What's the Plan?

Planning ahead is part of the job description at a magazine. We plan the stories we will write, who will travel to industry events, when the magazine will go to the printer and then out to you, when we will take a long weekend so that it does not interfere with production. We are always planning at least a month or two ahead of time. Promotional products distributors plan even further in advance by selling programs three or four months (or even a year) ahead of the event or giveaway. Anyone with a planning-heavy job knows the importance of paper calendars and planners. Technology is wonderful, but nothing will ever surpass the feeling of literally crossing something off of your calendar.

The good thing about technology is that it allows everyone to be in constant communication, which means that those planning-heavy workers have even more to plan. Good thing, too, since you have a lot of calendars and planners to sell. Here are nine things you should know before you start selling calendars and planners for 2015.

1. Remove the Dates

You are probably thinking, “What is this nonsense? Remove the dates from planners? Who does that?” Chameleon Like does, and the reasoning is sound. Pierre Martichoux, president of the Gilroy, California-based journal supplier, explained why not including dates on planners helps lengthen the use of a product. “We feel that selling non-dated planners is often a great option as they do not ‘expire’ and give flexibility to the client to give out the journal at any time of the year,” he said. If the end-user who receives the notebook wants to add a date, he or she can. “We do offer a few options of fillers, such as non-dated weekly pages, where recipient write the date for each week,” Martichoux said.