Sales is More than the Act of Selling!
December 1: cue consumer chaos.
Dare to venture into a mall anytime after Thanksgiving and you’ll be bombarded by brash, blingy sales messages. They’re everywhere screaming, “More, More, More” and “Buy, Buy, Buy!” It’s downright maddening.
Savvy small business owners know that sales is more than the act of selling. It’s an art that starts with selecting the right products and services to offer your clients. In fact, the act of selling is the last step in the sales process. Knowing your clients and carefully curating products and services you offer will guide your clients to that last step – buying!
The Holidays are already chaotic enough, this year offer holiday promotions that add value to your clients’ lives and to your business. Don’t add to the consumer confusion!
Throughout this week, we will be providing you with resourceful guides and tips to help you maneuver smoothly through this holiday season.
After all, happy clients mean happy holidays!
Just like every other part of your business, there’s no magic formula for choosing products and services that ou offer your clients. What works for one business may not work for another- that’s the beauty of being a unique business! This same principle applies to holiday promotions that you choose for your business. Your best choice is the one that meets the needs of your clients—not what your colleagues choose for their clients.
So, how do you choose what’s right for your holiday promotions?
Just to clarify: For the purpose of this article, we use the term “holiday promotions” to describe the unique products and services that you offer during the holiday season.
Caring about Clients Comes First
When you’re running a client-focused business, it’s important to start your holiday promotion process by prioritizing your clients: identify who they are, what they want, and what makes them happy. Then, promotions become a mutually-beneficial sales process, where you provide something your clients actually want to purchase and then you receive monetary rewards. (Or whatever rewards benefit your business this season.)
Here are three questions to guide you through creating a client-focused holiday promotional plan.
- Who are they? Don’t forget outside-the-box clients such as extended family, wedding guests, past clients, and vendors in addition to your usual clients. These are all prospective clients during the holiday season! Since the holiday season is gift-focused, it’s an opportune time to cast a wider sales net. If you think of your regular promotions as narrow nets that are personalized, think of holiday promotions as
wide nets that reach extended communities. - What do they like? When you pay close attention to your clients’ purchasing habits throughout the year, you get a good gauge of the products and services that your ideal clients want to purchase. Knowing this, how can you modify those products and services to serve a more specific purpose during the holiday season? For example, your senior portrait clients frequently purchase graduation announcements from you. Have you considered creating custom holiday cards or Thank You cards using photos from their shoot?
- What will make them happy? When focusing on creating value for your clients so that they want to purchase, it’s key to understand what products and services make them truly happy. Tap into their “picture of happiness” to identify these products and services. Think beyond specific products during this brainstorming session. Instead, consider the lives your clients want to live (their picture of happiness) and then identify
products and services that fit within that picture.Perhaps your clients are newlyweds or new home owners. Consider offering a collage of canvases to hang in their stairwell or scheduling a lifestyle shoot in their home. Perhaps your clients are new parents. Consider offering a series of “baby face” block prints that showcase photos of their newborn’s expressions or a coffee table book that functions as a family yearbook.
Now that you’ve answered these questions, take some time to identify the holiday promotions that fit for your clients and stay tuned for Part 2 tomorrow!
This article was originally published in The Photo Life Dispatch, Your Holiday Sales Guide. Check it out for more practical tips to help guide you through the holiday season.