The very best way to get some new blood into your business is to have an event.

One of those events is to host a Ladies’ Night Out.

In our case, our customer profile is 99.9% women. But, as I have interviewed other business owners around the country, I have discovered that a few of them who run businesses that are typically male oriented have found that hosting a Ladies’ Night Out or Ladies Only type of event has been very profitable.

The idea is this:

You want to make women feel like they’re special. Every human being needs to feel special and if you host a Ladies’ Night Out, you’re going to have that opportunity to reach out to your female customers and treat them differently. You want to treat them well. Give them that chance to ask some questions that maybe they wouldn’t have asked otherwise.

Especially if you’re a predominantly male centered service, say an auto parts store, or a woodworking store (not that I am discriminating against women who are in these industries) but when you look at the client base, you are going to establish that generally speaking, most of your customers are going to be male.

By hosting a Ladies’ Night Out, you’re going to cater to a portion of the population, in your case, that you don’t typically reach. BUT, speaking as a woman, I know that I feel really good when someone extends that hand of friendship and says, “I’d like to give you the opportunity to come in and ask any question you want to ask about whatever it is you want to ask.

So, this works both for male-oriented products and shops as well as those that target women specifically. Remember, we’ve tried the Guy’s Night Out and it just didn’t work for us. We are a women’s gift shop and we even tried to host a night when the men could come in and it was men only who were shopping for the women in their life…they didn’t bite. It didn’t matter that we had football/tailgate type party snacks. Unless we were turned into a sports bar, it wasn’t going to fly! We drew in just a handful of men, and even they were very uncomfortable. This is something we’re going to have to work on.

Whenever we host a Ladies’ Night Out we had so many women respond, so this tells me that women really enjoy an invitation to something special and if you treat them like they are special, then they will come back. AND they will remember that you did this.

So, the idea is that you treat them well. Offer refreshments. Remember, because you’re going to have women, it would be nice to offer something that is not a football snack. Get things that women like. We’re talking chocolate, sweets, maybe some nice individual quiches, a bit of fruit…anything that women are going to feel that they’ve been singled out as someone important and you’re making an effort to please them.

One night we hosted a Mojitos and mashed potatoes night. The mashed potatoes were offered with anything you could visualize on them. The mojitos were served by an attractive young man (we kept the rum to a minimum) who had a lot of personality. The women loved it!

As long as you try to please the women, you’re going to reach a good number of them. For the Ladies’ Night Out you can run specials. You can hold a workshop. There is one man I know who runs an auto repair store and on several occasions he has hosted a Ladies’ Car Care Clinic where it is women only and they can ask any question they want.

By the end of the clinic, most of the women provide feedback that they were so happy to have had that opportunity to ask any question they wanted to ask and not be made to feel stupid, not to be made to feel like a fool, not to be made to feel like anything that was derogatory. Women are sensitive creatures.

When you host a Ladies’ Night Out you are going to solidify a relationship with a portion of your customer base that you probably didn’t have a very strong relationship with before.

Let me tell you. The ladies are going to remember this!