 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.
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