I'm early I know - Valentines is coming and

would love to hear your opinions and advice. This is my first Valentines so I don't know what to expect and want to have time to prepare. I'm a home baker and not a store front.

1. I'm going to put together a small cookie/cake ball pics flyer and go to different businesses, etc. Was thinking to take maybe 1/2 dozen cakeballs and some small sample cookies too. What do you think?
2. I would like to market to the men as well - any ideas?
3. What kind of timelines do you have?
4. Generally, do customers want the cookies for the 14th or a few days beforehand as well?
5. Do you have all the cookies made for the 12th, get your customers to pick up on the 13th and stay at home and wait for pick ups on the 14th too?
6. Do customers pay in advance?
7. When do you usually start to advertise?
8. What other things do you do?

thank you so very much for your help.

somehow I didn't even get notification anyone replied - I am so relieved.

Good point about Valentines being on Sunday. I think there will be a mix of orders for both Fri/Sat.

The terra cotta planter is a super idea and it has a double purpose afterwards. I'd like to know more about the containers too.

Indydebi, you are a smart businesswoman!! What's in it for them is exactly it. My concern was not getting past the receptionist as well, that's why the samples with business cards attached. The discount idea is great.

When I worked in offices, we used to have salespeople selling cookbooks and others selling almond bark and they went to all the offices in a bldg, left the product and flyer and kept in contact for orders. Go where the people have money to spend.

Get the company business card and contact person's name and follow up. I think it's important to develop rapport in that short time as well.

Wear something professional and wear an apron if we have one. It creates curiosity and interest. If we can wear a heart too. This is more of an indirect way of selling, so percentages would be only 1-2%. Remember though, we now have contacts that we can use for other occasions too.

It's of course better if it can be one to one contact. For instance, people will notice us in elevators or walking down the street and be curious. that's when we talk it up, hand them a flyer and those around them. I'm kind of bold so I would also go to the food courts at lunch time and stop people and give them one. Have flyers with us at all times and wherever we go, hand them out - grocery stores, people in the mall (have to be careful about that one I think), etc. What about nurses, our fav dentist/dr's offices? Bring some order forms cause we never know.

If we have clients that we're friendly with, ask them to take it around to others in their office and the client would get a discount if people order. There are lots of ideas.

I used to work in the English as a Second language industry and there are all those international students, some of which have never experienced Valentines before. They always stand outside the school, so there's another idea. Make sure you give a couple of those who speak good English lol.

Like the idea of discount to office - what about a free bouquet to the contact person. Their bouquet becomes larger as sales do. Have a cut off point though. Good motivation. good idea or not?

I still want to focus on the men - there are no rules about handing out flyers in front of the office bldg at lunchtime, so maybe that's an option. Also how about places men go like Office Depot, Staples, computer stores, real estate offices - the list is endless. Need to keep track of time management though.

Sorry to be so longwinded. This might get us thinking of other places to go and if we can think of others, let's post them here and help each other, yes?

forgot to ask something - KHalstead, those are great pics and I'd love to know the size of the pots and how you made them too and what we could charge for them. Do you mind sharing your experience with flyers, ie. where did you distribute your flyers, how you got to the people directly and what we might expect about sales volumes.

CookieMeister = I like your timeline. I saw a thread somewhere about putting sticks on the outside of the bag. If you have time, would you mind sharing how to do it? Also, would you mind sharing your experience with flyers, etc.

I'd also love to know what others think = to deliver (and if so, how you do it) or not.

It seems that you are helping a lot of us who have never done this before and I'm extremely grateful for your generosity and support.