With the prime candle-selling season here it’s time to put into action any Candles of Eden promotions plans already formulated. If you are not yet quite sure how you will promote your soy candles and accessories, and other product lines, why not tap into a special resource for some ideas. That special resource is your staff. Since your employees are diverse personalities, they can help you come up with some interesting promotions for the coming months.

As an owner-operator or manger of a spa or retail shop you will retain final say on any promotions implemented. However, there is no reason not to enlist ideas from your employees. The following are three reasons why you should:

  • Your employees often see your business differently than you do. They approach your business with ideas, and attitudes absorbed from their cultural heritage, education, beliefs, circle-of-friends, interests, and natural inclinations. All of these combined give them unique thought processes as applies to your business. In other words no two people will look at your business exactly the same way you do. That’s why you want different perspectives of your business to converge into a promotions plan. Employees may have ideas for promotions based on unique views of the world around them.
  • Some of your employees may have come from other industries or businesses where they learned some creative and innovative promotional tactics. You can benefit from their experience by asking them how they can modify and adapt those tactics to fit your business’s promotion plans. Someone who previously worked in the food industry may be able to apply a creative promotional process to your Candles of Eden candles line. From an industry diametrically opposite to yours, you may gain a new promotional idea and all because you tapped into the prior experience of an employee.
  • Involving your employees in developing your promotions shows them you value their opinions and suggestions. Operating with an autocratic style that does not take into account the knowledge bases of others is a poor way to run a business in the 21st century. Hugely successful businesses of all sizes, from sole proprietors to multi-national corporations actively seek employee input. It’s great for morale, which means it’s great for business. Besides, no one person has all the answers and the proverbial two or more heads are better than one is certainly true in today’s competitive business environment

How do you engage  your employees to come up with promotions for SoyLuscious® Soy Candles and other quality product lines. You do it in two ways. These two ways ensure you receive quality input from all your staff:

Full-Group Brainstorming Sessions

One of these sessions or meetings should be enough. You’re busy as a spa or retail operator so there’s no need to have multiple sessions to garner ideas. Let your employees know a week or two in advance that you want to have a meeting to discuss new promotional activities appropriate for your business. Ask them to start giving some thought to ways your business can better promote SoyLuscious® Soy Candles and any other products for the busy months ahead. You want your staff percolating ideas in their head before the meeting.

On the day of the meeting, have them all banter about their ideas in a free for all brainstorming. Don’t discount any idea offered. Listen to your staff as they share ideas. Listen as they build on each other’s suggestions. Listen as they encourage (and even creatively criticize some suggestions). Write every suggestion down. As you do, encourage your employees to continue to share their thoughts and ideas. When the whole group tosses ideas around together, new and exotic promotional ideas tend to come up rather quickly.

One-on One Discussion

You want to have some one-on-one discussion with employees for the simple reason that some in a group setting will not offer their ideas. It’s plain and simple shyness, fear, and lack of confidence in sharing their views that causes this. You have to accommodate those employees who are more comfortable giving their opinions and suggestions privately. You will find they will open up and offer some great ideas when they can do so without any pressure on them that they often feel in group meetings. Their ideas are as important as any one else’s and you have to provide them the proper time and place to offer those ideas.

Engage your employees to help you come up with promotional ideas. Remember, they see your business different than you do. Each sees your business differently than their co-workers do. You want as many promotional ideas as you can garner from your unique collection of employees. They and you, working together to come up with promotional ideas can make this season’s Candles of Eden selling campaign your best yet.