All tagged sales
(Editor's Note: Throughout the month of April, we're continuing our look back at the most controversial, highly-visited and deeply personal posts ever written on WeddingIQ. On the hot seat today is Jen's post from April 2012, "It's Not the Economy, It's You.")
It's no secret that, in its early days, WeddingIQ could be a pretty rancorous place at times. (Okay, occasionally it still is.) I wrote my posts with a lot of passion, and often with a very black-and-white view of how things "should" be.
(Editor's Note: We're closing out the week with this great guest post from Kevin Dennis of Fantasy Sound Event Services. Read more about Kevin at the end of the post, and be sure to check back Monday for a special announcement regarding WeddingIQ!)
These days, the bottom line isn’t solely about having great products or services and making sure people know about them. Sales play an incredibly important role in the conversion of “I like you guys!” to “I want to book you!”
In fact, selling starts as soon as a potential client shows interest- from the ease of contacting you to the look of your office when they first walk in the door (that’s right- time to find a new home for all those mason jars peeking out from around the corner!). It should be your top priority to make sure prospects look forward to your meeting.
So we're all in business to make money, right? Okay...making money certainly isn't the only goal (at least for most of us), but if selling our products/services wasn't important, we'd just be doing what we do as a hobby.
With that in mind, I can't emphasize enough how important it is for you to make it easy for clients to hire you. Sounds pretty basic, doesn't it? Yet, especially for those of us who've been doing this since the dark ages, it's so easy to get stuck in low-tech, unnecessarily complicated booking processes that, as business systems and client expectations evolve, can render us unappealing to savvy couples who may choose to sign with another company rather than wait for us to get our act together.
When we first start out in business, we have all the time in the world. Every inquiry, every meeting, every contract and every other step of the transaction has our undivided attention, because - let's face it - we don't yet have a whole lot else to do. Of course, most of us hope to steadily grow our business and to become busier and busier, which means staying on top of our clients only gets harder and harder.
That's where CRM comes in.
The term CRM (customer relationship management) refers to a system or software that helps you manage any combination of your sales, marketing, operations and client interactions. And when your business really takes off and you suddenly have more client interactions than you can handle, your CRM becomes a lifesaver.
There's not a single wedding business owner in the marketplace who closes 100% of their sales meeting. That's just a fact. Sure, there are things you can do to increase the chances a client will want to sign on the dotted line, but you're always going to lose a few.
And that's okay. It gives you an opportunity to reflect on your strategies and make improvements for an even better business, all because of the dropped sales.
