Preparing For a Gift Store Sales Presentation

INTRODUCTION

Preparing the materials and systems needed for your first gift sales presentations is the most important task you need to accomplish before visiting your first potential retail store buyer. Most people assume the hardest work goes into making the product, but if time is not spent developing and setting up the systems you need to wholesale BEFORE you visit your first buyer, you will find yourself in a confusing and overwhelming mess! And you will look very unprofessional to your potential buyers!

RETAIL/WHOLESALE PRICE STRUCTURE

As a general rule of thumb, your wholesale price should be 50% of your retail price. If it is less, you will have a difficult time selling your products wholesale. Often, it will take some work to make sure there are adequate margins for you both and the gift retailer.

Here is a formula to use when determining pricing for your products:

First step is determining your cost per unit. Costs include the following:
o Ingredients or raw materials
o Processing or assembly of raw materials
o Packaging and labeling
o Shipping of raw materials to your place of business

Second step is to determine the retail or selling price of your item to the consumer. Using a competitor’s selling price is a starting point to ensure you are in the same price range. From the selling price, you work backwards to arrive at the wholesale price you should charge.

From the retail or selling price, subtract the retail and distributor or sales rep margins. Most retailers in the gourmet foods industry use a margin of 40%, whereas gift retailers use a 50% margin. Distributor margins are generally 25-35%, and broker or sales rep commissions are general 15%. Even if you currently do not use distributors, brokers or sales reps, these margins should be included in your pricing. As you grow and add these services, you want to have your pricing in place.

As a manufacturer, you should aim to retain a 40% gross margin. This gross margin must be large enough to cover overhead, administrative costs and marketing expenses.

Example:

If the retail or selling price is $5.00, total manufacturing costs per unit are $1.40 and the manufacturer pays shipping costs of 5 cents per unit, you would sell your product to the distributor for $2.20.

PAYMENT TERMS

Typical standard payment terms for selling to gift stores are Net 30 days. In other words, you deliver or ship your products and in 30 days the retailer will pay for the order.

Credit card payment is another standard payment method which is becoming more popular with gift store buyers.

Other payment terms which are not as common are as follows:

o Pay via PayPal. In the eight years I have been a sales rep, I have not seen a store use this option, but it is available if you have a PayPal account
o 2% Net 10. If the store pays their bill in ten days rather than 30 days, they can deduct 2% from the total due.
o Net 60 or 90 days. In the event that you wish to get your product on the shelf quickly, but have the cash flow to wait longer for payment, this is a good option. I used Net 60-90 to promote early sales during a very slow season.
o Pay half the invoice amount when the order is shipped or delivered and pay the balance due in 30 days. I used this option with a store that was historically late with their payments.
o COD or cash on delivery. If you deliver your products, this option will probably work, but I don’t recommend it if you are shipping.

Which ever terms you decide to use, remember to investigate all your options and be well prepared when offering payment options to your potential buyers.

SALES AND ORDERING MATERIALS

Sales material for the retail store buyer is very different from the color brochure you may hand out to consumers. Gift store buyers want to know five basis facts about ordering your products:

1. What does it look like?
2. How much does it cost?
3. What is the minimum order?
4. What are your terms?
5. How do I re-order?

Your sales material should answer all these questions.

Simple, but effective, sales materials can be created on your computer. Start with a picture of your products and make sure you include all the information that answers the five questions above: List unit and case costs, minimum amount for orders, ALL the terms you will accept, and your contact information (phone, fax, email and website). Sales sheets can be copied and left with buyers.

Write your orders in sales order books which can be purchased at any office supply store. Two copy sales order or general order books work best as you can use the top for your records and a second copy for your buyer. Rather than having the sales books personalized (an expensive process), you can print a small label to adhere to the buyers sales order copy that includes your name and contact information. Leave this copy with the buyer.

If you are able to buy or create business cards, give one to the buyer or store manager. Business cards make your company look more professional.

DELIVERY SYSTEMS

Determining how you will get your products to the retail outlets is often an overlooked point in the wholesale sales system. You can give a perfect presentation to gift store buyers, but if you don’t have a delivery system, your products will never make it to the shops!

Listed below are a few options to getting your products into the store.

1. Deliver the products yourself. If you have a small territory to cover, delivering your products is not a bad idea.
2. You can hire a distributor to handle your products. Often, with this scenario, you would sell your products to a distributor at a deep discount who would warehouse and distribute them via their system.
3. You can ship your products to the retail outlets. This is the most common way to get your products to the shops. With this option, it is customary to bill the retail outlet for the shipping while you pay for the cost of packing your products.

