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Think Outside the Envelope

No, that’s not a mixed metaphor. It’s what the US Postal Service is doing to develop a new income stream from one of its core products – stamps.

To expand revenue sources and to satisfy customers who have wanted to see stamp art turned into décor art, the USPS is making 300 of its exclusive stamp images available as framed décor through a licensing agreement with ArtSelect, Inc. Unframed prints are also available.

Among the postage stamp designs available as prints are abstracts, patriotic, Americana, holidays, and love themes. They range in size from about 12 inches high to almost 3 feet high. Each print is available in three sizes – small, medium and large – with the exact size dependent on the size and shape of the original postage stamp.

Like any good mail marketer, the USPS is using a special offer to introduce the product: order online now at http://www.postalartgallery.com and save 10 percent on your order plus get a $15 discount on orders of $90 or more.

Whether or not you are interested in postage stamp art, you can benefit from the USPS new product launch. Just apply similar thinking to your own core business. Look for spin-off products and new ways to market what you’ve been selling all along.

Professional speakers do this with finesse. They get paid for speaking at a conference, tape their speeches, and then they bring in additional revenue by selling books, tapes or CD sets to their audiences. They also give out a handout that points their audience to their web site, where they sell more books, tapes, CDs and ebooks. It’s all the same research material, but spun out in different ways to generate additional revenue.

The concept works for almost any business. If you’re a small business accountant, consider how you might repackage your firm’s services to include tax planning, financial planning, accounting software setup, or other related services. If you manufacture hope chests, could you also manufacture window seats with storage, or hand-painted wooden quilt storage boxes?

Seeing beyond the obvious
Thinking outside the box (or the envelope) is often the key to solving productivity problems, too. Case in point: few people would think of a bale of hay when they look at an airplane seat. But that’s exactly what a couple of Boeing engineers did when they were searching for ways to cut costs and reduce the time required to build jetliners. Tasked with a project to find an easier way than using a crane to lift heavy aircraft components – particularly the seats – from the factory floor up to the airplane door, the engineers looked at several types of machines that lifted and moved objects, and then realized that a hay elevator, which is used to move 125-pound bales of hay into haylofts, could be easily adapted to lift the airplane seats up to the plane.

So, when things get tough – or better yet before they do – look over your core competencies and key products with a fresh eye and ask yourself questions like “What else could we do? What if we made this change?” If you’re in a mentor group or network of business associates who share ideas, ask them to consider your situation, too. The exercise could lead you to discover substantial new sources of revenue – or savings.

What results have you gotten by thinking outside your boxes and envelopes? We’d love to hear about them. Please send a note to attard@businessknow.com to share your successes.

Recent Columns

About the author
Janet Attard is the founder of the award-winning  Business Know-How small business web site and information resource. Janet is also the author of The Home Office And Small Business Answer Book and of Business Know-How: An Operational Guide For Home-Based and Micro-Sized Businesses with Limited Budgets.  Follow Janet on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/JanetAttard.

 

 

 
 
 

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