To Discount or Not to Discount in Your Creative Business?

With Black Friday coming up quickly and market season in full swing, should you discount your creative work? There's a time and a place for discounts. This week we go over the pros and cons of offering or granting discounts and why it is SO crucial to price your work properly in order to have more marketing flexibility in your business

This is a great episode for creatives who...
⭐️ don't know how to respond when a customer or potential customer asks for a discount
⭐️ aren't sure if discounting devalues their work
⭐️ don't feel they have the room in their pricing to offer discounts
⭐️ aren't sure how much it costs them to secure a new customer
⭐️ are looking for ways to foster loyalty among their customer base

This episode is brought to you by our Premium Subscriber Community on Patreon and Buzzsprout

MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE: 

• EP172: How to Increase Your Average Order Value and Books Revenue in Your Creative Business

You can find Melissa at finelimedesigns.com, finelimeillustrations.com or on Instagram @finelimedesigns.

Chapters

• 0:00 Discounting and the Small Business Owner
• 16:04 The Value of Offering Discounts
• 23:14 Building Customer Loyalty Through Discounts
• 28:09 Navigating Discounts as a Business Owner

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

This week's episode of the and she Looked Up podcast is brought to you by our premium subscriber community on Patreon and Buzzsprout. Their ongoing financial support of the show ensures I can continue to bring the podcast to you. Want to help out? Head over to patreoncom. Forward slash, and she looked up. That's patreon p-a-t-r-e-o-n dot com. Forward slash, and she looked up. That's Patreon P-A-T-R-E-O-Ncom. Forward slash, and she looked up. There you can join the community for free or you can choose to be a premium supporter for $4.50 a month, and that's in Canadian dollars. Paid supporters get access to a monthly exclusive podcast episode only available to premium subscribers. You can also click the support the show link in the episode notes on your podcast player to support us via Buzzsprout, where you will also get access to each month's exclusive premium supporter episode. I can't tell you how much I appreciate all our monthly supporters. They are the engine that keeps the podcast running and they're a pretty cool bunch too. And now let's get on with the show.

Speaker 1: 1:17

Welcome to the and she Looked Up podcast. Each week we sit down with inspiring Canadian women who create for a living. We talk about their creative journeys and their best business tips, as well as the creative and business mindset issues all creative entrepreneurs struggle with. I'm your host, melissa Hartfield, and after leaving a 20-year career in corporate retail, I've been happily self-employed for 12 years. I'm a graphic designer, an illustrator and a multi-six-figure-a-year entrepreneur in the digital content space. This podcast is for the artists, the makers and the creatives who want to find a way to make a living doing what they love. Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of the and she Looked Up podcast. As always, I'm your host, melissa, and this week I'm here to talk about discounts. So this can be a very controversial topic in the retail world, particularly in the handmade, artisanal, creative world. But with Black Friday coming up quickly and Cyber Monday to follow and Boxing Day after Christmas, I thought that this was probably a good time to have an episode about discounting and when you should use it and when you shouldn't use it, and whether you should use it at all and all the different things that go along with discounting. So that's what we're going to be talking about today.

Speaker 1: 2:51

As I think I mentioned, things have been a little bit chaotic here because I have a new studio mate and he's fast asleep right now, which is why I am recording. If you're watching on YouTube. You could have a little peek of him there. If he wakes up later, maybe I'll bring him up to the camera so you can see him, but he's finally fast asleep. He has been on the go since 8.30 this morning. It is now three o'clock in the afternoon and I am worn out. So yeah, it's making things a little bit more challenging time-wise these last few weeks. His name is Joey and he's 16 weeks old tomorrow, so he's still just a wee one, and this week he lost a whole bunch of teeth, so we're in the teething stage. If you've ever had a young puppy, you know what that's like. It's not very much fun. The good news I am still in one piece, even though I have become a chew toy for him, but we are, we're we're figuring things out. So it's been a long time since I've had a puppy and I forgot how much work they are.

