One of the best business building techniques is to offer something of value for free to your customers. We’ve all been to Sam’s Club or similar discount clubs or grocery stores where, on certain days, they have people fixing small pizzas, or a new type of meat, etc that they give samples of to the customers as they shop. They really aren’t giving you a “free lunch” – they’re enticing you to try, then buy, their new products.
Your business, whether a sewing, alteration, crafting or sewing machine repair business can come up with ideas for something FREE for new customers, just for trying your services. If you have an online presence, you need to come up with something free for those who might visit your site — free information of some sort, buy one – get one free, or something similar depending on what type of website you have.
At SewWithSarah.com, we have many FREE “introductory” classes. For example, if have a basic dress or blouse that you simply love, but don’t want to make every garment the same, you can check out the free introductory “How To Change Necklines On A Commercial Pattern”. This class gives information on not only how to change a single neckline, but also gives you “heads up” on the full blown neckline changing class that you can purchase. Or, if you’re really tired of not being able to get store bought patterns to fit and you’d like to try your hand at making your own patterns, you can try the free introductory class on how to make skirt patterns. By utilizing the free “giveaway” introductory class, you can see how easy the steps are to follow, how well the skirt actually fits YOUR measurements, then you think “I can do this!”, so in most cases you’d want to go ahead and purchase the complete class. There are many more free classes in our “tips and tutorials” section at SewWithSarah.
Do you see how the “free” giveway can help to build your business? Spend some time thinking about what you might already have that you can rewrite or repackage into a free giveaway to potential customers. If you’re in the sewing machine repair business, you could perhaps give away a spool of thread or seam ripper to new customers – some item that would be valuable to them, but not cost too much, as you would be buying them wholesale. In addition, the customer you “gave” the spool of thread to might just ask if you have other thread available that she could buy because she “just ran out of white thread” and would have to make a special trip to the store to get more. WOW! You could just make an additional sale on top of the bill for repairing the sewing machine if you had a few extra spools of thread with you!
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