Are You Closing A Sale or Opening a Relationship?

When you make a sale is it the beginning or the end of sales process? If you aren’t developing relationships with your customers by continuing the conversation after the sale then you are missing a huge opportunity. One of the common questions I get is how can I get more sales. To this I often respond “Do you send updates to your previous customers?” The response sadly is usually “No”. So let me ask a question, do you think it’s easier to sell to new customers whom have never heard of you or to sell to someone that owns a piece of your work and already knows the quality you produce?

Now what I’m talking about is not spamming people but asking each of your customers “would you like to hear about my new work”. Only when they have requested that they want to get updates from you should they be put on a list. Also they should be able to remove themselves from the list easily.

People like doing business with people they like so make the conversation fun. Talk about your work, your family, what makes you tick. If you’re a faceless website with no personality then why would they buy from you instead of from some big-box store? If you really want to blow your customers away, call them about a week after they’ve received their purchase and asked them how they like it. When was the last time that happened to you? What would you think about the crafts person that did that?

In this day and age of isolation people are starving for interaction with real people. Let the conversation begin with the sale, not end.