How to Keep a Gift Certificate Log

It’s important to keep a log of each gift certificate you sell. Keeping a record of each certificate sold will ensure that you don’t wind up honoring a counterfeit certificate, or one with a changed dollar amount when someone comes to use it. My log has 6 columns, and for each certificate I sell, I record in my log:

-the certificate’s unique number -the purchaser's name -the recipient's name -the date sold -the dollar amount of certificate -the date redeemed -optional seventh column: expiration date.

I keep my log sheet and a stack of ready-to-sell certificates together in a two-pocket folder, along with a fancy pen for filling out gift certificates in style when they’re sold.

Use Gift Certificates to Their Fullest Profit Potential

Gift certificates can be a great source of back-end sales. When recipient comes to redeem gift certificate, it’s easy to sell her an add-on item or two. Often she is already predisposed to splurge on something to go with item she’s getting for free with her gift certificate, and needs only a little encouragement from you to purchase extras. For example, in my case, recipient will often purchase matching earrings to go with bracelet she gets for free with her gift certificate. So be sure to show enticing things to recipient that could accompany item she chooses for her gift!

Use a gift certificate sale as an opportunity to add two new customers to your mailing list: person who purchased certificate, and person who received it. Obtain permission from each to add them to your mailing list. Both of them are now pre-sold on your products, your service, and especially on your solutions to their gift-giving problems. There’s a good chance they will respond favorably when they receive a special offer from you before gift-giving holidays.

Here are some questions for you to ponder: * Where do you focus your thoughts? * Are your choices based on fear? Are they based on possibility?

A client described a situation to me in which she understood difference between making fear-based choices and choices based on self-trust. An aspiring entrepreneur, she felt caught between remaining at her day job and leaping into fulltime entrepreneurship. Through reflecting and listening to her intuition, she became clear that only thing keeping her chained to her day job was fear.

She also recognized that by taking risk to leave her job, she actually had a greater chance of entrepreneurial success. Her new business required full weight of her attention and resources. And over time, she realized that decisions she made based on her intuition and self-trust were ones that led her business down a successful and rewarding path.

A healthy entrepreneurial spirit requires trust in yourself and your intuition, an ability to make clear choices, a flare for mobilizing resources, and a capacity to move beyond obstacles created by fear. Connect with your entrepreneurial spirit and see where it leads you.

------------------------------------------------------------------ Claudette Rowley, coach and author, helps professionals identify and pursue their true purpose and calling in life. Contact her today for a complimentary consultation at 781-676-5633 or claudette@metavoice.org. Sign up for her free newsletter "Insights for Savvy" at http://www.metavoice.org.