SELLING A SERVICE

Just because you’re selling a service rather than a tangible product, it doesn’t have to mean that marketing or a good display is any less important. Agricultural or country shows can be an important showcase for landscape gardeners, while portrait painters may do well at markets in the run-up to Christmas. It’s a good selling point: ‘stuck for a present idea? Then give someone you love a picture of you.’ This approach works best with doting parents or a love-struck partner.

Photographs and pictures

Anybody providing a visual service has a head start because the obvious thing to do is to adorn your stall with large photographs of whatever it is you do. Think well in advance about the display, what you want to get across – perhaps your precision or expertise, or use of colours or textures – and select your photos or drawings accordingly. Once again remember that generally less is more. Three or four well-chosen pictures, carefully-hung, will have a greater dramatic impact than scores of smaller ones, pinned haphazardly to a board.

Whatever you decide with the pictures, remember to think about the background. This is largely common sense: if you’re displaying photos of gardens you’ve designed, then don’t use a flowery or busy background. A plain and neutral one is far better.

Examples of your work

If you’re an upholsterer or seamstress, once again display photos of your work. But also have with you examples of something you’ve done recently. A newly upholstered wing chair in sumptuous plum velvet is a real eye-catcher and positively invites passers-by to come across and sit down. And once they’re sitting down, get them chatting and lo! you’ve got them hooked. Almost everyone has a tatty old chair or stool somewhere in the attic that they’d like to have re-upholstered ‘one day when I get around to it’.

Other things to display

• If possible, your raw materials, perhaps swatches of fabrics or garden bulbs and seedlings.
• Free samples (see below).
• Your brochure or publicity leaflets.
• Your business card. Give them out by the bucket load because people do hang onto them.

Not forgetting yourself

Remember that for those people with a product, it’s usually the product that’s pushed. If you’re selling a service, then it’s you who’s important. So don’t stay behind your stall. Come out to the front and be prepared to be inspected, and chat and explain what you do. People attract other people so if you’re worried about standing out there like a lemon ask a few friends along to get things moving.

It’s a little more difficult if you’re a ditch digger or tree surgeon. Pictures of stumps aren’t great attention grabbers, so you may need to adopt a rather more businesslike approach.

SELLING AT CHRISTMAS

Throw taste to the wind and get out those gold and silver baubles. In the run-up to Christmas, even the most aloof and snooty shopper sings along to Slade and secretly loves fairy lights. And even if you personally think it’s a case of ‘bah humbug’, well tough: get into the festive spirit or you’ll lose business. Anyone producing crafts, gifts or in any way connected with catering or hospitality, should be able to make as much money in the run-up to Christmas as they can in the whole rest of the year.

Christmas displays

You don’t have to turn your stall into a crazed display of cheap flashing lights and plastic Santas. Instead think about introducing tasteful sprigs of holly, red berries and pine cones, either natural or gold sprayed. Use a few good quality fairy lights. Shops like John Lewis sell large round platters, sprayed a deep matt gold, which make excellent display bowls for fabrics, foodstuffs and small boxes. Scatter tangerines and shell-on nuts around. At the front of your display fill an eye-catching bowl with Quality Street or something similar to draw in the customers. Make your stall warmer, more welcoming and enticing than anyone else’s.

Christmas presents and gift packs

The closer it is to Christmas, the more desperate people become. So make it easy and label your goods accordingly. An antique lace laundry bag made by a seamstress could be labelled as a Present for Grandmothers; a selection of relishes, chutneys or fine cheeses as Presents for Anyone Who Likes Eating; or an Indian-jewelled hand mirror as a Present for Difficult Teenage Daughters.

Gift packs are cliched but they do work. And they don’t all have to be shrink-wrapped, straw-lined baskets.

• If you’re a home knitter, tie up a pair of mittens, socks, scarf and ear muffs in a huge gold ribbon.
• In catering, line a hamper with good quality silver paper or a red checked gingham, add small jars of jams, rounds of cheese or hand-baked biscuits, and fill in the gaps with nuts, tangerines and small, wrapped chocolates.
• For a nursery man or woman (plants, not children), put together a shallow wooden crate of spring-flowering bulbs, gardening gloves, gardener’s kneeler, and perhaps a subscription to a gardening magazine, secure the whole lot with twine or raffia, and top with a sprig of holly.

Stocking fillers

Try to come up with a new Christmas line that only costs a pound or two. It could be a brown paper packet of half a dozen anemone bulbs, tiny silk gift bags or a cellophane pack of three or four hand-baked chocolate chip cookies. It doesn’t necessarily have to be your own products this time, but anything that will draw the customers in to you. Again, fill a large and lovely bowl with your chosen stocking filler and stick it right at the front of your stall. In the last few days before Christmas, when a lot of the bigger presents have been bought, it’s often the smaller items that catch the customer’s eye.

BEATING THE COMPETITION – NICELY

You may think you have nothing to fear from the man in the stall opposite who’s offering a garden design service, the elderly couple next to you selling storage boxes with pictures of kittens on them, or the farmer’s wife who’s popped in to sell a few eggs. Not true. Every single stallholder is after the same thing as you – the customers’ money. Therefore you need every advantage you can possibly get.

