How to Respond to a Discount Inquiry (video)
Topic: Business
Time Investment: 5 Minutes
Suggested Product: All-in-One Contract Bundles
How should you respond to a photography client inquiring for a discount?
Here’s a quick and easy way to preserve your relationship and stand your ground!
Who’s tired of getting the question “when are you going to run the next promotion?” Or “do you have any discounts?” I am going to give you guys some ways to be able to hedge these off without seemingly turning away the clients and sounding bad.
It’s so easy for us to get discouraged or put off or just overwhelmed when receiving inquires and people asking for promotions or discounts. But I want you guys to stop and think about it from the buyer’s perspective for a second. They have been conditioned and ingrained by society to always look for the best value. I want you guys to stop for a second and take a deep breath and realize that it doesn’t necessarily mean that they devalue the product and service that you are going to provide. It could be a good little red flag and something to keep in the back of your mind but it’s not necessarily the be all and end all of the relationship. Being able to handle it adequately is going to be able to make you filter through and qualify whether or not they are going to be a client for you and be able to move forward without offending anybody or you becoming discouraged in the process.
Take a deep breath
First way to reply to these kind of inquires that are asking for promotion or discount is to take a deep breath. Like you’ve just seen it doesn’t necessarily mean that they are actually seeking or wanting to show a devalued feeling against your business and your product or service.
Answer with a smile
The second thing is to make sure that when you respond to an inquiry that’s asking about this keep a smile on your face as you respond. It’s going to make you feel better as you remember that you still need to put the best foot forward. Your response should always be first to address all of the other questions that they have.
Turn it into a marketing activity
The next thing and probably one of the best ways to put this is to funnel it into a marketing activity. Do what? Take a potential insult and put it into a marketing activity? YES! Just because they are asking like I said doesn’t necessarily mean that they are not going to book you at full value and it doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s an indicator of the type of person that they are. My recommendation for the response is to always respond back “Hey Susie thanks so much for inquiring”, fill out all the other information that she needs to know and then also end with letting her know hey “at this time I don’t any promotions or discounts available but I do announce them to my email list and you can get signed up here”.
Get in their inbox
Send them to a link to the opt-in page where I can be in their inbox and be able to get to know them on a more personal basis. Then you get to know me and I can directly market to them. Instead of just replying no. No promotions or discounts or worse just not responding at all and letting it eat at you, turn it into something positive that you can get a return investment on. It takes two seconds to reply especially if you are using a canned response. But always make sure that you end all your communications, since you are already smiling with a happy and positive note. “I look forward to hearing back from you and I am excited to book your session”. Even if you feel like oh my goodness all they want is a discount. They don’t need to know that, turn it around and funnel it into marketing activity. Qualify them later on with other steps and action into your marketing. Don’t let this one question of something that they have been taught by society to ask be the be all and end all of whether or not you are going to reply appropriately.
Remember some people operate on the idea “if I don’t ask I can’t get it can’t happen, they can’t say yes.” And I operate on this same perspective but not necessarily when it comes to discounts, but not everyone is a small business owner not everyone understands. You don’t have to take that time to educate them and tell them that you have a cost of doing the business, this that and the other thing. Honestly, a client doesn’t care just let them know how they can be informed for the future in case they are wanting a promotion and discount. There is nothing wrong with asking and there is nothing wrong with replying and funneling them into another area where you can market.
So that was a quick tip on a way to turn a promotion or discount inquiry into a further marketing activity to further your business to rock success.
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