Tax Break


Virgil Winston:
Marketing Guru

Today is March 21st, the longest day of the year. It’s also the time of year when accountants, CPAs and do it yourselfers everywhere kick it into high gear. That’s right fellow citizens, its tax season. With the filing deadline less than one month away its time to pull your head out of the sand and get busy. I don’t mean to be a downer but I feel a responsibility to support my readers in all of their endeavors. After all, marketing is pretty much pointless if your financial situation is in disarray. Naturally, I have found a way to combine the two.

Many people find themselves stressed to the max, rushing home to go through receipts they collected in shoeboxes, searching for W-2 forms that got mixed up in the junk mail and making last minute contributions to their IRAs in a desperate attempt to save money. Their minds are swirling with numbers and their hearts are filled with anxiety, hardly an ideal time to promote yourself, your company or your new product. Your clients and future customers heads are too full to absorb a new idea, unless you find a creative way in.

Acknowledge their current state of mind and offer a bit of relief at the same time. The Flying Cow Piggy Bank offers your customers what they need most, a good laugh. Since it’s also a real bank, it is practical too. Slap you logo on the back of this cute cow and you will be thought of every time the pennies, nickels and dimes are deposited. (I didn’t forget the quarters; everybody knows those are for laundry and parking meters.) Your company will be simultaneously associated with savings and smiles, which is an unbeatable combination.

Which reminds me, I’m off to audition for the second season of American Inventor. Obviously I can’t tell you about my product yet but look for me on TV, I’m a shoo-in*.