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Keeping in Touch Did you get a brochure with this newsletter? If not, call 800-FIRST-OK and tell us you want to “Celebrate America”. Also, check the Code on your address label to ensure you stay on our mailing list.
Are you receiving our periodic 2-minute Email Letter, called QDP e-Notes? We’re sending it to over 500 addresses, but several bounce back, so we may not have your address, or we have an OLD one. We keep it short and only send it when we think we have something to say. To get on the list, email a note to John@QDPCorp.com or subscribe at www.QDPCorp.com. Do you have an idea you’d like to protect? I know a good patent attorney. -John Are you ready for your competition? – It's not too late to get online this summer You keep putting it off. You have come up with every excuse in the book. Oh, I’ll do it next spring, next summer, next fall. A year goes by and your web site is still, well, non-existent. Maybe you created your own web site with the best of intentions to save a few dollars here and there… but you haven’t had time to update it and you are still showing product from last fall (or even worse, the fall before that – they are out there). Or, your competitor just opened an online store, complete with seller registration, and is offering to include online sales in reports and reward sellers with higher prize levels. Don’t despair; SP Designs can help you, no matter which category you fall into. We offer three levels of web site design:
Even if you do not have WinUltra 2.0 Order Tally Software, we can create a custom file from the online orders that can be imported into your own program. If you already have a web site, we may be able to work with your existing site to add E-Commerce. Why choose SP Designs?
Call now and ensure your web site is ready for Fall 2003! Send your deposit by July 1, 2003, and receive $100 off your first year of hosting!! Be sure to check out our portfolio at www.qdpcorp.com/spdesigns. After every flight, pilots fill out a gripe sheet, which conveys to the mechanics problems encountered with the aircraft during the flight that need repair or correction. The mechanics read and correct the problem, and then respond in writing on the lower half of the form what remedial action was taken and the pilot reviews the gripe sheets before the next flight. Never let it be said that ground crews and engineers lack a sense of humor. Here are some actual logged maintenance complaints and problems as submitted by Qantas pilots and the solution recorded by maintenance engineers. By the way, Qantas is the only major airline that has never had an accident & these are honest to goodness truths: (P = The problem logged by the pilot) Celebrate America 4-pgOur 34-item program offers ALL MADE IN USA product, so you can sell it THIS SUMMER. The markup ranges from 4.76-5.56 to the piece with no broken case surcharge. Many of the items are geared for younger children, making it a good DAY CARE brochure. Consider the patriotism of Celebrating America that will be fresh on everyone’s mind this July 4th. Consider also that many day cares actually have higher attendance in the summer because some of the kindergarten and first graders who are not in school, are in day care. In addition to being Domestic Product, everything on these four pages is “Home Delivery Friendly”. We can supply you a special order form (not multi-part) that includes a place for the seller’s home address. Shipping will be only $1 plus actual postage for First Class mail. If you want guaranteed (signature) delivery, pay only $2 plus actual postage. These rates are good only for summer programs as we further test our Seller Home Delivery program. Especially because of the Brother Jones "Hero" Cards, the "Footprints" items, the "Angels" focus, and the fact that we didn’t leave God out of blessing America ("God Bless America" items are on the front cover), Celebrate America will appeal particularly to Christian Day Cares and church groups. Not only that, but we are offering to donate (signed contract with Zondervan Publishing says we can’t sell it) a shrink-wrapped copy of the Dennis Jones illustrated The Super Heroes Bible ($26.95 retail and NOT discounted at Amazon.com) for the group’s library. For those who participate in this summer promotion, we will ship a FREE BIBLE for every 250 brochures paid for @$.40ea. We ask that you order the Bible WITH the brochures. If you’d like to use the Bible promo for smaller groups, purchase brochures @$.50 and we’ll send a Bible for every 100 brochures. Included with every Celebrate America Sale (for programs where we’re tallying and packing the order), offer your group a FREE WEB PAGE where they can expand their sale from the "neighborhood to the nation" and enable cross country grandma to order product from which the group gets full profit, and simultaneously boost the grandchild’s prize credit. All product is domestic, but realizing that June-July are not peak production months for the vendors, we can’t promise super-fast turn around. However, if you talk in terms of "your merchandise will arrive in about three weeks from the time you give me your orders", you should be fine. Because this is the slower (slowest) time of year, we can offer some additional summer services for groups who Celebrate America in June and July:
