Have you heard the saying “Show me the money” from the movie Jerry Maguire?

Tom Cruise plays a successful sports agent working with big clients and he has it all, until one night he questions his purpose and his place in the world. He finally comes to terms with what’s wrong with his career and life. After recording all of his thoughts in a mission statement he feels he has a new lease of life. 

Unfortunately his opinions aren’t met with the same enthusiasm from his superiors, and after being stripped of his high earning clients and elite status he steps out into the sports business armed with only one volatile client, Rod Tidwell (Cuba Gooding Jr). The wild footballer makes it clear that if Jerry is to keep him as his agent then he has to “show him the money” - meaning get him his big contract.

Why am I talking about one of my favourite scenes from one of my favourite movies?

Just as Maguire’s moral epiphany and new philosophy are only possible if he makes money for his client so bridal boutique owners need to have their own epiphany and adopt a new philosophy.

If we thought that all we needed was to find premises, buy some dresses, get a website, post on social media and that would be it then think again!  

“Build it and they will come” (a quote from another movie Field of Dreams) simply isn’t enough in the current climate. If we are to make enough money to pay our bills and pay ourselves it comes down to getting full diaries and closing sales.

It’s not surprising that the most frequently asked question at Bridal Week Harrogate (both at the Retail Success Academy session and on our Get Savvy stand) was:

Q: My appointment diary is dead: how can I book more clients for appointments?

A: The answer is that there isn’t an easy answer to this question!

We believe there are three much more specific questions that every bridal boutique owner should be asking themselves.

What does more mean? i.e, how many appointments do you need to achieve your targets?

This links to what the annual or monthly target is whether that’s number of dresses sold or £x thousands. 

The next step is to look at the average spend on a gown and what the sales conversion rates are.  If the target is £15000 a month with a gown selling at £1500 then the maths is easy in that 10 brides need to buy each month.  

If the conversion rate is 50% (1 in 2 brides buy) then 20 appointments are needed to stand which equals 5 appointments a week.  

If the conversion rate is lower (some boutiques were reporting conversion rates as low as 25% only selling to 1 in 4 brides) then the number of appointments needs to double from 20 to 40.  And if you go down to 20% (1 in 5 brides) then you need 50 appointments to achieve a target of £15000 a month.

There are two main reasons that conversion rates are low,  The first is that sales training is  needed (we can help here!) or you’re not attracting your ideal bride which leads us onto the second question which is …….

Is it more appointments or more of the right type of appointment?

And we don’t just mean the bride with the short lead time who just brings in her Mum to try on one dress that she’s fallen in love with on Pinterest (wouldn’t it be lovely if we had five appointments like that every Saturday!).

We can all be “busy fools” saying yes to every bride who asks for an appointment (particularly true if you’re in a town with several bridal boutiques, you’re an outlet, very high end or just plain “D” for Desperate!). Too often the result is that the bride cancels or is just using you for dress up or comparison purposes. 

This then led onto us asking …..

Do you know who is your ideal bride?  

Many boutiques try to be all things to all brides resulting in either not enough depth in a particular look, gowns across too many pricepoints and often carrying too many designers and overspending on new collections.

Ask yourself three questions that will help you discover where you are on your journey to getting more appointments and making more money:
1.    Who is my dream customer?
2.    Does she know what we offer?
3.    What are my dream customers saying about us?

If you are saying “I know all of this already, but I am still not getting enough appointments”,  let us introduce you to: 

The Customer Attraction BEE Formula.

(Build + Engage + Experience) x ACCOUNTABILITY = Results

The solution is to develop your overall strategy that will help you market to the right customer and attract more appointments.  This sounds so simple but to get any results you have to take accountability as zero accountability is equal to zero results.

(1000 + 1000 + 1000) x 0 = 0  

Accountability is the secret ingredient that turns all those good intentions into actions and add gets results..

I’m sharing the first step of the three steps in the Customer Attraction BEE formula to help you get more appointments.  If you join us in our FREE Masterclass it will help turn all those good intentions into actions ie help you keep going with your plans

Step 1 - Build Your Dream Audience (Customers)

Waiting for brides-to-be to come to you is waiting to fail, and that is not a strategy.  

However, understanding who your dream customer is, where she is hiding and attracting her to your boutique is the strategy.  Every story needs a main character and the main character of this story is your customer. 

You should already have a target customer profile created for your business. You may have more than one customer profile and you must understand your customer in order to sell to her.

Understand WHO is your customer 

Result: Build your ideal customer persona:
     -Demographic
     -Psychographic
     -Telling Her Story

Understand WHERE your customer is hiding

Result: Build your list(s):
     -Traffic you own - Build your Customer Email List
     -Traffic you control - Build your Partner 100
     -Traffic you don’t control - Build your Social Media Audience 

Understand WHAT to give the customer to entice her to book an appointment with your business ie what you need to do to catch the fish (your bait)

Result: Build your bait.
     -Video
     -PDF
     -Podcast
     -Bridal Show

Understand HOW/WHEN you are going to give it to them by understanding the social media platforms and how they work.

Result: Build your Optimised Social Media Platform. 
     -Social Media / Search etc.
     -Website Keywords and SEO

Step 2 - Engaging with your customer

In Step 2, we share how to be become a Socialiser, a Content Creator and how mastering The Customer Temperature Marketing Strategy is a must-have for “warming up” your customers.

Step 3 -  The touchpoints of the customer experience

Just as Jerry Maguire had to do take accountability by doing everything to help his one remaining client then you need to take accountability by doing everything to get more appointments and only then will your business “show you the money!"

Contact Us

If you’re ready to take that first step to getting more appointments, then join our Free Masterclass coming to you in November for a deeper drive into the BEE Customer Attraction Formula.

To get more information, send an email saying “I would like to join the Free MasterClass for Customer Attraction to support@getsavvycoaching.com and we will send you information on how to join.