Hope is NOT a Strategy
What is wrong?
Last year, Katy and I were talking about the challenges our clients were facing in their companies. I’d just gotten another call from a wedding pro who wanted to know if their pricing was the reason bookings were down.
I could tell them the answer right away:
Yes and no.
You’ve heard me say it over and again. The price you charge is the measure of all the work you’ve done before you present your detailed pricing. Most pros mess it up by
- presenting too early, or, if they do wait,
- not doing a good job of showcasing the value that equals the price they’re charging.
At the root of the issue is a
- bad sales process, or, if they do wait,
- bad sales skills.
What you want and what you need aren’t always the same thing
Katy reminded me people come to us with wants – and our job is to give them what they need. It’s no different than what you do with your own clients. That’s why discovery is so crucial to sales success. If you don’t know what they need, you’re hoping they do, and that’s not going to work out well most of the time.
Because most people don’t know what they need. That’s why they come to you.
What do they know? What they don’t want and what they liked that they did last time or saw elsewhere.
Your job as a salesperson (read: problem-finder and solution-seeker) is to take what they tell you and transform it into what they really, truly, actually need.
So, what do YOU need?
Pretty much every wedding pro needs help in three areas:
- What to say to buyers that’ll build desire and differentiate from competitors
- An extra-ordinary sales process that meets known buyer needs
- Practical sales skills at key points in the buyer’s journey
If you screw up any one of these, you’ll lose deals and leave money on the table. If you blow all of these (probably the case), you’ll lose lots of deals and leave even more money on the table.
No change with the pandemic
Most wedding pros are in a weird limbo stage of the COVID-19 outbreak. It’s calmed down quite a bit after weeks and weeks of unprecedented change. What do you do now?
My advice may not be what you want to hear, though. I’m not going to get mad about the situation we’re all in. I’m not going to tell you or show you how to pivot. I’m not going to find topics the news wants you to follow. These seem to be the consensus topics for people to talk about these days.
Not me. Not here. Not today.
I am going to tell you what you need to hear
It’s time to start thinking about a strategy. COVID-19 isn’t going away for a while, and couples who want to celebrate with a big wedding are likely to be even further out from whatever your Governor is telling you.
Let’s be clear: I want to see this all end like everyone else, and if it comes sooner than what public health officials and public opinion polls are telling us, well, that’s amazing.
Hope is not a strategy for business success
It’s time to face the hard reality we’re all in and deal with the loss.
The loss of income.
The loss of stability. Of certainty. Of security.
The loss of creativity. The loss of serving others.
The loss of doing what we love to do, day-in and day-out.
We humans don’t like to accept loss. Ask any grief counselor and they’ll tell you it takes time and is always a struggle along the way. Ask any behavioral economist or consumer psychologist and they’ll tell you people would rather risk further calamity than accept guaranteed losses.
These two factors are at play right now in all our brains.
This may not be a popular thing to share. It’s certainly not the rosy view most people prefer to see.
But it’s what’s needed if you want to survive the next 6-12 months. (And we want you to!!)
So…what are you going to do now? In three months? In six months?
Especially if you own your own business because you don’t have a boss to tell you what to do now. You have to come up with it. You’re the boss.
Are you ready to take control?
