Are you offering your clients what YOU want or what THEY want?
Petunia emailed last week, “I have had a really good study of your extensive range of delicious colour swatches.
I’ve carefully considered using the seasonal fans with 30 swatches and the safe tonal fans with 18 colours as suggested in your Colour Analysis in a Box, but I am totally inspired by the tonal fans of 45 shades each and the 30 seasonal colours on fold-down cards (both shown left).
I’m a touchy feely person and like to feel the swatches too. What do you think?” Petunia
NB. It’s always dangerous to ask me what I think because I always tell it straight!
So Petunia received this from me in reply:
One thing to consider before you make a decision based on your touchy-feely personality is that not all your clients will be the same as you. What happens if they’re not at all touchy feely?
I’ve been where you are, oh so many times, spending ages trying to decide which wallets, how many drapes, etc. and at the end of the day, the customer couldn’t give a hoot.
Why is your client coming to you?
She’s not coming to be ‘draped’ in front of a mirror or because she’s desperate to have a swatch wallet! She’s coming for confidence and if you have to order a wallet for her after the consultation “because you’re different from all my other clients” then she’s going to have received extra special service which will boost her confidence and make her feel a million dollars.
Why I use what I use
I use the 6x safe tonal fans and the 4x seasonal fans (right) for demonstration purposes only. They’ve been in my kit for 20+ years and are used virtually daily.
I don’t use the seasonal card wallets for demonstrations because they will deteriorate over time as they get handled – the cards may crease if handled roughly, the black covers gets finger prints all over them, and the swatches will eventually get dirty from being touched by sticky fingers.
At least the swatches are protected within plastic sleeves in all the fans.
Also, in my training courses, just to make a particular point, I deliberately throw two of the safe tonal fans over my shoulder, across the room and onto the floor and they’ve managed to survived this aggressive onslaught for the past 10 years!
Invest in a demonstration kit
I would encourage you to invest in a demonstration kit, so that you can show people both seasonal and tonal so it’s easy for them to understand. You will use this kit every single time you see a client or give a talk.
Investing in a kit of drapes, wallets, fabric samples, etc. will pay huge dividends over the years and you should ‘write them off’ in your books – speak to your accountant or bookkeeper for specific advice about this.
But before you do, ask yourself these questions:
- Which drapes and wallets
do I want to work with? - And why?
- Is this just self-indulgence or are
my choices designed to help my clients relate to what I ‘see’? - Do I need to provide alternative
props in case they’re different from me?
So, Petunia, if the 45 tonals and the seasonal card wallets work for you AND you’re convinced that they’ll also work for EVERY SINGLE client you’re going to encounter, then order those.
What does your client want?
Remember, every single female client comes to you for confidence, some ‘me’ time, an experience. Sure, she also wants to know which colours to wear and would rather like a reminder to take away with her but does it really matter to her which wallet you give her? And does it really warrant hours of your time poring over lists of contents, whether the swatches are in the right order, etc?
I totally understand where you are with this. I’ve been there too, wasting my time on what I now consider to be trivialities, but I learnt that…
…the important work is how you make your client FEEL
Please, let me encourage… nay, let me exhort you to put your valuable energy into listening to what your client wants and then delivering exactly that.
And I’ll bet you a thousand gin and tonics that not one of them mentions a swatch wallet when you ask them what they really, really want.
