PRIORITY News
Your Total Service Provider
Marketing Thoughts
What's New in WinUltra 2.1

June 2004 – 6 pages

Expand and Combine Offerings for a Competitive Advantage. Using the marketing strategy of a grocery store adding a gas station and discounts to attract more customers to both the store and the station, we explore the concept from a fundraising perspective with 13 specific possibilities.

There’s GOTTA be a better way – continued. The article by this title in the May issue generated strong response. The June issue continues with two recommendations for those trying to survive with the "mom & pop" strategy as the world goes "Wal-mart".

July 2004 – 6 pages

Wireless notebooks, bookstores and coffee shops. Maybe you knew this, but I didn’t. Cool idea(s) for the wireless rep on the road.

Pig Races. Including pictures, I wrote this article before I was specifically asked not to share some new information. I indicated I wouldn’t share specific info shared "off the record", so this article will likely be my last on the subject.

Guest Article talking about the 5000 pound gorilla(s), 2000 pound apes, 500 pound chimps and 100 pound monkeys in fundraising and what AFRDS ought to be doing to service them. This article is published with permission from the author and over the objections of some. Controversy assured. Oh, in return for the article, I plugged the contributors business.

August – developing

We WON, we LOST, and we LEARNED! We recently went to court to collect from a fundraising customer refusing to pay. We had three group employee signatures on reservations and tax-exempt certificates and thought we had a slam-dunk. But the judge bought their argument. Read the 2 page memo I sent to my reps afterward to defeat a repeat. What I learned cost me  $1000 in stolen candy, but a subscription to PRIORITY news is only $49.

Freight news. We recently received a good online order on our online discount store (where we place overstocked and outdated product). Order came from Nigeria. (Are people finding YOUR web site?) In trying to fill that order, I learned something shocking about overseas shipping.

Application from a Fort Wayne Philharmonic solicitation mailing applied to fundraising. Having seen their mailing up close, I’ll give you at least two less expensive and equally effective ways to do what they did.

Clearance Sheets. The concept, with a sample sheet and at least one source for $.15 copies.

I’m always looking for guest articles or editorials. Send yours to John@QDPCorp.com, with permission to publish it, and if I do, I’ll give you credit (of course) and plug your product, service or brochure – as long as we’re not directly competing, of course. You also get a copy of the newsletter in which your article appears. Send interesting industry news.

Remember that newsletter of a decade ago that always included paragraphs of who built buildings, had babies, -- or other industry tid-bits? I always thoroughly enjoyed that.

Get one of the issues described above for FREE. Request the June issue and I’ll start your subscription in July. Ask for July I’ll start your subscription in August. We accept V/M/D.

Software

WinUltra is the industry standard for order tallying. Our Ultra/WinUltra program has been evolving with the industry since 1984. Tally catalog order forms (which you can personalize for your customers) and integrate purchase ordering and invoicing with QuickBooks (and others) Accounting. Version 2.1 (free to anyone who purchased v2.0 in 2004 and only $250 for other v2.0 users) adds several requested features, such as import/export of inventory information between WinUltra and QuickBooks. Unfortunately, now that the season is upon us, we can no longer offer free 30-day trial versions. You can get 15 days for $99 – applied to your purchase.

WebUltra™ is our patent-pending process of Internet Fundraising. DURING THE SALE, (with a properly designed web site) groups can expand their sale from the neighborhood to the nation so cross-country grandma can see the brochure Joey’s school is selling, make her selection, pay for it online, and then receive product shipped directly to her. THEN, that sales data is imported into your WinUltra reporting so that Joey gets prize credit for the sale and the group gets credit for the profit.

WinUltra LITE sells for $1000 LESS and is for those who do NOT inventory product or who use a different system for inventory. It was specifically designed for and at the request of frozen food only distributors.