If you decide to ship, make sure to check out the shippers available in your area. UPS, Federal Express and US Postal Service are three very reliable shipping vendors. Each company has their own requirements for packaging, insurance and delivery time. You should acquaint yourself with the specifics of all the companies you plan to use. Most freight companies have websites where you can open an account and print labels right from your computer.

BOOKKEEPING AND DATABASE SYSTEMS

Setting up a good system to track your gift store buyers and your sales is necessary to maintain your sales records.

Bookkeeping Systems: QuickBooks is the most commonly used computer bookkeeping system available. You can use QuickBooks to invoice, track sales, expenses, accounts payable (what you owe people) and accounts receivable (what people owe you!).

If you decide to use QuickBooks, you have the option of using QuickBooks Pro or QuickBooks Premier for Manufacturers. Pro version is the standard basic bookkeeping system whereas Premier will allow you to track inventory and cost of good sold (cost to manufacture your products).

Or if you wish to use just a very simple system to keep track of sales, Microsoft Excel gives you the option to list each sale and payment dates.

Database Systems: Depending how intricate of a system you want, there are several different options for database systems. Microsoft Access has many field options depending on how much information you wish to retain and gives you the option to print mailing labels if you want to send newsletters to your buyers.

QuickBooks has an add-on program called Customer Manager which can manage more advanced customer information such as recent contacts, phone messages, calendar notes, and TO DO lists.

Lots of customer management systems are available, just like there are more bookkeeping systems you can use. The important point is to use what will work best for you and meets your business needs.

FOLLOW UP AND RE-ORDERING SYSTEM

If you have followed my suggestions so far, you should have the beginnings of your re-order system in place.

One of the first places a buyer will look for re-order information will either be by referencing your invoices or your order receipts. Including your contact information, email, phone, address, and website (if you have one) on these forms is critical to ensure the buyer will be able to re-order from you. And if you have left your business card with the buyer, even better!

So you set up all these systems… left all the appropriate products and materials with the buyer… and now your wait to hear back from the buyer….. WRONG!! Buyers are very busy people and will seldom call you with a re-order (although, I have been wrong about this!). Often times, your product will sell out, be filled with another product, and the buyer will forget your product was there originally!

Keep in touch with your buyers. I recommend that you call about 30 days after they receive your order. Check to see if your products arrived promptly and in good condition and that they are satisfied with the order. Buyer’s answers will give you some clues as to how well your products are selling. You might ask them when you should check back with them. Or just call again in another 30-45 days depending on how well they tell you the products are selling.

If you have added each customer to a database such as Microsoft Access or Excel or one of the customer management software programs, you can tract and schedule when you should follow up with each account. Personally, I use a mix of Microsoft Access and Outlook to remind me.

Follow up is very important, like I said, as buyers can and will lose track of your and your products if you don’t!!

CONCLUSION

Simple planning and implementing systems BEFORE you make your first sales presentation will aid you in keeping accurate records and keeping a professional profile when visiting gift store buyers.

Sandy Dell is an experienced independent sales representative for the gift industry. Having operated her own business for over eight years, she has gain valuable knowledge in working with gifts store buyers and producers. She is also co-owner of Gourmet Innovations which makes gourmet foods and gifts. “I have been on both sides of the counter”, she tells her buyers. More than that, she understands the needs of the producer and the gift buyer and knows how to communicate to both groups!

The Number 1 Most Effective Presentation Skill: Rise Above Your Competition and Get Rave Reviews

We’ve all been exposed to a terrible presenter or instructor. The minutes drag by while the presenter seems oblivious to the reactions and needs of the audience. As an educator I know that there are several elements that are essential in creating a successful presentation. One of the most important is pacing. You should strive for a pace that moves quickly enough to maintain interest but allows enough processing time for the audience to comprehend the information. Processing time is the secret that will set your presentation apart from most of your competition.

Let’s use a 50 minute presentation as an example. Unless you’ve been hired as a keynote speaker you never want to spend the entire 50 minutes talking non-stop. Your presentation needs to be broken up into segments. This helps your listeners retain much more information than they would otherwise.

