Steve Hoffacker's Sales Quips

In Tallahassee, Florida - home to FSU (Florida State University) and FAMU (Florida A&M University) - Goodwill Industries is showing a creativity that can benefit all involved. As students are vacating apartments and dorms - and making room for next semester's students, Goodwill has decided that they can claim unwanted and discrded items for resale while saving the collection costs associated with overflowing dumpsters and the additional impact on the landfill.

Students get to pass along items they no longer need as a charity donation (just the act, not for tax reasons), the charity is able to have merchandise for their retail stores, and much of the waste is simply avoided.

This is a very creative way to deal with this continuing issue - and a way for students to pay it forward.

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For more information on my coaching and educational programs and services, visit my website stevehoffacker.com, or go to my other bloghomesalesinsights.com for additional sales tips, insights, and commentary. Listen to my free podcast messages at Steve Hoffacker's Happenings.

Steve Hoffacker - Consultant, Coach, Author, Blogger, Photographer, Motivator, Teacher, & Strategist - for Realtors, Real Estate Sales Professionals, Home Builders, New Home Salespeople, Entrepreneurs, Small Business Owners, and Independent Sales Representatives.

© Steve Hoffacker, 2011. All Rights Reserved.

A couple of weeks ago,  I posted about Pepsi's clever use of Santa Claus in a commercial that showed him giving up his Coke for Pepsi during his summer vacation. It was clever and well done.

Now another chapter in the cola wars. Pepsi has enlisted the polar bears from Coke's Christmas commercials to trade-in their cokes for Pepsi - and even a suntan.

It's easy to follow and clever. It's very creative by Pepsi - taking icons associated with one brand and borrowing them for your own. It would be like Coors using the Clydesdales.

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For more information on my coaching and educational programs and services, visit my website stevehoffacker.com, or go to my other blog homesalesinsights.com for additional sales tips, insights, and commentary. Listen to my free podcast messages at Steve Hoffacker's Happenings.

Steve Hoffacker - Consultant, Coach, Author, Blogger, Photographer, Motivator, Teacher, & Strategist - for Realtors, Real Estate Sales Professionals, Home Builders, New Home Salespeople, Entrepreneurs, Small Business Owners, and Independent Sales Representatives.

© Steve Hoffacker, 2011. All Rights Reserved.

Today, Seven-Eleven, the convenience store, is giving everyone who wants one a free Slurpee in honor of the date. Today is 7/11, so 7-11 is celebrating. Clever.

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For more information on my coaching and educational programs and services, visit my website stevehoffacker.com, or go to my other bloghomesalesinsights.com for additional sales tips, insights, and commentary. Listen to my free podcast messages at Steve Hoffacker's Happenings.

Steve Hoffacker - Consultant, Coach, Author, Blogger, Photographer, Motivator, Teacher, & Strategist - for Realtors, Real Estate Sales Professionals, Home Builders, New Home Salespeople, Entrepreneurs, Small Business Owners, and Independent Sales Representatives.

© Steve Hoffacker, 2011. All Rights Reserved.

Need something a little stronger than coffee? Then visit your local Burger King or Starbucks for a beer. Maybe a glass of wine. Adds new meaning to "Happy Meal."

Places such as these chains are experimenting with the beverages in select markets - Burger King in Kansas City, Las Vegas, and Miami; Starbucks in Seattle.

So now it seems you'll have to be of legal age to work behind the counter in these places, too - at least to dispense the adult beverages.

You want fries with that?

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For more information on my coaching and educational programs and services, visit my website stevehoffacker.com, or go to my other bloghomesalesinsights.com for additional sales tips, insights, and commentary. Listen to my free podcast messages at Steve Hoffacker's Happenings.

Steve Hoffacker - Consultant, Coach, Author, Blogger, Photographer, Motivator, Teacher, & Strategist - for Realtors, Real Estate Sales Professionals, Home Builders, New Home Salespeople, Entrepreneurs, Small Business Owners, and Independent Sales Representatives.

Photography displayed is original composition and artistic expression of Steve Hoffacker, and as such is copyrighted.

© Steve Hoffacker, 2011. All Rights Reserved.

Being the "enterprising crocodile" that I am, I ran across a news story that screamed for a Realtor response - and from any other business that is trying to cultivate a consumer base.

A recent study found that shopping carts that we use at the market and some retail stores are much dirtier than any of us might have imagined - actually dirtier than a typical toilet seat. I'll spare you the details except to say that half of those tested had e-coli present.

Now for the marketing opportunity - maybe you're ahead of me here. Get those small bottles of Purell or similar hand sanitizer - or the packets - and imprint your name on them. Then hand them out to everyone you are working with. Explain that you want them to be safe and healthy and remind them to use them. In fact, ask them to contact you when they need more.

