Male readers, MOVEMBER is your chance to try out a terrible mustache style for a terrific cause. Since its inception in 2004, Movember has raised awareness — and nearly $600 million — for men’s health issues like prostate and testicular cancer. The idea is simple and fun. Participants cultivate mustaches for the month and seek sponsors for their hair-growing efforts. Involve your clients by asking them to suggest a target mustache style for you — the Selleck, the Brimley, the Dali, the Freddie Mercury and the Yosemite Sam are all possible, if highly ambitious, options. Learn more at us.movember.com.
November is DIABETIC EYE DISEASE MONTH — a good time to remind diabetic customers of the importance of getting dilated eye exams every year. (It’s also an opportunity to ask your other clients when they last had a diabetes checkup.)
So it’s the END OF DAYLIGHT SAVINGS TIME and you woke up with an extra hour? Use the extra time productively: wake up, make a cup of coffee, and go sit somewhere quiet without any distractions. Use this extra time — as you should any extra time you find yourself gifted with — to be still, breathe deep, and see the wider vista.
Show your clients you’re concerned about the unhealthiest of their habits by inviting them to participate in the GREAT AMERICAN SMOKEOUT. Offer a prize or incentive to anyone who banishes nicotine from their body today.
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BLACK FRIDAY marks the start of the holiday shopping season. Remember, your product — whether sunglasses, ophthalmic frames, contact lenses or even vision-correction surgery — is highly desirable as a gift. Is the word “gift” anywhere on your homepage? If not, you’re not trying hard enough to wiggle your way onto holiday shopping lists.
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’Tis the season for calling in sick, especially if you’re not sick at all. Let your staff know that you know about DECEMBERITIS — that this month is king when it comes to phony absences as employees juggle work, shopping, family obligations and the odd hangover. Have staff sign off on schedules well in advance.
Always be closing. That’s the old ABC of sales as immortalized in David Mamet’s play Glengarry Glen Ross. In his recent book, To Sell Is Human, Daniel Pink suggests a new set of ABCs: attunement (seeing things from your customer’s perspective), buoyancy (bouncing back quickly from rejection), and clarity (the ability to identify what the customer really wants). On NATIONAL SALESPERSON’S DAY, these are ideas well worth remembering.
It’s CHRISTMAS. Turn off your brain and simply open your heart to all the wonderful, warm-hearted people who share your home and your life. They’ve missed you!
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Today is TICK TOCK DAY. It means that time is running out in 2014. It also might be the headline of the ad you run in today’s paper to tell clients their annual flex-dollars are about to expire. (See page 40.)
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Whatever you don’t get done by NEW YEAR’S EVE … don’t sweat it, there’s all of next year. Jot down all the things you achieved in 2014. Read that list again tomorrow when writing your New Year’s resolutions.
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