Speaker 1: 4:05

On that note, let's dive in to this week's topic which, as I mentioned, is discounting. So there are so many different schools of thought when it comes to discounting and I see questions being asked about this in small biz groups all the time. I get asked questions about this all the time and I thought it was worth talking about. I've also seen a lot of threads recently where small business owners are getting very upset by people asking for discounts, and I'm just going to say this about that there is nothing wrong with a customer asking you for a discount. It doesn't mean you need to say yes, it doesn't mean you need to say no. There are different ways of handling it that are very polite and thoughtful and don't necessarily turn someone off. Everyone has different ways of approaching how they spend their money and for some people they just love to barter. It's fun for them. For other people it may mean the difference between being able to purchase from you or not, and some people are, to be really honest, kind of just being jerks. So there's a whole range of different things that are going on, and one response that I see in these threads all the time is these people would never go into Walmart or Target or whatever chain and ask for a discount, and I just want to say something that is absolute, 100% BS.

Speaker 1: 5:40

I spent 20 years working in retail for a very large Canadian chain and I can tell you absolutely not a day went by where I didn't get asked by a customer and I was a manager, so I was the one who got hauled out when the question got asked if they could have a discount. It happens all the time, everywhere and anywhere. And here's the thing I was authorized to give discounts in certain situations. So it might be shopworn or damaged merchandise where somebody wanted a discount. It might be that they were looking to buy a bulk amount, like a much larger amount than the average customer would normally buy. I'm not talking like buying three lipsticks instead of one. I'm talking about maybe they wanted to buy 20 lipsticks or 20 bottles of shampoo or whatever the case may be. So yes, absolutely. People ask for discounts anywhere that they are being asked to hand over money in exchange for goods. People ask and you would be shocked how many places will consider a discount if it's the right set of circumstances.

Speaker 1: 6:50

So did I give discounts out all the time willy-nilly? Absolutely not, but I would say probably about 10% of the people who asked for discounts would be given a discount because what they were doing, it made sense and it in many cases became a way to bring that person on as a loyal customer. So you know if somebody is going to come in every month and buy 40 of something that the normal person would maybe buy one or two of in a month and they're going to do that every month, giving them a 10% discount. That was worth it for us, for our margin, for our profitability, for all of that stuff to get that continued sale and to move that merchandise through and turn it. We don't talk about turns very much in the creative world, but turns was a big thing when I worked in retail. How often you turn your inventory? And so, yeah, absolutely In many cases it was worth it and it fostered loyalty and that person would come in over and over again. And if I can sell 40 of something to one person every month at a 10% discount rather than one at a full price, the math worked.

Speaker 1: 8:10

So that's a key thing when it comes to discounting. First of all, you need to know your math, you need to know your pricing and you need to know if the math is going to work. But you also need to think about hidden costs that we don't really talk about when we're bringing people into our business. How much does it cost you to bring a customer into your business? So I'm talking about the marketing costs. Do you pay for Facebook ads or Instagram ads or Pinterest ads to bring people into your world. Do you offer a 10 to 15% discount when somebody signs up for your email list, if they favorite something in your Etsy shop, do you send them a coupon offering them a 10% discount? Do you send them a thank you coupon when they've purchased from you for a 10% discount? Those are all hidden marketing costs in order to bring a customer into your ecosystem, and then you may choose to offer other promotions or discounts in order to keep them in your ecosystem. So is that any different than having a customer actually approach you for a discount and having the choice between saying yes or no? It's not Now. Everyone has their own opinion about this and you are free to do whatever you want to do.

Speaker 1: 9:31

I am not, as a creative and as somebody who makes things by hand, I'm not super crazy about offering discounts. I don't do a lot of promotions within my business, and when I do and when I offer discounts, I'm very strategic about it and I'm very aware of how much it costs to bring a customer into my business. One of the things I didn't mention is, if you're running ads or you're doing pop ups or you're doing all those kinds of things. It's also costs your time to put those things together and put them into place so that you can bring people into your ecosystem. So anyway, all that to say, I'm not a huge fan.

