On a recent flight from Minneapolis to LAX I found myself entertained as well as captivated by the onflight SkyMall sales catalog. One could find hundreds of innovative products ranging from video camera embedded sunglasses to solar-powered battery chargers, to web-based monitoring systems for appliances, GPS speed trap detectors, deleted phone message readers, and other devices second only to those found in the latest James Bond movie.

Every flight passenger is a target audience which is why every seat is provided with a sales catalog. It’s difficult and can be irresistible to not want to thumb through when you have nothing else better to do than sit for 3 hours.

AND like many others, I took the opportunity to read every word in the SkyMall magazine, and , after noticing the “Free copy — Take it. We’ll Replace it!” front cover encouragement, I did just that. I took one home.

I am particularly fond of the fact that SkyMall has made it easy to order products from their sales catalog. You could visit their website Skymall.com, text an ad # to 49432, or order by phone.

Whether you are a real estate agent wanting to sell houses, a retailer looking to sell ice cream, or an entrepreneur looking to develop a new product or service, the most important element in the sales process is your ability to take the customers’ money when they want to spend it most.

In the new world order of AnyWhere shopping, time is the least readily available commodity. Not having the right payment option at the right time is like refusing money.

Skymall, like all the McDonald’s on every street corner across America, knows how and when to take your money. After all, isn’t the difference between a qualified target customer and one that isn’t, is timing?