Teach Your Audience What To Buy & When To Buy It

A few days ago we talked about making a list of which activities/tasks in your business more often than not, reliably result in actual sales.

The purpose of this exercise is to give you a very clear picture of how and why you spend your time, and an idea of which activities are income generating vs. which ones are mainly busywork (or at least not time sensitive).

When I first made my own list, I was running my handmade retail store and DIY Studio, and out of all the things I was respsonsible for during that time - I only ended up with two things that made the cut.

The first one was sending out the new DIY workshop and registration info.

I would typically send it out to my email list and post on social media at the same time. At that particular time (this was back in 2017), I knew that whenever I sent out new workshop and registration info, I would make at least $1000 that day.

I knew this for a fact because I had been sending out new workshop info every week for the past six months.

The second one was when I would post photos and a “buy now” link for new handmade items that either I or one of my vendors brought in.

These two activities were the only things I did in my business that I knew would reliably result in immediate sales, and they illustrate two of the most important principles of sales: scarcity and urgency.

(We have all announced a flash sale or discount at some point because we needed cash immediately. While that can work once in a while, it’s not ideal and it’s not what we’re talking about here.)

People would register for workshops as soon as I announced them for several reasons;

1. There were limited spots available in every workshop.

2. Registration (ie. payment) was required to reserve a spot.

3. Registration was only open for 7 days.

4. Workshops were scheduled on a rotating basis.

So my customers knew that if they wanted to sign up they had to do it NOW. Otherwise they ran the risk of the workshop filling up or the deadline passing. And since we didn’t do the same workshops all the time, they knew they might not get another chance for several months.

When we posted pics and a “buy it now” link for new handmade products, they would sell quickly for the same general reasons;

1. We always included the number of items available.

2. We always included a “buy it now” link.

3. There was no guarantee that the item would be restocked.

4. Some items were only offered seasonally.

So, same as above - if they waited, they would risk the item being sold out and/or it never being available again.

What I had done, unintentionally, was teach my customers how to buy from me.

They knew that new workshops and products would be added weekly so they had to pay attention and take action if they wanted something.

These two examples are just two of the dozens of ways that you can use scarcity and urgency to generate sales, so don’t limit yourself or think that this wouldn’t apply to your business.

These two principles are universal and can be used by any business that exchanges anything for money.

A lot of business growth happens when you expand your thinking beyond what’s directly in front of you.

Marketing is “show and tell” - but sales is getting cold hard cash.

Consider this example: Let’s say you have a new product that you have been wanting to introduce to your customers. Instead of making 25 of them and waiting until your next event and hoping you will “get” some sales, what if you only made 5 then announced it via email and social media with a link to purchase?

• You could make some sales TODAY, instead of waiting until your next event, giving you cash up front.

• You would spend less money on production before making a profit.

• You would spend less time on production before making a profit.

• You would be able to gauge demand for your next event.

• You could pre-sell items to be picked up at your next event.

• You could “test” out new products before investing a ton of time/money in supplies and production.

Next time we’ll dive deeper into the difference between sales and marketing so that you can begin to use them both in the most effective (ie. income-generating) ways.