This puts your name out into the marketplace in a clever, useful, and practical way. Eveytime someone goes to the market and pulls out the sanitizer to use, your name is what they see. Anyone watching them do it might ask where they got that cute little product. Then, you have them telling others about you and coming back to you for more.

The gift that keeps on giving in a good, positive WOMM sense.

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For more information on my coaching and educational programs and services, visit my website stevehoffacker.com, or go to my other blog homesalesinsights.com for additional sales tips, insights, and commentary. Listen to my free podcast messages at Steve Hoffacker's Happenings.

Steve Hoffacker - Consultant, Coach, Author, Blogger, Photographer, Motivator, Teacher, & Strategist - for Realtors, Real Estate Sales Professionals, Home Builders, New Home Salespeople, Entrepreneurs, Small Business Owners, and Independent Sales Representatives.

© Steve Hoffacker, 2011. All Rights Reserved.

Saw a new Pizza Hut commercial, and I was impressed with their message. They aren't trying to talk about how fast they can make a pizza or how it compares to other brands. There is no mention of ingredients, quality, price, or anything else connected to the pizza. In fact, it's not about pizza at all in the product sense. That's what make the ad so good.

It's along the lines of how Disney defines their business as one of making smiles rather than entertaining or something more complicated than their basic message.

Pizza Hut, in this commercial, has a series of employees telling us how they are making a pizza for us. They are not telling us that they are making the best one or the tastiest one as a credit to themselves or their brand. They are getting to us on a personal level and telling us that they are making our pizza for us - for our special occasion.

Then the payoff is their new tagline which begins "Your favorites." Notice again that it centers on us and what we want and need.

The product is there but so understated. It's their commitment to complementing our lives that is the big sell.

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For more information on my coaching and educational programs and services, visit my website stevehoffacker.com, or go to my other blog homesalesinsights.com for additional sales tips, insights, and commentary. Listen to my free podcast messages at Steve Hoffacker's Happenings.

Steve Hoffacker - Consultant, Coach, Author, Blogger, Photographer, Motivator, Teacher, & Strategist - for Realtors, Real Estate Sales Professionals, Home Builders, New Home Salespeople, Entrepreneurs, Small Business Owners, and Independent Sales Representatives.

© Steve Hoffacker, 2010. All Rights Reserved.

You've probably already seen this, but this is more than a good football play. This is what happens when we do the unexpected. It's what happens when we catch our competition off guard. It's what happen when we play within the rules but think creatively.

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For more information on my coaching and educational programs and services, visit my website stevehoffacker.com, or go to my other blog homesalesinsights.com for additional sales tips, insights, and commentary. Listen to my free podcast messages at Steve Hoffacker's Happenings.

Steve Hoffacker - Consultant, Coach, Author, Blogger, Photographer, Motivator, Teacher, & Strategist - for Realtors, Real Estate Sales Professionals, Home Builders, New Home Salespeople, Entrepreneurs, Small Business Owners, and Independent Sales Representatives.

© Steve Hoffacker, 2010. All Rights Reserved.

I got this email this afternoon from Delta faucets. I am reposting it here although it took three image to do it with breaks in between.

Nevertheless, talk about a clever way to update your brand, add entertainment to the public, and give us something more to do on our smart phones. This is brilliant - and free.

Kudos, Delta.

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For more information on my coaching and educational programs and services, visit my website stevehoffacker.com or go to my other blog homesalesinsights.com for additional sales tips, insights, and commentary. You can also listen to my free podcast messages at Steve Hoffacker's Happenings.

© Steve Hoffacker, 2010. All Rights Reserved.

I don't know if this happened at more than just the Walmart I visted the other day, but what I witnessed was brilliant.

If you've been following the news, you're aware of the illnesses and issues involved with peanut products - and the many recalls. It looks like this is a case willful negligence on the part of the owner of the company that started all of this. That's another story.

Back to Walmart.

The other day, I visited one of their stores, and they had one of those sampler tables set up where they pass out small portions of a new item or one that they're featuring (Costco and Sam's do this all the time).

Guess what the guy was passing out samples of? The Walmart brand of mixed nuts. Here they were taking their case to the people - an "in your face" campaign to prove that there was nothing wrong with eating their nuts or those of other manufacturers that they carry.

This was a bold, refreshing approach to restoring consumer confidence and stating your case. Well done, and something we can learn from.

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For more information on my coaching and educational programs and services, sales tips, insights, or strategies, visit my website stevehoffacker.com or my other blog homesalesinsights.com. © Steve Hoffacker, 2009. All Rights Reserved.