Speaker 1: 10:14

I don't like training people to wait for a discount, which is what often happens, particularly in big box retail. We all know we get the flyers every week for the grocery store and for places like Shoppers and London Drugs and Canadian Tire and all that stuff, and we kind of. If you watch the flyers, you'll notice that they work on a cycle. It's usually anywhere from a four to an eight week cycle and once you kind of have an idea of where things that you regularly buy hit in those cycles, you can plan your shopping quite economically. If you know peanut butter goes on sale every eight weeks, then you only buy peanut butter every eight weeks. You can really watch to see and form your own strategy for shopping, because that's essentially what they're doing is they're just training their customers on when to shop, and that's something that we don't necessarily want to do when we're in the creative field or when we are making things by hand. You may also choose to never discount, which is totally fine, but again, you want to think it through. So when is it okay to discount and when is it not okay to discount? I like to think of it a little bit as the art of the deal. I think it's okay to discount in certain circumstances. Discount in certain circumstances One is if it's to hook a customer, and that might sound very mercenary and corporatey, but essentially what I'm talking about here is what do I need to do to get somebody who's browsing to turn them into a purchaser?

Speaker 1: 11:54

And we've all had people like this who follow us on social media, or they've been on our email list for months and even years and they've never made a purchase. What do we need to do to get them to push the button? And so in those cases that's where we have things like, you know, the 10 to 15% off when you join an email list. An email address is a very valuable thing to a small business owner, so for me, it is worth it to give them something in exchange for that email address. Okay, a lot of people don't want to give up their email address because they're worried that they're going to be spammed or it's going to be used in ways that they don't like, and so they're very careful about that and they're not just going to give it up for free. So to me, that is a great way to that's a great use case for a discount.

Speaker 1: 12:48

I do the same thing on Etsy. If somebody favorites one of my items and this a lot of shoppers use this as a strategy on Etsy. They'll go through, they'll start shopping for a certain thing and they'll favorite a lot of different things and they'll wait to see who offers them a discount before they purchase, and it's usually one of the people that offers the discount that they will buy from. So if you are priced appropriately, then a 10% discount should be very manageable for you. A 15% discount should even be fairly manageable for you, and we did this.

Speaker 1: 13:26

I just did an episode in our premium subscribers podcast that we do just for our Patreon and Buzzsprout paid subscribers, where we talked about getting our products into wholesale and the pricing strategy that you need to use for that. If you are pricing for wholesale which, with the new year coming up, might be something you really want to consider and we will be doing a wholesaling episode probably early in 2025 to talk about all the nuances of wholesale but one of the things with wholesale is, you need to make sure that you're priced appropriately, and a lot of us, as makers and creatives and small business owners, do not price ourselves where we should. When we price ourselves too low, it can be sending a message to our potential customers that we may not be the best quality, or this may just be a hobby, or we kind of train them to think that that price is okay, when really it's not. You're probably not making enough to pay yourself a decent salary and, again, you're not leaving yourself any room to build your business. So when you're priced appropriately and the kind of formula for pricing appropriately is two by two, by two and we'll get into this in another episode If you want to hear more about it, you can go subscribe to our Patreon and you'll get access to the wholesaling mini episode that I did there last month or this month I've completely lost track of time and you can learn more about it there. That's a shameless plug for Patreon. It's only, I think, $4 a month Canadian, so it's very inexpensive and it's a great way to support the show. But anyway, if you are pricing appropriately at the two by two, by two method, then you are going to have more than enough cushion to offer discounts where it's appropriate, and bringing people into your email list is one of those areas where I do think it's appropriate. If you were to pay for ads, to run ads on Facebook or Instagram it would probably cost you more in some instances to get an email address onto your list than offering that 10 to 15% discount if somebody just happens to land on your website. So that's something to think about. So, yes, in the instance of trying to hook a customer or to get a customer's email access or to just pull them into your ecosystem however that may be, and an email address counts them into your ecosystem, however that may be, and an email address counts, then I think a discount is perfectly appropriate.