Holiday Shop LITE is for those who do ONLY in-school stores. This capability is in the full WinUltra system. Easily build custom kits without printing product lists with zero quantity items. For example, if you pull product from yet undelivered kits to take care of run away sales from early groups, when you print the paperwork for that group, that item doesn’t list at all. The Inventory Worksheet allows you to enter add-ons and returns to automatically generate a final billing. Print table labels (less than price cards) with or without prices. Price Sheets print in price order or alphabetically by description, and can include group cost and two additional mark-up amounts. NEW is the CashBox Cashier module, which turns a computer into your checkout register. Using a wand scanner, you can scan merchandise or enter item codes to get an itemized and correctly calculated list on screen. Add the seller’s name (optional) and print a personalized receipt. Reporting includes sales today and sales to date. So, if the group uses the CashBox Cashier for the entire sale, including entering additional orders received, they can generate their own final billing information and give you that disk to use to update YOUR records. Give the school a disk (including all their product inventory) and the wand scanner for less than the cost of most cash registers.

WinScan was the first independently offered program to scan bar codes on the packing line for Order Accuracy Verification. Join over a hundred distributors who have doubled or tripled their packing speed AND improved accuracy. We offer a wide variety of scanner types; pedestal, hand-held, counter and 360 degree and have over a hundred distributors using a variety of each.

Thermal Label Printing is now available. The scanner operator determines the quantity of LARGE PRINT labels to print. The labels and the pack slip go on top of the tub of scanned product as it goes to be "tagged and bagged" for delivery.

TELEform® / TallyScan enables high-speed order processing by scanning the order forms. Yes, we CAN read the handwriting on the order forms. It is now too late to add this capability for this Fall, as we just finished our final installation at the end of July, but if you experience 1) delayed ordering (resulting in slower deliveries) due to a tallying bottleneck where orders are coming in faster than you can process them, or 2) problems finding qualified people to provide vital data processing for a couple months of the year – then be sure to see us at the AFRDS show or plan ahead to get setup for Spring 2005. Don’t wait for the prices to drop. In the increasing world of Automated Data Capture, the price on the 3^rd party software we incorporate increased $2000 in 2004.

I-SCAN enables you to scan bar coded orders off the truck. Get a quick box count for the driver and import into your WinUltra inventory faster and more accurately by eliminating several manual steps.

Service

Order Tally Service. We’ve been tallying orders for twenty years, but that business has decreased 1) because our service customers tend to buy our software, and 2) there are more people offering tally/pack combined services. We want to increase that business and are offering some aggressive enticements for your consideration. We want to move from manual to automated scanning for our tally service, but that requires use of our scan-friendly order form. In order to scan your orders, you would need to use our specially designed scanner-friendly order forms. We have two versions. The 3-pt individual sets include a brighter and heavier top copy (better seller survivability) and 2-color printing. The continuous version enables us to personalize the orders for the sellers. (See Personalized Order Forms article).

Tally/Pack Service. We carry several Scott’s brochures, including Happy Holidays and Shop 'Til You Drop plus other "custom" programs. We have state-of-the-art-software (of course), a committed and experienced tally and packing crew, and a desire to provide the best service available.

Web Design. If we discounted Sara’s design services right now we’d over-load her for sure.  One customer who recently visited her came to tell me, "You need to hire more Sara(s). She’s terrific. I came in here with what I thought was a tough request and she did it for me on the spot."  Based on the demand on her supply of time, I predict putting off your site design will not save you money. Even if you already have a site, Sara can help with making pictures load faster and getting you better placement on search engines. She can also keep you up to date. If you don’t have a web site, or if yours is still showing last year’s (or earlier) products, you need Sara@QDPCorp.com.

Web Hosting. If your site is already functioning, I’d like an opportunity to meet or beat the hosting fee you’re paying now. If I can’t meet or beat your verified price, I’ll send you the three issues of PRIORITY News described in this letter (or extend your subscription by 3 months). As of earlier this week, we’re hosting 43 sites. Are fundraising experts looking after your site?

