It's OK to say NO!

It's ok to say NO!

I think, even in our early years, we understood this principle although it took us awhile to implement it. As we have matured in our business, it is now a strategy that we use every day.

What is it? 

 THE POWER OF NO!

In the early years as we were hungry to grow our business, we often let our clients run over us as they demanded portraits done every evening, every weekend...even holidays as if we didn't also have families and children that needed us.

It didn't take long for us to realize that if we didn't set boundries, our clients would do it for us. They were wearing us out and it was during this time that we realized it was OK to say no and set boundries.

We made the decision to limit our schedule to 3 evenings a week and never, ever do work on a Sunday. Then a funny thing happened to challenge that decision. One of the wealthiest people in our city wanted us to do their wedding...on a Sunday. It would be worth many thousands and twenty+ years ago, that was a small fortune for us.

And still, we said NO, and it felt good. We needed to establish ourselves as a serious business with serious principles that we would not compromise.

In the book we are currently reading, Oversubscribed, the author says it this way, "Only the best will say no to a person who wants a discount or to bend your rules. No is a powerful word that is said by people and businesses that are sure of what they do and who they are."

Little did we realize that we were tapping into one of the most powerful business principles that exists; The Power of Scarcity. 

Through the years, we started to implement this principle of being scarce in several ways. Here are some of them.

• ONE: When a client or prospect contacts us for an appointment, we make sure to look at least one-two weeks ahead and not book them immediately. If we book them the same day they call, what does that say about how little business we have? We feel it gives the wrong impression. It is OK to make people wait a bit. 

• Example: My hairdresser works only part-time and if you miss an appointment, it is not likely he can get you back in for several days and even then, he has to make a special time on his calendar to fit you in. What does that say to me? It says he is busy and successful and it also creates a greater desire for his services. As human beings, we seem to want what we cannot have and limiting what we can have only makes us want it more!

• TWO: Anytime we market a specific product or do a call for "models" for a specific project, we put a very strict time limit to act on it and also, we limit the amount of the products/sessions themselves. Once it is gone, it is gone, but without the time or availibility limits, there is not enough pressure on the client to act on it.

• Example: We use the time limit principle when we give a gift to an auction. We include instructions that the client must follow in order for their gift to be used with us. They MUST register with us within 48 hours of purchasing the gift. Registration simply means they contact us with all of their information so that we can connect with them right away while their excitement level is high. Before we implemented this, many times, we never heard from the person who bought our gift. 

• THREE: This has to do with how we developed our Relationship style portraiture years ago. We were just introducing this style to the public and we set tight standards as to how it looked, how it was presented, the price and so forth. We even limited purchasing the hand-printed images to the initial selection appointment and then, we retired the negative.

• We stuck to our principles and we lost some clients, BUT the amazing clients we gained from keeping things tight and therefore, highly recognizable, has more than paid for the few clients we lost. It is still at the core of our business nearly thirty years later. 

NO requires you to have high standards and stick to them. It may cost you something in the short term to say no, but in the long term, you will be much stronger and more confident. NO COMPROMISES HERE!