Speaker 1: 16:04

It is expensive to get a new customer. We don't talk about this enough, but in retail, most big retailers know exactly how much it costs for them to land a new customer, and it is far more expensive to land a new customer than it is to keep an existing customer. So that is something to think about, like when you think about all the things you do on a daily basis to bring customers in, whether it's your time making reels or TikToks, or it's spending money on ads all of that stuff. It's expensive to get somebody to come in and purchase from you. So if there's a way that you can make that a little bit easier and bring the cost of it down, then that is something that I think is worth doing. So, yes, bringing somebody into your ecosystem.

Speaker 1: 16:56

I do think, as mentioned at the beginning of this episode, that bulk orders is another place where it is perfectly appropriate to offer a customer a discount. So when it comes to bulk orders, this is only going to apply to some of us. If you are making original pieces so it's an original painting or it's an original crocheted stuff, toy or something like that, that's one of a kind and that you're not going to replicate, then no, I don't think you're going to be offering bulk discounts on that. It doesn't really make sense because you're creating an art piece, which is very different If you are doing something where you're replicating the item over and over again so in my case, things like greeting cards that I make or stickers, or you take that piece of original art and you turn it into prints that are replicated over and over again. In those instances, a bulk order and offering a discount or giving somebody a discount for a bulk order makes sense.

Speaker 1: 18:05

Again, bulk orders are not the same as wholesale orders. A wholesale order, you're going to be giving that person a 50% discount off of your retail price and again we get into that in the pricing that we talked about in the subscriber only episode. We're not talking about that kind of discount here for a bulk order. For a bulk order it could be 10%, it could be 15%. If it's a really large order it might even be 20%. And those you're still making a profit. But you are moving more product which, carrying large amounts of product, has its own costs attached to it, which is one of the reasons why big retail will offer bulk discounts, if you ask nicely, because they want to move that inventory quickly.

Speaker 1: 18:52

Having large amounts of inventory on hand is very expensive for retailers and it can be expensive for us too. It takes up space, it gets shopworn. Even if it's sitting in your studio in a nice box, it still becomes aged and there gets to be a point where you can't sell it for full price anyway. So if you can move a bulk quantity, then that is an opportunity worth exploring. And you get to decide what that bulk order is. It could be they need to order 10 of an item or they need to order 20 of an item.

Speaker 1: 19:29

Think about it when you buy your raw materials, like for me, when I buy my cardstock or my sticker paper. If I order 10 sheets of sticker paper and my paper supplier does that, they will send you 10 sheets. It's really expensive. If I order 2000 sheets of sticker paper, I get a big discount and it helps bring my costs down and means that I can sell my stickers for less money. So I can pass that on if I choose to so think about it like that. If I choose to so think about it like that, you're getting rewarded for buying more, and so, yes, it's up to you to decide what that number is For me. You know, I have some bundles where if people buy three or four or five of something, they get a small discount. And if somebody were to approach me and want to buy, say I don't know, say a hotel approached me and wanted to buy 50 of my prints to put in their rooms, I would be more than willing to discuss a discount with them for a bulk purchase. It's not a wholesale purchase, they're not getting it at the wholesale cost, they're getting it at a bulk discount cost Two different things, so that's something to keep in mind.

Speaker 1: 20:42

Another instance and I kind of just alluded to it where I think discounting is okay is bundling, and you don't need to discount product to bundle it, but it is a way that you can offer a discount quite easily. And one of the things that I found I started doing this with my sticker sheets after doing a lot of number crunching which was not fun for me because I don't like math and I'm not very good at it, but I did a lot of number crunching and what I realized is that when I make one sticker sheet and somebody buys it and I ship it off to them, it is actually more expensive than if that person were to buy three sticker sheets from me or five sticker sheets from me and I was to package it up and bundle it and send it off. One sticker sheet requires one envelope, one set of packaging, my time to package it all up. I can take five of those sheets and send them to the same person and instead of having to put them in five separate envelopes to five separate people, now I'm just using one envelope for five sheets. My production time has cut down because I'm making more. In the same amount of time. I can make three sticker sheets in one go and so my costs start to come down.