Got leftovers? Overstocks? Too many to throw away but not enough to make or include in a "brochure"? What I am going to suggest was not realistic (or economical, at least) when color copies were $.99, but now that they are under a quarter, here are two suggestions for consideration.

Clearance Sheets

Utilize scanned or photographed overstocks and create a Clearance Sheet. Reduce the retail, raise the profit percentage – or both. With color copies available in small quantities you can simply drop and add items as you use up inventory. Add clearance sheets in competitive situations, or where the customer wants something special, i.e. ethnic.

The August issue of PRIORITY News will include a sample sheet as well as a place to get great color copies for $.15 with no minimums.

Gift Voucher

Magazine vouchers have worked wonderfully. What if you could do that with brochure sales?

One problem is designing something that can’t be duplicated. That will mean some sort of custom design at considerable expense. Consider using a Customized Brother Jones Card. We can custom print the inside of any of our cards and you can treat them as your voucher. They can’t be duplicated, and because they already exist, we can provide them economically.

1. An item on a Clearance Sheet or a half/sheet even black and white insert into the brochure. Advantages to the customer include; a) Recipient can pick what they want. b) You can list some "hot" (or overstocked) items on the card, include a product listing, or provide a web link to your online store so the recipient can order anything you have to offer. They mail the card to you and you fill the order and ship to the recipient’s home.
2. Free Gift to secretaries, teachers, etc. Of course, you can change the value any way and any time you like.

Overview Sheets

We’ve all done it. Somebody calls or emails and wants to see your stuff. So you send 2 shopper brochures ($1ea), two smaller brochures ($.50ea) an overview of products and services ($.02) and a letter ($.02). You put them in a white envelope ($.12) and mail it to the customer ($1.99) – and you’ve spent over $5, not including labor. Then you follow-up and they either "never got the packet" or want you to remove them from your mailing list. Expensive habit.

Or, you’re making cold calls. You can do the above (minus envelope and postage) 15x a day for $45 plus gas.

WHAT IF... you were to use the same color copy concept and just put covers of your brochure types, i.e. shoppers, American-made, frozen, specialty, magazines, holiday shop – with enough information for the serious prospect to ask for more detail. If the copy cost you @ $.16 and you add a b/w copy of products/services on a bright color paper ($.03) you can mail that for $.37 and you’ve spent about 10% of the full brochure concept.

Promo Cards

Use our kooky Paul Revere card and print your special message on the inside". Examples:

Your fundraiser is coming!
Your fundraiser is coming!

or

Your sales rep is coming!
Your sales rep is coming!

See the cards at www.BrotherJonesArtWorks.com.

Internet Features (for use with WebUltra)

• Display Summary Report of Internet Sales
• Display Seller Report listing quantities and dollars sold.
• Display Prize Report indicating which sellers receive a higher prize.
• Print Prize Labels for Internet Sellers

Customer Data File. Now has the ability to clear the "Actual" numbers.

Catalog Entry

Bad Designator Report. Allows for the recording of problem designators during Catalog entry. When an item isn’t on the brochure or a guess is made as to what the designator is, you can flag these problem designators along with a message as to what the problem was. These problems can then be printed on the seller’s packing slip or a listing of the sellers along with the problems can be printed.

Output

• Bad Designator Report (see above)
• Class/Team Delivery Report
• Prints on 8 ½ x 11 paper, in large letters, the Class & Leader names (1 page for each class/team)

Kit Sales

• Ability to now display the Kit on screen instead of having to print the billing worksheet (works like Display under Output).
• Print the Billing Worksheet with Page Breaks (note the page breaks are based on the 1^st character of the designator).
• From Kit Sales, can create a POS disk (CashBox Cashier) to send to group

Utilities / Other Utilities

Interface Setup to QuickBooks – Import / Export Inventory and Customer Data file from Winltra into QuickBooks or from QuickBooks into WinUltra. Also includes settings to export Invoices as Totals Only or as an Itemized Invoice.

Last Modified: 08/23/2004