offer 101 Reasons to Give" Design a business-card-size, accordion-fold, long form of "101 Reasons and Dates for Giving a Book," listing occasions in check-off fashion - traditional (happy birthday), less usual (congratulations on the promotion), and quirky (Australian Ostrich Day). Display the card next to a sign offering to place books in a gift bag and deliver them that day for free when customers spend $50 or more and for a fee with lower-level gift purchases. 58. "Plan Gift-Giving Now" Encourage customers to fill out a printed or online calendar-style form with the important dates in their life (loved ones', work colleagues', and others' birthdays, anniversaries, holidays). Train a staffer to meet by appointment with those who'd like suggestions on gifts that could serve a general purpose and be selected in advance, such as blank photo or journal books, a dictionary, an atlas, or a box of cards. 59. " Heighten Their Interests" Above the tops of people's heads - where they can be easily seen - display images of strong visual interest that move (to attract attention) and reinforce your site's central benefit, image, and mood. 60. "Engage the Customer" Create "ice breaker" phrases with which staffers can greet customers. Ask a question that invites customers to offer their expertise or opinion. 61. "Encourage Referrals" Increase word-of-mouth referrals by making current customers more fervent, articulate, and motivated fans: a. Hand the person a gift (preferably one that does not prominently display your bookstore name) while asking them, "May I give you this small gift for taking the time to answer two questions for me?" b. Then ask, "What do you like best about our product or (service)?" Whatever is said aloud is then believed more deeply by the speaker. c. Be a complete, supportive listener. Give uninterrupted eye contact, nod occasionally, lean slightly toward them. d. When they finish, say, "Tell me more about that." As they elaborate, they become more fervent, articulate fans because they have taken more actions on behalf of their belief. They become more articulate as they re-state their views and more aware of their views through their repetition and discussion of them, and thus are more likely to tell others of their views. 61. "Reward Allies" Constantly find new and unexpected ways to thank those who have helped you make your bookstore a success, especially finding times to praise them in front of the people who are important to them. 63. "Build Sales and Valuable Allies: Show Local Leaders How to Cultivate Strong Business & Community Ties Through SmartPartnering” Co-sponsor an in-store (or other location) seminar with Kare Anderson for leaders of local business, nonprofit, and government organizations to learn how to SmartPartner to better reach and serve their mutual niche market. You display and promote the six books Kare will recommend they buy, including one on SmartPartnering. Use the event to announce a contest to reward six kinds of outstanding partnerships in two months, inviting attendees to use what they learn in the seminar, create their own partnership and submit it to you, the contest convenor. As they succeed with their partnerships, local media can cover the “good news” stories, often quoting you and your partners as the campaign organizers. That way you all can continue to make news and build customer involvement during the time of the contest. Seek a local radio station and/or newspaper as a co-sponsor, because one method of SmartPartnering encourages more efficient advertising. Recruit locally owned businesses as event partners (bank, CPA firm, and others) who can announce the event to their customers through their billing statements and other outreach. Call 415-331-6336 to discuss such an event with Kare. 64. "Keep Learning How to Say It Better" Learn more thoughtful ways to communicate with customers, staff, media, and other key opinion leaders by buying Kare's book on SmartPartnering, reading her articles, and signing up for her free, online "Say It Better" newsletter, all available at her Web site: http://www.sayitbetter.com. 65. “Attract More Sales With Kare’s in-Store Seminar” When you bring Kare to present an in-store mini-seminar on the topic of this article (referring to ten books you display, with a bundled price for the collection), you can attract new customers and media coverage. Kare will offer the seminar for free when she is already speaking at a conference in your area. Call or e-mail us to ask for details.