Speaker 1: 22:06

So when I actually looked at it and started doing the calculations and I went really deep on this to sell five sticker sheets to somebody at a considerable discount, my actual profit dollars and profit margin that I'm making are higher than when I sell a single sticker sheet. So even though they're getting a discount, I'm making more money. So it's a really worthwhile exercise and it's very counterintuitive because we don't necessarily think of it that way but to go through and actually crunch your numbers and figure out how much does it cost me to make one of these? How much does it cost me to make five of them? How much does it cost me to make 10 all in one go? How much does it cost me to package each one? What does it cost if I package five of them together All those types of things and figure out if bundling is something that you can do where you can offer a discount and still make your profit margin. The other bonus with bundling is you're raising your average order value, which we talked about in an episode earlier this season and on how that can wind up adding to your bottom line very easily.

Speaker 1: 23:14

So I'm a big fan of bundles. You can also create bundles and not offer a discount. So I'm a big fan of bundles. You can also create bundles and not offer a discount. But I find people are much more primed to buy when they feel like they're getting a deal. Everyone loves a good deal, right? We know that Black Friday is coming up. Everybody's out looking for a hot deal. And that brings me to one of the other circumstances where I think it's okay to offer a great deal, and this is or offer a discount, and this is special events. So special events might be things like Black Friday, cyber Monday, boxing Day. Maybe you have a customer appreciation sale once a year. You might also offer a discount to customers on their birthday if that's information you collect when they sign up for your email list. There are a lot of different use cases where it can be very useful to offer a discount, and I got the idea for this episode.

Speaker 1: 24:16

Actually, today I was reading a question in a group that I'm in where somebody had made a mistake. I think they'd made a mistake selling something to a customer the customer. I think the product was broken or something I can't remember. Anyway, the customer wanted to return it or something, so she returned it and or offered her discount on it. I can't remember all the details. But then the customer came back and wanted to buy more of that item, in a much larger quantity, and was looking for a bulk discount. And the person was very unsure of whether or not to do this. And think of it was the person had already been hooked by good customer service. There had been an issue. She had solved it successfully and made the customer feel good about it.

Speaker 1: 25:06

And now the customer was coming back and saying hey, I really loved the way you handled that. I'm here to buy even more. Can you give me a deal? Now? She had the option of whether to say yes or no and it was completely up to her. But if it had been me, I would have said yes, because this is a person who I have started to create a relationship with on the right foot. They're already impressed with how I've handled things. They want to spend more money with me and who knows what she'll want to buy next. So in that instance I probably would have offered a 10% discount. If she hadn't asked, I probably wouldn't have offered.

Speaker 1: 25:45

And this is another thing to think about when you're doing discounting. You don't need to offer a discount. Some people are more than willing to pay full price and never ask you for a discount, and we love those customers. I have customers who absolutely ignore any attempt I make to offer them a discount, and we love those customers. I have customers who absolutely ignore any attempt I make to offer them a discount or a sale because they want to support me fully and pay the full price. I love those people, we all love those people. But I'm also very happy to reward loyalty and to nurture a relationship in its infancy and make that person feel special and appreciated.

Speaker 1: 26:21

And for me, because I do, generally speaking for most items priced for wholesale, a 10% discount is something that I can handle. Can I do it every single time? Not if they're just buying one or two things. No, I can't and no, I wouldn't. But can I do it in instances where they're buying a large quantity or where it may be a very special occasion? Yes, I can.

Speaker 1: 26:44

There are also non-discount ways. You can reward a customer. You can throw some bonus items in. You can if they order, say, order three dozen of something, maybe you throw in an extra six or something like that. It really depends. I mean, we all know what a baker's dozen is. Right, it's where you order 12, but the baker gives you an extra one for free. A baker's dozen is 13, not 12. And that's where that came from. It was just an opportunity to reward something where that came from. It was just an opportunity to reward something.

Speaker 1: 27:24

When I was a kid, my parents used to take us out into the Fraser Valley to do fresh veggie shopping at one of the farm stands, and every time we would come home my parents would take all their veggies out of the bags and there would always be an extra something in there that the owner had tossed in when my parents hadn't noticed, as a thank you. So it might've been an extra thing of carrots, or it might've been a couple of extra apples, or just something to say, hey, thanks. And in a way that is a discount. You are giving them free product. You're just not calling it a discount, but in a way it is. So there's lots of different ways to build loyalty and this is where discounting, if done appropriately, can help with that.

