How can we create fantastic deals and still stay in business?

Seth Godin always has some useful advice. Recently he wrote about what people tell themselves when they go to buy something.

If you want to avoid being stuck with inventory or downtime during a recession, you might profit from realizing that people tell themselves a different story when they go to buy something.

During good times, we wonder, "can I get this house before the price goes up or someone else snatches it?" or we think, "my time is really valuable, it's okay if this is a little more expensive than the store down the street." ...

In our current times, people tell themselves the story, "I got a steal!" If it's not a steal, they wait.

Read the entire article, in which Seth explains the difference between lowering all your prices and giving the customer a great deal. He inspired me to see what I could do to give my customers a better deal.

Like many businesses in Floyd County, I operate on margins that are thin enough to shave with and lowering prices further is not a viable option. I needed to come up with a way to save customers significant amounts of money without putting myself in financial jeopardy.

The best answer so far was getting customers involved in creating a great deal for themselves and we did this by thinking outside the box. Instead of working with cheaper frames, we have been finding used expensive frames and recycling them.

Incorporating these recycled frames and framing materials into new designs has produced satisfying results at truly affordable prices.

I have added a new web page to my Floyd Custom Framing site that explains exactly how recycling works in professional picture framing.