First Aid

For many years, my company held an Emergency First Aid Day in our showroom. We had enough room after moving things around for about 36 seats. We announced there would be two speakers, one an EMT, and the other an Emergency Room nurse. When we placed an ad with their pictures in the local newspaper, the editor invariably wrote an article about the speakers. We did this two or three times a year.

It was amazing the amount of interest these talks created. What was even more satisfactory was the number of new sales we made that day. As a consequence, we established a section of the showroom identified as “First Aid.” The important thing was to display as many first aid items we stocked.  Every item displayed had a price tag!

Another thing we did was to print, on a business card size, all the local emergency phone numbers. Everyone took several of these cards home to keep in their pocketbooks and near their telephones. Yes indeed, the feature of the card was our phone number and address.

We never had a problem finding speakers. There was an active EMT squad in town and every emergency technical staff member offered to speak. From the two local hospitals, the emergency room nurses loved to be invited in their white uniforms and caps.

This program proved so effective that the after a few years we made arrangements at a local church where there was a large room available to hold the class. We added a physician and PT to the speaker list. The sessions ranged from 10:00 AM to noon with a break for lunch and the second session was held from 1:00 PM until 3:00 PM. The fee we charged (8 dollars) was to cover the lunch.

You can all do something similar. This is another easy way to build a specialty for new OTC cash sales! It certainly did for me.