What Has To Happen Before A Sale Can Be Made?

http://www.pictureframer.com

The Single Greatest Ingredient Necessary Before A Sale Is Made Is TRUST.

To have trust, you have to build a relationship with the customer.

The relationship can be built in diffent ways:

If there is no trust feeling with the customer, you'll have to depend on your sales techniques and abilities to make the sale happen.

Let's break it down in simple terms.

The new customer is framing a picture and has chosen you to do the work.

Why did they choose you instead of someone else?

Trust.

What was the turning point in the customer's mind when they chose your store to frame their art? What made them decide that your store was the one to trust and not 37 other frame shops in the area?

Be aware of every customer who frequents your business. Each one is an opportunity for you to turn them into a 'Lifetime Value Customer'.

You can protect and guard the customer's trust they've placed in you by servicing them in every way possible.

Listen, the customer only desires one thing: To get their art framed up the best way. Giving extra service and developing a rapport (relationship) with your customer will keep them coming back again and again.

There's Only Four Ways You Acquire A New Customer:

You don't get hundreds of new customers in your store every day unless your name is Barnum & Bailey Circus. It takes time to build your customer list.

Being in business a long time builds trust in the community and is a slow but steady way to acquire new customers consistently.

When people move into your neighborhood, they will ask around and if your reputation is good, they will then come in referred. Or maybe they heard of your reputation from the other end of town.

Building Trust Through Drive-Bys

Your storefront is your business suit.

This doesn't mean you have to wear a suit yourself, but your storefront does several jobs:

Look poor - just get by.
Look successful - get more sales.

The inside of your store is a continuation and reflection of the outside, even moreso. It too has to look dynamic and attractive to build trust.

This means having plenty of framed up examples on your walls in between your sample mouldings to show the different ways a customer can frame their picture.

You can point the customer to these examples when suggesting ways to frame their art or picture. There's more on this in the members only Ultimate Guide letters.

If it looks like a tornado just came through your store, then you have to take a second look at your appearance.

To A New Customer, Presentation Is Everything

How do you present yourself to the public eye? This includes your personal look as well as your store appearance.

Your body language, facial expressions and eye contact will have a direct bearing on how the customer feels. How do you conduct yourself in front of a new customer?

Believe it or not, eye contact builds rapport and trust faster than anything.

Remember, everything that happens between you and the customer is an intangible. The customer is sizing you up and making decisions during the framing process before he places any amount of TRUST in you.

The customer is proud of their art they brought in and appreciate your input.

Face it, the customer is in your life on average, about 20 minutes per picture to design and write up the order.

The sale is the biggest and most important part of your whole business!

Make it exciting for that customer for those few minutes and the rewards can last a lifetime for you in the form of business and referrals.

The Secret To Getting Better Sales With A High Ticket Value

Knowledge of your product.

Picture framing is your product.

When you are with a new customer at the front counter, you have to know how to price out the whole job. Every job is different, so the price will be different with each customer.

To learn how to be smooth in your presention (including designing and calculating all the retail costs into the job), requires that you have fitting experience first.

This isn't true in all cases. Some designers never see the back room where all the work happens, but they are aware of what it takes to pull a job together including the contents and the labor.

However, after fitting and working in the back room for awhile, you'll have the knowledge of what goes into the frame. This includes knowing how to price out the complete frame job.

Your experience and knowledge of your product will equal TRUST in the customer's eyes. This can result in more cash flow into your thriving business.

Referrals Build TRUST

A referral is where most of your business will come from. One great referral means the new customer has automatic trust in you before they even meet you.

How easy is that?

Building TRUST Via The Internet

Another way to entice customers into your store is having a neat web site.

Your web site is the face you're displaying to the world.

It must navigate easily with all the links working and provide enough content, information and motivation through the use of 'dollars off incentives' for the customer to call and/or come in.

Here's A Web Site Tip You Can Start Using Now:

I get plenty of customers from my web site. I run an unorthodox small ad in the yellow pages which directs the customer to my web site which has an Incentive Certificate that is printer friendly.

Customers print out the certificate and bring it into the store.

The certificate gives the customer dollars off, not percentages, ranging from $5 to $100. Percentages off don't work as well as dollars off. I've tested both methods for several years.

The retail public is wiser now and knows you can play with the percentages.

But when the customer see dollars off for a minimum amount spent, this will motivate them more.

What! You don't have a web site yet?

Remember, if you have a web site and are a member, you get a free highlighted listing at our Find-A-Framer page.

Fact: Building Relationships Equals A Lifetime Value Customer.

Face it. You can only build a customer relationship by servicing the heck out of your customer at every opportunity.

This turns your customer into a lifetime value asset for you.

Example: I have customers who only spend $1000 in five years with me. I also have customers who spend $10,000 and more with me in five years.

And there are plenty of lifetime value customers in between these figures.

One only brings me $200 every year while the other brings me $2000 every year.

Do the math. Just 100 customers paying you $2000 every year equals $200,000.

One hundred customers who pay you only $200 every year equals $20,000.

And you can have all the levels in between those amounts when you develop TRUST.

It doesn't matter what the dollar figure is. Once a customer has trust, you can sell him or her anything.

Building trust in your customers will pay you dividends for a lifetime.