COMEBACK SALES BOOST PROFITS
By Doug Box
One of the most important parts of your selling strategy is what
I call ComeBack sales. It is one of the best strategies
to insure your success. It's also the most overlooked profit
center in photographic studios.
What is ComeBack or Add-on Selling? It is all the products or
services you sell to clients after they have made their initial
purchasing transaction with you.
Photographic studios should be, ComeBack businesses, becausea
bulk of the sales, cash flow and current profit can come
from doing a better job at building ComeBack customers. Most of
us are dependent on repeat customers and their referrals.
With a ComeBack business, your goal is to make it as easy as
possible to get as many people as possible to begin their journey
in becoming part of your photographic family.
In some instances you may not you make much money on a client the
first time they come to you. The amount of money made on
their first visit depends on the amount of money spent on the
campaign and the number of people who take you up on your
original offer. The most important thing is making it easy and
desirable for them to "Come Back" to your business.
How many times they come back and what they spend, has a lot of
impact on how prosperous your business becomes.
Getting customers who used to come back once a year to start
coming back once a quarter, or once a month, can multiply
your profits enormously.
Getting customers who used to purchase just one or two products
to start buying additional products in an ongoing
way can add tremendously to your bottom-line.
It can be expensive to acquire a customer in the first place,
because you might have to pay to run an expensive direct-mail
marketing campaign with support of radio, newspaper,
yellowpages,or phone calling follow up. But the cost of reselling
a customer
once they've done business with you is only the cost of a phone
call, a sales letter or a display.
So what does this mean to you? Plenty. It means you need to start
focusing on better ways of getting your customers to buy more
often.
They may buy the same product, a related item, or a totally
unrelatedproduct or service.
Your purpose must be to help your customers get the maximum
benefit you are capable of giving them, so they are more likely
to
become preferred clients, your best client status.
Many studio owners make a marginal profit because they spend most
of their time on generating new clients and not enough time
on building return clients. Once you have the program for
bringing clients back over and over again, your studio becomes
transformed
into a lead generating enterprise, with the focus on building
repeat business.
A solid referral system and Come Back system takes most of the
burden of generating new customers off your shoulders and allows
you to reap residual income from repeat customers and add-on
sales.
Let me illustrate this:
When I began my studio, small schools and daycare centers were
some of my first lead generating clients. I didn't do "just
another
school picture". I made these portraits of my young clients
the verybest I possibly could. I used creative backgrounds, good
lighting
techniques and extra time with each student. These factors made
my "school pictures" stand out from the crowd. I
changed from
a prepaid system to a proof system (with inexpensive contact
proofs). Instead of doing only one exposure, I did at least two
of each student,
a close up and a half-length. Was this new system more trouble?
Of course! But it was more profitable and it endeared me with the
parents of these children. I also kept great records of my
clients and their buying habits. I had a rating system for each
client and each
type of client (life cycle). This gave me a tremendous source of
leads, qualified leads! I would send different promotions to
different clients
according to their rating.
For example: I might send a "Free session plus a Free desk
size photograph (4x5) to "A" rated clients, knowing
they were not
"Take the Free one and run" type of people. However, a
client with a "C" rating might receive a promotion of:
1 - 8 x 10 and 2 - 5 x 7's
with a mini session for $79. I would never send the first promo
to the "C" client.
The result? I built a profitable children's business and a family
business. Plus I developed a following of clients who knew I
would go the extra
mile for them.
I did the same think when I photographed sports teams, proms,
dance schools, Santa Claus and other promotional type of
photography.
I considered these sessions as paid advertising. They paid me for
me to advertise with them! And they became "fans" or
ComeBack clients.
Because I understood how important these repeat clients were I
built a profitable business and a business that I was eventually
able to sell.
A business that is still benefiting from my ComeBack clients.
See how looking at your business as a ComeBack business can make
your business a success and your bank account fatter?
Stop for a moment, get out a paper and pad and make a list of all
the additional purchases your clients should be making with your
existing products and services. Use this when you make your sales
scripts for all of your products.
(See http://www.simplyselling.com/phone.htm for making scripts)
This is your ComeBack list of possibilities. Look at all the
products or services you can sell to your customers and prospects
on a fair, profit-basis.
Just a few examples of ComeBack possibilities:
o Frames for all portraits
o Canvas finish on regular portraits
o A Children's portrait club to current children clients
o Parent albums on all weddings
o Invitations, business and personal stationary and Christmas
Cards
(see Quick Tip - Making Money with Christmas Cards O.. Finally at
http://www.simplyselling.com/marketin.htm )
o Family Albums to family portrait clients
o Black and white wedding coverage at weddings)See
http://www.simplyselling.com/addblack.htm )
o Family sessions to senior portrait clients
o Romantic portraits of your woman clients especially brides
Thanks and happy selling the SimplySelling way!
Doug Box
This article is reprinted by permission of the
author, Doug Box. To contact Doug, visit his web site www.SimplySelling.com or email him at dougbox@mac.com. You can also
write Doug Box at 2504 County Rd 235, Caldwell, TX 77836