In early January you should take yourself out to dinner and ask yourself: "Where will this year's profit come from in my glass business?" Each business has its own blend of auto, flat, new construction, board-ups, picture framing, and so on. This blog certainly can't tell you the future. But we can help you see your own future.

On a pad of paper list the areas of our industry you are in. Then rank your top sellers from this list, and then which ones are your top profit contributors. If your top profit contributors are not among your top sellers, those items or line becomes the focus for your selling effort.

Add a few more of that item to your showroom. If your yellow pages ad is due to change, mention that new item in larger type. Put up a few pictures of work that you have done that fall into this segment of your business. Instruct your staff to mention this product on each phone call or customer visit. Call the local newspaper, ask for the business columnist and boldly tell them that you can predict the business future. Your sales will go up in a certain product, because you do it better than anyone else and your are featuring it this year at your company. You may just see a headline like "LOCAL BUSINESS SEES THE FUTURE". This does work. Local papers love to support local businesses.

So, what do you think will be great products this year. Send us your product ideas here at the Glass Forum and I'll write back with more marketing tips for each type of product that you want to work on.

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