During a performance review too many years ago my boss challenged me to do something different.
To show myself (and her) that I could do more to bring traffic into our store.
I told her I would do an event a week.
We normally did one a year.
I don’t really know why I said it.
First thing that came to mind, I guess.
Game on.
Our store was in a big mall, back when malls did really really well.
We were in a town that made steel; the mall was actually built on an excavated slag dump.
But the mills weren’t doing so well.
Unemployment was up.
Books are an easy thing to avoid when you need to buy food, buy school clothes.
But I did it.
In our little mall store that didn’t realize it was a little store, we had weekly events.
I hit the yellow pages (because; no internet yet), and looked up non-profits.
Looked up clubs.
Looked up groups.
And then I called them.
Come in, I told them, and I will give you a table at the front of our store.
You can tell people about your club/group/charity/special interest/hobby.
I’ll put a display of books that relates to the topic on display.
You can hand out business cards, do a demo.
Need electricity? No problem!
I’ll send press releases, you tell everyone you know, OK?
It worked.
Back when the Big Box stores (the ones we eventually joined),
were testing Community Events Coordinators, I was using Day-Glo paint to make posters for the store front.
Making little name badges that said “Special Guest’ with a place for their signature.
We had bass fishermen with a giant tank, fish, and rods at the store front.
We had the Star Trek club, complete with a sound machine that sounded ‘swisssssh’ when people crossed the leaseline.
We had my boss’ favorite: the We Remember Elvis Fan Club.
(They had a scale model of Graceland made of sugar cubes, an Elvis look-alike, and raised money for a juvenile burn center.)
We had girls scouts, gingerbread house demos, knitters, and a trail bike club.
I brought in a bread machine
(they were the instant pot of that time)
and made fresh bread and then gave out samples… conveniently placed next to the bread machine cookbooks.
We had story time,
valentine card crafts,
and made space for the entries into the local elementary science fair.
I got to go to a cool conference with ‘store event people’ at the home office.
That’s where the giant pencil came from (because I save, almost, everything).
We had fun.
We had traffic.
We had sales.
But we DIDN’T have the internet or social media.
Boggles my mind what I could have accomplished then with all of the tools we have now.
If you are in sales,
if you own your business,
if you are a writer,
a crafter,
and you aren’t reaching out to people around you using online tools and opportunities….
well,
if I was doing your review you bet you would get a Needs Improvement.
(This post is part of the #31DayWritingChallenge2019)
Pocket Change 