Friday Five: 5 Ways to Set Yourself Up for Sales Success
Happy Friday! Weekends in the wedding off-season are so much more fun when you have money in your pocket - which usually requires some sales success! With that in mind, for this week's Friday Five series, here are five things you can do to put yourself in a position to close more of your wedding sales.
1. Set a goal. No, really. It sounds "woo," but it works. Determine exactly how many wedding sales you need and want to make each month and each year, so you have something to work toward. Bonus points for posting your goals somewhere you can see them daily, because that does some incredible things to your brain. (I've been reading a lot lately about Jay Pryor's "chalkboard method," endorsed by Emily Thompson and Kathleen Shannon of the Being Boss podcast, and am totally drinking that kool-aid when it comes to my copywriting and coaching!)
2. Be generous with the information you give out in advance. I've explained before how "more is more" works when it comes to your website. If you haven't read that post, do it now - there's no sense in wasting your valuable time and energy courting people who don't dig what you do or who can't or won't ever pay your rates.
3. Pre-qualify like crazy. Again, your time has value. Don't gift it to just anyone - while sales consultations are worthwhile for the right kinds of clients, you can do far better things with your time than spending 30 minutes (or two hours) with people who aren't the right fit. Do everything you can in your pre-meeting communications to assess whether the person is truly interested in your service/product, seems like someone you want to work with, and has the ability and inclination to purchase from you.
4. Prepare for every opportunity. If you are going to spend time meeting with a prospective client, make the most of it! Be sure you're familiar with their venue (if that's relevant to the service or product your provide), be ready to answer any possible questions, and have your presentation materials ready to go. Here are a few more meeting-preparation tips we shared earlier this month.
5. Drop the sales mentality. If you're putting enough information out there to allow clients to know who you are, what you do, and how you work, you'll have very little "selling" to do in your actual consultations. Consider your sales meetings an opportunity to build a relationship and to be of service. It's like I always tell the DJs who work for me: clients already come to us ready to hire us, your job is just to prove their instincts right.
Here's wishing you all a great - and profitable - weekend!