• If you have any choice about which stall to take (and you may not have), make sure it’s on a main thoroughfare and not stuck in a corner.
• Don’t get too close to a loo exit because on the way to it would-be customers have other things on their mind, and on their way back they’ll sail straight past you.
• Definitely don’t be too close to a loo exit if you’re selling food or drink.
• If you’re not selling food or drink, park yourself next to a stall that is. It’ll be even better if they’re giving away free samples of local cheeses, clotted cream, biscuits, whatever. While the customers are waiting for their food or drink, they’ll be milling around in front of your products, and three quarters of the battle is getting people to stop and look in the first place.
• Take every inch of display space you can, so get to your pitch early to set up. Erect any extra shelving as far out as you can without aggressively invading your neighbour’s territory. Think as well about extending forward by using a small table, although you’re less likely to get away with this if the aisles are narrow.

It is important not to upset the other traders. There’s usually a great sense of camaraderie among them, and if you decide to follow this fair/market/agricultural show route, you’ll start to see the same faces cropping up after a while. You’ll pick up gossip about where the best shows are and how to get into them, and you’ll learn from the traders who’ve been selling for years. You watch each other’s stalls when you go to the loo, and you have someone to talk to when business is slow.

FREE SAMPLES

Apart from standing there naked and handing out £5 notes, there’s nothing to beat a free sample for attracting a customer’s attention. It doesn’t matter if it’s curiosity or greed: those samples will get people flocking to you. Think carefully though about what to offer. It can’t look too mean, but equally it can’t be so generous that it bankrupts you.

• If you’re a carpenter or woodworker, try tiny pieces of polished wood, cut for drinks’ coasters or drilled for key rings, or perhaps offcuts tied with a gold ribbon for Christmas kindling.
• A professional cake baker has lots of options, tiny individual muffins, cheesie straws or chocolate-dipped fresh fruit (particularly tasty with strawberries).
• Candle-makers can use wax sheet ends to roll baby candles with miniature wicks.

TRADE FAIRS

Trade fairs are usually open to trade only, as opposed to craft fairs which sell direct to the public. Trade fairs are where you go to meet potential agents, wholesalers and other middlemen. They can be expensive to enter and it will take time to prepare your pitch. It’s also more of a long-term investment because it can take months for you to start seeing the benefits. So trade fairs are not something to worry about in the early days of your business. Once you’ve become more established, check them out through your own suppliers, trade magazines or specialist websites.

SELLING THROUGH AGENTS

Selling through an agent can bring big benefits and big pitfalls. A good agent who knows his market can get your product into scores of shops within months. But you need to read your contract carefully, especially the section on what happens when the arrangement comes to an end. Depending on the wording, agents may be able to claim a percentage of your sales long after the contract has ended, arguing that they built you up and got you onto the shelves in the first place.

You can expect to pay an agent between 10 and 15 per cent commission on the deal. By far the best way to track down a good agent in your field is by word of mouth recommendation. Talk to fellow traders at fairs and markets and find out who they use and who they avoid.

YOUR OWN PREMISES

This is a big step and not to be taken lightly. In some cases there may be no choice and you may have to plunge in. Otherwise start slowly, using the fairs and markets to check the demand for your product or service, learn your selling and build from there. It could be an expensive mistake to sign a long lease for a shop or other premises, spend a small fortune fitting it out, and only then discover it’s in the wrong place with little passing trade or no parking, or that you have simply chosen the wrong product.

SELLING THROUGH OTHER OUTLETS

A happy compromise between trudging around craft fairs and gambling on your own shop is to sell through someone else’s. This could be a small independent retailer or a national chain. It’s far easier to get into the former. It’s just a question of knocking on doors and asking to speak to the manager. Depending on the product, it’ll probably be on a sale or return basis; occasionally they’ll buy stock outright. Brace yourself for the shock of how little they’ll offer and how much you’ll see your goods marked up by. A 100 per cent mark-up is not uncommon. You’ll probably just have to accept it.

Getting into the larger stores is more difficult and you have to decide whether it’s worth the hurdles they’ll make you jump. You may have to agree to:

• amend the product design or recipe to suit their tastes
• let them sell your product or line exclusively
• change the label or packaging
• abide by extremely strict quality control
• be prepared to produce a lot more if the demand is there.

Think too about complementary selling. This is where two parties agree to promote each others’ goods in order to increase sales. So if you’re producing jars of homemade cranberry sauce, contact your local organic turkey supplier. Or landscape gardeners could recommend good sources of plants or equipment in return for prominent advertising in the suppliers’ shops.

SELLING THROUGH WEBSITES

See Chapter 11 for information on setting up your own website.

As well as all the usual consumer legislation, there are some extra rules if you sell goods or services online. It’s mostly common sense because it just means you have to provide customers or clients with clear and comprehensive information to help them decide whether to buy. Some of the points to include are:

• full name and contact details of your business, including an email address
• price, including all taxes
• delivery charges, if applicable
• arrangement and date for delivery of goods or services
• information about the right to cancel the order.

You should also say whether you intend to offer substitute goods if those ordered aren’t available, making it clear you’ll pay for postage if the goods are returned.

These rules also apply to other methods of remote or distance selling, including via the phone, mail order or fax.

For a full list of dos and don’ts, plus more business information than anyone could ever possibly want, get hold of a copy of the No-Nonsense Guide to Government rules and regulations for setting up your business. It comes from the Business Link stable (see Chapter 5).

EBAY

The online auction house eBay is one of the great internet success stories: it’s got millions of users worldwide. Not everything has to be sold by auction. Many businesses sell their goods at a fixed price, or ‘Buy It Now’ as eBay puts it. There’s quite a bit of reading to do about how the system works, but it’s easy to understand. If you decide to sell this way then buy a few things first in order to build up a customer rating. This is known as a feedback score and it underpins the eBay system. The feedback comes from customers rating each other so it’s the ultimate in self-policing.

www.ebay.co.uk