sales & marketing | by sharon rensenhouse
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About the only role model we Christmas-oriented marketers have for running our businesses is, appropriately enough, Santa Claus. Like Santa, those of us who sell virtually all our product at Christmas time must focus all our efforts on the delivery of gifts at one specific time of the year.
The one advantage we have on Santa is that our delivery period runs a few weeks rather than just a single day. The one big advantage that Santa has on us is the ease with which he can find happy, eager seasonal help in even a full employment economy. (Plus, his budget is a bit more substantial than our own.)
The one fear that binds us, however, is that if either of us fails to deliver we’ll have hell to pay. Despite all the seasonal good cheer, people who don’t get the promised gift on time or in our case, gift basket are notoriously unseasonal in their irritation. This is especially true for us, given our corporate customer base. But who can blame our customers? Their necks are on the line as well. If we fail to deliver in a timely manner, there are usually no other options.
For this reason, it is critical to take orders and establish sales projections months in advance. This way we can organize systems, inventory and work schedules to assure a smooth production flow at crunch time. Timely delivery is necessary to develop a reputation for reliability. From the customer’s perspective, there are no excuses. So there’s no point for us to even offer them. Because a reputation takes time to develop, a Christmas-oriented marketing operation can be slow to establish. But once established, customers tend to remain loyal as long as the service company delivers, that is.
The one great challenge faced by seasonal marketers other than Santa, of course is finding good seasonal employees. Our strategy has been to create a sufficiently relaxed and fun environment that we can retain employees from one year to the next. One advantage is that in the months and weeks leading up to Christmas, people feel the need to make some additional money. If we can offer a decent paycheck and a cheerful place of employment, we can succeed in recruiting a reliable and productive work force. A fun one, too.
Over the last few years we have managed to attract our own merry band of elves. A family from Shawnee the grandmother making bows for the baskets the year around and then herding the grandfather, mother, son, daughter, daughter’s boyfriend, and a cousin or two into the van to make the trek to downtown KCK to be the night shift in November and December. The merry band of theater people who work the phones by day and are off to perform by night at such theatres as the Missouri Rep, the Unicorn, and the New Theatre in Overland Park. The dog trainer from the Woodlands who works three days a week. The dental assistant who comes every Friday because she loves the atmosphere. And the one-handed refugee from the grunge set who can pack a basket with the best of them.
Together we work hard to meet the surprising challenges of the gift basket business, of which there are many, in order to turn out the most beautiful hand packed gifts we’re capable of producing and spreading joy and warmth not to mention waistlines throughout the holidays.
Now that we have gotten Christmas down to a near science, we have to move on to a new challenge: making Easter or Secretarys’ Day or Columbus Day or Ground Hog Day as important a day in the corporate gift-giving psyche as the big C.
We’re not holding our breath.
Sharon Rensenhouse is the President of Nutcracker Sweets, a provider of gift baskets for corporate and commercial clients. Phone: 913.321.7300. e-Mail: Sharon@nutcrackersweets.com.