1. The article of the month on the Profits Plus website
2. e-ret@iler advisory of the month: Words of Wisdom from the Beach Boys
3. New things on the Profits Plus website
4. Our Power Promoting Idea of the month: End caps!
5. Your free subscription to the e-ret@iler
6. Contacting Profits Plus Seminars and Tom Shay

1. The Johnny Appleseed Theory
Our April article on the Profits Plus website is entitled,
"The Johnny Appleseed Theory". There was a song about Johnny Appleseed that told how he went about the country planting seedlings. In the article, the question is asked about how we want to attract customers to our business initially as compared to how we find innovative ways of inviting customers back to do business with us again and again.

2. April 2002 e-ret@iler advisory: "so be true to your school. Just like you would to your girl or guy. Be true to your school, let your colors fly!" The Beach Boys.

So we are having a second consecutive month in which we are taking our inspiration for the e-ret@iler advisory, from a song. When I was speaking to a group recently, I mentioned that my audiences are always those people who own and manage small businesses. We discussed our wanting consumers to shop with a small business as compared to their doing business with one of the mass merchants. The meeting was being held in my home state of Arkansas, the place where the largest mass merchant first opened their doors.

Then these questions were asked, "As much as we want people to shop in our small businesses for the products and services we offer, how often do we find ourselves shopping in the mass merchants? How can we want people to shop in our businesses for what we sell, but think it is OK for our shopping in the mass merchants for products we don't sell?"

Several people gave head nods of agreement while others made a point to state their agreement. Granted, it would be impossible to do all of your business with small businesses, but it seems to me that we should be those that are making the most effort to locate and patronize another small business.

The concern I have is that no matter what you sell, or what service you provide, somewhere in the world of mass merchants, they are either providing the same products and services or are looking into adding them.

As an example, imagine a person who is a chimney sweep and is a one person business. This small business owner works hard to have a strong business. They do their shopping for home repair items at the local chain store home improvement box. Then one day, the box store announces they are now offering chimney repair and chimney sweep service (similar to the announcement when they added landscaping service and general contracting services a few years ago.)

Perhaps our chimney sweep is now going to make more of an effort to shop at a neighborhood business.

The chimney sweep is just an example. How about a clothing store person? Perhaps, a person that is a pharmacist? Or, maybe a floor covering business person? If we are going to ask people to make an effort to do business with a small business, then I would hope we would want to be leading by our example.

4. Our Power Promoting Idea of the month:
Our Power Promoting Idea of the month comes from Tom's book and seminar entitled, "Power Promoting." End caps sell merchandise! Businesses that have high sales per square foot and high average tickets do not do so by accident. This happens because the store owners and managers know to put merchandise in front of people.

The end cap is the fixture that is at the end of a longer counter and faces perpendicular to that longer counter. It has been shown that a four foot wide end cap can sell as much merchandise as an eight foot counter. How are your end caps doing?

5. Your free subscription to the e-ret@iler
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It is the best way to make sure you do not miss an issue.

If you have received this edition of the e-ret@iler by way of someone passing it onto you, you can add your name to the free subscription list by sending us an e-mail and putting the word "subscribe" in the body or reference line. You can also visit the website and click on the e-retailer logo to subscribe.

6. Contacting Profits Plus Seminars and Tom Shay
Thank you for inviting us onto your desktop, and taking the time to read our newsletter. We trust you have received some business building ideas from it as we look forward to seeing you again next month.

God Bless America!

Get your Profits Plus,

Tom Shay