Speaker 1: 28:09

There are times where I would not give a discount. I think a lot of it depends on how a person asks. I think a lot of it depends on how a person asks. There are people who are incredibly rude about how they ask for a cheaper price and I don't have time for that. If you are going to ask in a way that devalues my work, no, you're not. I'm just not going to give you a discount out of ornery. It's not going to happen. But if somebody is very polite about it and comes to me and says I really love this, um, I would really like to purchase a larger amount. Is there a way that you can give me a better price? Yes, let's have a conversation.

Speaker 1: 28:51

But if it's somebody who comes up and says, um, I want to buy this, can you give me a better price? Like, and it's just one item, can you give me a better price? Like, and it's just one item? No, I'm not going to do it for one item. If they offer to pay cash, I might give them a small discount, a 5% discount, if they pay cash.

Speaker 1: 29:09

So all of that to say is that discounting has its place. It's not something to turn your nose up at, and it's generally not something to get angry when people ask if they can have a discount. As I said, depends on how they ask and what the situation is, but it definitely has its place in retail, even for us as makers and creatives. You need to think about what is costing you, as I said, to bring that person into your ecosystem, and you need to think about what is costing you, as I said, to bring that person into your ecosystem. And you need to think about, you really need to know your pricing. At the end of the day, it is very hard for us to make good business decisions if we do not know the ins and outs of our pricing. And I can't stress this enough.

Speaker 1: 29:56

Your pricing is not just the cost of materials, it is not just your time. It is so much more than those two things. There is your overhead. There is what it would cost if you were to hire an employee. There's your insurance, which is part of your overhead. There's spoilage, especially in a handmade business. How many times have you gone to like, in my case, printing a sheet of stickers? I can't tell you. How many times have you gone to like, in my case, printing a sheet of stickers? I can't tell you how many times I've printed a sheet and it's been garbage and I've had to check it out. That's spoilage. I have to build that into my cost. Am I priced for wholesale? In most instances, yes, I am.

Speaker 1: 30:33

The key is your pricing. You really need to know your pricing, the ins and outs of your pricing, and make sure that you're priced appropriately. And, as I said at the beginning, most of us are not. Most of us are priced far too low. This can be a really easy wormhole to fall into, particularly if you're on Etsy, where so many things are priced for a race to the bottom, and I think it's really important to remember that on Etsy and at smaller craft markets and things where you have cottage businesses in there, in many instances those are people who do this as a hobby and they are pricing their work in order to just make enough to cover the cost of their materials and buy more materials because they love what they do, whether it's crocheting or paper making or any of those things baking goodies to sell. And so you have to decide whether or not you are going to price yourself as if this is a hobby or as if this is a business that is going to pay your bills, and if you are pricing it as a business that's going to pay your bills, and if you are pricing it as a business that's going to pay your bills, then you should have room to offer discounts when it is appropriate.

Speaker 1: 31:47

So my general rules that I go by is I do not do anything that I think will train my customers to expect deals from me on a regular basis. I have one sale every year for my newsletter subscribers only. It's the best deal that I offer the entire year. I run it usually the week before Black Friday. Um, I'm not running it this year because of the Canada Post strike, which I'm sure for many of you is a whole thing. Um, not the best of timing, but, but I know that my letter carrier for sure deserves a raise, so I am with them on this, but the timing is very unfortunate for a lot of us small business owners. So, anyway, all that to say yes, you need to know your pricing, you need to be able to get your work out there and decide when it's appropriate. But yeah, you don't want to train your customers to expect a sale from you every week. I would rather offer one great sale a year and then have some flexibility to offer discounts or grant discounts when an appropriate situation arises, instead of doing a sale every three weeks or four weeks.

