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WALLY AMOS:
Wally Amos is the
founder of Uncle
Wally’s Muffin
Company. You
can reach him at
www.wallyamos.com.
The cookies
baare ck!
WHEN I OPENED the first Famous Amos cookie
store 31 years ago, I was determined to bake
the best cookies ever. We paid attention to detail
and used the very best ingredients: pure vanilla
extract, high-quality chocolate and choice
pecans. We also used more chocolate and nuts
than other bakeries. I am convinced the quality
of the product sustained us through our early
mistakes and opened the door to many opportunities that helped us succeed.
Thirty years later, and no longer a part of
Famous Amos, my wife, Christine, and I decided to
reenter the retail business with a store in Kailua,
Hawaii, featuring Chip & Cookie, two chocolate-
BE POSITIVE
chip character dolls created by Christine. We
decided to use the same high standards as our
first products. We used Gund, noted for high-quality plush products, to produce our dolls. We
secured the services of a top designer to design a
unique and colorful store interior. We decided the
dolls would be ambassadors of reading to promote reading aloud. And, of course, we decided
to bake the best cookies possible, using Watkins
vanilla extract, pure chocolate, top-graded nuts
and this time butter instead of margarine.
This quest for quality enabled us to partner
with the Boys & Girls Clubs of America to promote reading aloud. We were introduced to the
Savannah (Georgia) College of Art and Design, one
of the world’s top design schools, which created
graphics and an animated public service
announcement for our Chip & Cookie Read It
Loud! campaign.
Also, our quality cookie dough caught the
eye of John Eagan, a Costco vice president, who
asked if we would be interested in selling our
product in Costco. Of course, the answer was
yes. This month we introduce Chip & Cookie
Chocolate Chip Macadamia Nut Cookie Dough
in Costco’s Los Angeles region, which also covers Hawaii.
Best of all, I get to be the spokesperson for
this quality product. It’s the truth: Quality is contagious and it attracts opportunity. Apply it to
your life and watch it work. C
Great biz
tips
HwOeb T THE EWING
site Marion
Kauffman
Foundation, based in
Kansas City, is one of the
country’s premier resources for entrepreneurs,
offering innovative programs to support new
businesses along with a
vast library of helpful information. Now, some of
the foundation’s best resources are featured at
www.eVenturing.org.
The highlight of the
Web site is monthly collections of articles on a specific theme, such as online
marketing and selling a
company. The Kauffman
Foundation has succeeded
in attracting leading business experts to provide
these articles. C
Smart steps to take
by one
ONE IS A TINY number. However, it can have a tremendous
impact on your revenues, advises
Kelley Robertson, a Costco member and sales expert based in
Burlington, Ontario. Here are
some ideas to consider.
• Make one more cold call
every day. One extra call per
work day equals 260 calls in a
year. How many meetings could
you set up with this number of
calls, and how many of those
meetings could you turn into
sales? Consider your current
conversion ratio and think of
the impact on your business.
• Suggest one additional item
to every customer. This is particularly important if you sell
lower-priced items or work in
retail. Too many salespeople are
focused only on getting the initial sale. However, almost every-
one has additional items, products or services that could be
beneficial to their customers.
• Invest one day per month
developing your skills. Many
successful people invest in
themselves. They attend
workshops and conferences,
and participate in Web seminars and tele-seminars on a
regular basis. Considering that
the majority of people do not
invest in developing their skills,
you can quickly outpace your
competition.
• Get to the office one hour
early. Remember the expression
“The early bird gets the worm.”
That one extra hour first thing
in the morning can be the most
productive time of the day. You
have a better chance to reach
decision makers, there are fewer
distractions and you can often
AR TVILLE/CHRIS RUSNAK
solutions that do not include
your products or services and
your customers will begin to
see you more as a partner than
a supplier.
• Send one more thank-you
card or note. You can stand out
from the crowd by sending
handwritten notes to thank
customers for their most recent
order, meeting with you or
sending an on-time payment.
You can also send a note when
you see their company mentioned favorably in the news.
“Although it is a tiny number, one can make a very powerful impact both on your top-line
sales and bottom-line profits,”
says Robertson, president of
Robertson Training Group.
For more information from
Robertson, see www.Robertson
TrainingGroup.com. C
achieve more in that 60 minutes
than in several hours.
• Suggest one more idea to
help a customer improve his or
her business. Schedule a breakfast meeting or lunch with your
customers, but instead of trying
to sell them something, focus
on learning more about their
particular challenges. Offer
