Life is Like a Cup of Coffee

Life is Like a Cup of CoffeePast years, in this business, the discussion of sharing our mailing lists with competing furniture retailers was off the table. Just mentioning the idea of this would be considered heresy, definitely a good tar and feathering (goose down of course) would be the punishment.

But, an interesting thing has happened since this severe recession has fallen upon all of us. My business neighbor’s are all talking to each other. How is it going? Have you had many sales in the last few days? What are customers looking for?

I guess difficult times make us want to commiserate with each other. This leads me to where this story is going. The fact is that all our collective conversations have helped us find ways to bring more customers to our group of stores in our local neighborhood. We are five specialty furniture stores that have bonded together like a series of life rafts.

All of us agreed that a series of coordinated sales would create a bigger event that clients would be more excited to come to. To do this, we all agreed on the type of sale, say upholstery or dining tables at 20% off. The best part of this whole thing was that we all sent out our mailing lists at the same time. We all benefit from this collective effort. Needless to say this will now be a regular part of all our marketing events in the future.

In short, making lemonade from your lemons doesn’t have to be so bad. Creative thinking with your competitors that is outside of the box can result in a benefit for all.

If you have a lemonade story, share it with us at Vicki@yourfurniturelink.com

Enjoy the video

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