Speaker 1: 33:04

Yeah, so that is kind of where I stand on it and I think you really need to, like I said, think it through when somebody is asking you. I know that for a lot of us it can be very emotional when somebody asks for a discount and we feel like they're disrespecting our work and in some cases that is true and, like I said, in those cases it's a flat no from me. But in some instances it's not meant to be disrespectful. It's just somebody trying to maybe be able to buy from you when they otherwise might not be able to. Or maybe, like I said, they're looking to form a bigger relationship where they are purchasing regularly from you in a larger quantity, those types of things. So think it through, know your pricing and decide what your rules will be. Will you offer a friends and family discount? I know a lot of people who do this. If you're a friend or a family member, you ought to get an automatic discount when you purchase. It's kind of cool that we run our own businesses and we get to make these decisions.

Speaker 1: 34:08

What I will caution against is if somebody asks for a discount and you are not willing to give one, think about that person. They are still a potential potential customer. Unless they're a real jerk, then do you want them as a customer? Probably not, but in many instances they are still a potential customer. So respond to them in a way that shows that you value them as a potential customer, but that you are not in a position at this time to offer them what they're asking for. And there's so many different ways you can respond to this. It could be something as simple as I'm really sorry, but at this time of year, that is the best price that we can do. Or you can say something like no, but if you would like to join my email list, I would be happy to give you a 10% discount, but otherwise I'm not able to. Or you could say something like no, but we are going to be having a Black Friday sale on this day on our website. You are welcome to shop then. We're going to be having some great deals on the site then and just redirect.

Speaker 1: 35:17

Another thing that that last one there just made me think of is when you know you're going to be holding a sale in a few days and somebody asked for a discount on that item earlier. Do you really want to say no and turn them away and then have them come along a few days later and see that the item is on sale? Like you know, sometimes you have to think about whether it's worth it, like would it just be worth it to just give them the discount now and let them know that that's the reason why and say you could say something like you know what, this is going to be on sale for 30% off for Black Friday in two days, but I know we're here in person at this market so, if you would like, I can offer you 15% off or 30% off, or you can wait to shop the Black Friday sale. You know there's different ways you can handle it and I think that's kind of the key here is you want to make the person feel valued but still stand your ground, and there's ways that you can do that that are polite and respectful of their situation and still keep them as somebody who may potentially buy from you. They may even come back at the end of the show or wherever it is that you're talking to them and purchase. Maybe they need to think about it a little bit. Yeah, so, anyway, all that to say, with Black Friday coming up, you don't need to participate if you don't want to. Um, if you do want to go for it, there are other ways you can offer discounts. There are other ways you can give people a deal. There are other ways that you can reward loyalty. And again, it's all up to you. You're the business owner, you get to make the decisions, and that's all I have to say this week. So that's it for this week.

Speaker 1: 37:05

I hope those of you who are doing anything for Black Friday, cyber Monday or Boxing Day I hope that you have a successful sale. I know it is really rough out there this year. I've heard so many stories from people who are really struggling and who are just not getting the sales this year that they need. So I hope that maybe a small discount would help you get over that rough hump. Maybe doing a Black Friday sale will help you get there. That's what Black Friday was all about originally. It was called Black Friday because it was the Friday of the year, or it was the day of the year where businesses went from running in the red to running in the black for the year, and that's often how long it would take some businesses to get out of the red. It would take them until the end of November. So if you look at it that way, then maybe the Black Friday is what you need what you need this year, I don't know. Anyway, it is rough out there. I hope it. Um, I hope you're all having a good, successful holiday season, and that's it for this week. I'll be back in another two weeks with another brand new episode and we'll talk to you all then.

Speaker 1: 38:16

Thank you so much for joining us for the Anchi Looked Up Creative Hour. If you're looking for links or resources mentioned in this episode, you can find detailed show notes on our website at andshelookedupcom. While you're there, be sure to sign up for our newsletter for more business tips, profiles of inspiring Canadian creative women and so much more. If you enjoyed this episode, please be sure to subscribe to the show via your podcast app of choice so you never miss an episode. We always love to hear from you, so we'd love it if you'd leave us a review through iTunes or Apple Podcasts. Drop us a note via our website at andshelookedupcom, or come say hi on Instagram at andshelookedup. Thanks for listening and we'll see you next week.