What Did You Sell This Time Last Year

I subscribe to about 1000 marketing, selling, business, e-mail, web, and other kinds of newsletters. Ok, I'm also known as something of an exaggerator.

In any case, sometimes they contain ideas that are quite worthy of repeating. The latest such instance was a story about one of our own, Omaha Steaks. They have, or at least had, a practice of sending out an annual listing of their customer's usage from the prior year. In other words, every time I might use Omaha Steaks to thank someone, reward someone, or gift someone, they would show up on this list.

Of course, some of these things repeat. Some kinds of promotions and events are the same every year. With this list in hand, I could refer to it all year long to make decisions about gifts, rewards, or a thank you in 2006.

We are going to start sending out reminders to our customers (promotional products distributors and their sales professionals.) We'll send them out about a month ahead. If you aren't already doing this for your customer .....