Sample sales presentation for your telesales or field rep, speaking to the owner of a Christian Day Care:With all that has been going on during the past year, and especially given the exceptionally high approval the general public has for our government and our military, don’t you agree now is a pretty good time to be waving the flag? We did too, and that’s why we’re offering "Celebrate America" for your use this summer. Every item in this brochure is Made in the USA. Take a look at the "God Bless America" items on the cover, the several "Footprints" items and the "Guardian Angel" jewelry items. And for something totally unique, look at the "Hero" cards. Because we also show this brochure in public schools, we didn’t call them "Bible Heroes" or "Old Testament Heroes", but we could. Your people will recognize the stories, which makes the text line inside even funnier. [This would be a good time to show a sample of the Jonah Card. If appropriate, you can point out the scriptural correctness of the "big fish" as the Bible does not use the word "whale".] If you like, we can set up this program so that you don’t have to touch the product. We will ship all orders to the seller’s home address. You wouldn’t mind forfeiting product delivery and distribution, would you? But that’s not all. During your sale, we will offer a Personalized Web Page that will help you expand your sale from the neighborhood to the nation [add notes from above]. Several of the items on our Celebrate America brochure were designed by the illustrator of The Super Heroes Bible. [Open your sample Bible and show some of the pictures]. I have an allotment of these Bibles to give away, and if you are ready to Celebrate America today, I’ll just leave this one here for your library. After we help you get your web site up and running and add in your e-commerce capability, consider offering a Free Perpetual Fundraiser to all groups who work with you. Even after the sale is over, it costs you nothing to leave the site up – just send them a quarterly check for the profit from the sales that go through their site. Add additional brochures to the one you ran in the sale . . . and encourage them to promote it in weekly newsletters home, at parent/teacher meetings and when report cards go home. Offer to keep the site up as long as they continue to work with you. Give them another reason NOT to switch. Make it easy for teachers to earn (or just give it to them) a high percentage discount coupon to use in the discount section of your online store. For example, if you have overstocked or high mark up items there and you offer a 70% discount – you’re still making something on the product and can also set up your shipping so that is also a profit center for you. The customer, on the other hand, recognizes the significant discount from the prices on the fundraising brochure. Once you make the jump into the world of Automated Data Capture, aka scanning the handwriting on the order forms, you can offer Survey Services to your school customers. Using a combination of ranking options, multiple choice and true/false type questions, you can help the school and/or parent group learn what day of the week is best for meetings, what projects are the most important, who deserves special teacher or parent recognition, etc. Obviously, this will be something you would do outside peak season, but it is another way to use the equipment and expertise (we can help) and offer a unique opportunity for your customers. And who says these services are only for fundraising customers? When we first researched the capability of scanning the handwriting on the order forms, the main concerns were price and accuracy. After all, we all know you’re not allowed to make mistakes in fundraising. When I mention that to our software vendor rep, she laughs....and then explains to me that her company boasts 70% of the data capture market. And to drop just a couple names, users include Fed-Ex, Harvard University, Duke University Medical Center and Chase-Manhattan Bank. Those folks aren’t allowed to make mistakes either. Although our 3rd party vendor’s software has actually increased in price, we have changed our recommended starting configuration to make it easier to get started. By starting with a single-user set-up and keeping part of your operation in the current manual mode while you transition into scanning, we can save you thousands. As you discover that your data entry on the scanning station goes twice as fast, and as your data entry operator tells you he/she is "less fatigued" at the end of the day, you can complete your transition