Think Summer
TOPsiders leases office space here in Ohio and every year in the middle of our hot summer weather, a Good Humor Ice Cream truck pulls up outside our office.  People from our landlord’s office smilingly hand out ice cream, cold drinks, and candy.  It’s their way of saying “thank you for your business” and letting us meet them face to face.  Talk about a great goodwill gesture.  They do it every year and let us know a month in advance of the day and the approximate time.  Even though it’s just an ice cream bar, it always brings smiles to our faces.

I Know that Snow is on the Ground 
Still, Summer will be here at some point and when it gets really hot outside you will have this opportunity but it takes planning now.  First, I thought about client retention, doing it for existing clients, than I realized it would only work for smaller clients with few employees.  I can’t imagine doing it for a large downtown multi-story, 1,000 plus employee firm.

Then I had another idea.  What if you did this for specifiers of our services – the 5 man architectural firm, the local office furniture dealership with a design division?  What if you did it for the management staff at the Shopping Mall or the rental office personnel at the high-end real estate division where you do the model homes?  You get the idea.

It’s a unique idea that while memorable it only works for certain situations.  But it does work.  Imagine you the scaper salesperson pulling up behind the Good Humor truck, jingle bells ringing, six or seven architects coming out smiling, laughing, ordering their ice cream, talking to you, the interiorscape salesperson, taking your card.  Then imagine a few weeks later when you call and ID yourself as the “ice cream guy”.  There just has to be a job buried in there somewhere among the chocolate sprinkles.  Now even though it’s not hot and muggy outside – yet, go get’em Tiger!