All parts of your presentation are not equal in terms of audience attention and retention. There is a natural ebb and flow to how we listen. We tend to remember best what we hear first, second best what we hear at the end and remember least what comes just past the middle. This is not news. We’ve known this for over 100 years, but like with many things, just because we know the right thing to do that doesn’t mean that we do it!

Talking to a group for 50 minutes or longer is common practice in school and business settings. We know better, yet we continue to do it. There is a better way and one that makes you an in-demand, effective presenter.

When you start preparing your presentation think in terms of dividing it into 3 segments. In a 50 minute presentation there will be two segments of optimal learning and a time when learning is lowest. These are referred to as Prime Time 1, Prime Time 2 and Down-Time.

The first segment is Prime Time 1 when retention is highest. Present new, important information here when your audience is fresh and most receptive. Don’t waste a lot of time talking about the weather, telling jokes or warming up the audience. You do need to create rapport but you can do this within the context of your material. Seminar presenter Fred Gleeck, says he always gives his most important piece of information in the first few minutes of a seminar. After about 12 minutes, retention starts diminishing. At 20 minutes it’s time for something else.

We now move into the second phase: Down-Time. The brain gets full of the new information and the mind starts to wander. Now is the time to have participants put their new knowledge to use. Set up a quick activity that allows participants to process the material in some way- talking to a partner or a small group or journaling. This gives the audience a break from new material, a chance to talk with others and hopefully move around a bit. It also lets your previous information “sink in” so it will be remembered. This activity will last roughly 8-10 minutes.

Now you are ready for Prime Time 2. This is the second best time for learning and retaining material. Use the last several minutes for review and closure.

If you follow this method your audiences will remain interested, retain more information and rave about your effective presentation skills. If you don’t give your audience time to process you will waste their time and your time.

How To Make A Presentation for First Time

Finally, I was able to do a first time presentation to an audience about the topic “Loving Your Neighbor”. The goal of my topic was to be able to explain the meaning of Christian love and to help us in applying in our daily lives.

I never hesitated when I was given the invitation to to be a speaker  from one (1) of the nine (9 ) series of talks on Christian Life Seminar (CLS). This activity is just one of the many programs of CFC FFL Singapore as an evangelistic and missionary community. It has been my thought principle to be able to make a little difference to my fellow people in everyday life. I knew God was the one who invited me to share my talent and be able to teach. You can never say no to Him, right? I remember Jim Rohn shared one of his philosophies. There are three (3) disciplines that you need to do if you want to pursue spiritual development:

1. Study – means you have to learn the disciplines, study the Holy Scriptures, attend seminars, and listen to sermons or preaching.

2. Practice – implement what you learn. Set a personal prayer time. Start to make a habit to pray with the family.

3. Teach – sharing what you’ve experienced from the first two (2) will accelerate the learning process.

Of course I accepted the responsibility. What should I do next? I want to share with you some practical steps about how I prepared to do my first time presentation:

  1. Know your stuff – pick a topic that you are interested to share. In my case, the topic was handed to me by our service leader.  The nice thing about each particular topic was that you have a reference from previous speakers who have done the presentation. I borrowed their personal resource like PowerPoint, reference book, recorded audio and other stuffs that may be helpful. Ask and ask. Never be afraid to ask questions or tips that can help you in delivering a good presentation. Thanks also to my mom for helping me too. Do some extra research on the topic over the internet.  Another tip is to add some of your personal experiences or you can also borrow other person’s experience.
  2. Practice – Rehearse out loud with your PowerPoint and tickler notes. I need to improve more on this one. A good idea is to record yourself either video or audio. I actually recorded the actual live presentation for my purpose of review and further improvement.
  3. Relax and pray – having deep breathe-ins and breathe-outs will help relax and calm down the butterflies in your stomach. I know a friend who does some exercises to pump out the energy. Prayer is a very powerful resource to ease up tensions and build up confidence.
  4. Visualize – Imagine yourself speaking your voice confidently to a large crowd. Visualize the audience clapping out loud. I must say that this is very effective and yes indeed it became true. They really did clap. They even gave me handshakes and gave uplifting praises. The feeling was awesome.

Some additional advice is to look directly to your audience faces  as if you’re speaking to a friend. It’s a good way to involve them in your conversation. Look for people who smile as they can help you gain your confidence. If you are nervous to look at their faces, just look straight to the wall on the level of their faces but it is really nice to have an eye contact with your audience.

Lastly, if you are given an opportunity to speak in front of an audience, never hesitate to volunteer. This is very effective in overcoming your fears of public speaking.