from manual to automated data entry. How does it work? Orders are "scanned" with a high speed document scanner at @ 40 pages per minute. That’s almost three times the speed of your copier. As the orders are scanned, the reader begins looking at data. That is an automatic operation and doesn’t even require you be there. In fact, one recommended strategy is to scan orders at the end of the day and then go home. Come back the next morning to verify. During the verification process, you see an actual graphic picture of the order form on screen, so it is not likely that you would need to go back to check anything on the paper forms. The software highlights questionable data and then shows you what it thinks it is. You either accept the choice (which is correct a very high percentage of the time), or you change it to what you determine is correct. So, instead of going back and forth between forms and screen, typing and interpreting, you are normally pressing the enter key to accept. Fewer keystrokes mean faster speed and less fatigue. Less fatigue is another way to reduce data entry errors. We’ve got marketing material and can quote you. How much do you pay one data entry operator during the season? Do you have trouble finding "additional" data entry operators in the Fall? Does it take too long to train them? With two days for on-site installation and training, we can get you going . . . but not in the Fall. If you want to do this, NOW is the time. We’ll make installations in June and July but that’s about it. You need to have some time to get comfortable with the technology before the season hits, not as it arrives. Return on Investment (ROI)Let’s say you get in 1000 order forms per day to process. That’s roughly 3000 sellers @30% participation. You currently have 3 data entry clerks who make about $10,000 ea for the Fall season tallying your orders. At that level, you can scan your orders in less than an hour per day and allow the reader to process orders at about 4sec per page over the evening when you’re not even there. If your verifier (our version of the manual data entry clerk) can process orders at the same speed Dennis Barnum can (not a typing guru), then you can accomplish that with the single user version of the data capture software, one document scanner and one clerk (vs 3). If you were to maintain that level, you would pay for your system in 8 months and be 142% ahead at the end of a year. Realistically, with the seasonality of fundraising, you’re looking at a two season payback and significant ongoing employee savings. We can still get you up and running for Fall, but will be hesitant to accept orders after June. As for a time-sensitive quote when (and only if) you’re serious and ready to move . . . we’ll discount you as we want to expand our user base this summer. You’ve already read about our 4-page, All Domestic, Home-Delivery-Friendly version. But there are two others for consideration: All Made-In-USA ProductThe 8pg version contains 77 Made In USA product, including Cathedral Jewelry, Langley Candles, Cheese and Chocolates (we get them from Scott’s but the generic pictures mean you could get them anywhere), Krown Publishing and more. Use this brochure when you encounter schools that received poor delivery or quality on imports last year and/or who like the idea of Made in the USA. A Brochure Designed By a Distributor For DistributorsThe 16-pg version includes 88 items Made in The USA and 136 items total. Items to emphasize when presenting to decision-makers:
Important for YOU to know:
If you haven’t seen our three Celebrate America brochures, call 1-800-FIRST-OK, or view online at www.qdpcorp.com/brochure/celebrate.htm. Combine Automated Data Capture and import into YOUR tally software.Yeah, we know that some of you have your own internal thing going, or that, for whatever reason, you’re not using WinUltra for your tallies….. Pout. That’s okay, though. We can still set you up to scan orders and then import that data into whatever you have. For WinUltra users using Genesis on-line store . . .We can take the data from your Genesis on-line store processing and get that data into your WinUltra Tally Reports. Custom import/export routines with QuickBooksWinUltra 2.0 users can generate an itemized QuickBooks Purchase Order from a WinUltra Purchase Order. They can also generate an itemized QuickBooks invoice from a WinUltra invoice. Advantages include:
Tally / Pack Services for Scott’s BrochuresThere are several programs from Scott’s of Wisconsin for which we can provide Tally and Pack Services. Call for a list of which brochures or for additional information. LAST CHANCE FOR FORMS DISCOUNTS. Double Discount with October dating – or Triple Discount for pre-paid orders. We don’t discount our forms once the season starts. SELLER HOME DELIVERY SERVICE with our 4-page version of Celebrate America. VOLUME PRICING / DATING ON CELEBRATE AMERICA BROCHURES. Call.
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