What do you think of Black Friday?
Black Friday, the day after the U.S. Thanksgiving Day, is traditionally the biggest shopping day of the year, the day that retailers finally, after more than 11 months of operating in the red, at a loss, finally start making profits. Their balance sheets finally turn around that day to being “in the black.”
Black Friday for Buyers
If you are a buyer, you probably have grown to look forward to Black Friday sales. Retailers have increasingly jumped the gun, releasing the discount floodgates earlier each year. We now have Black Friday events in mid-summer too, demonstrating that the name of the event has little to do now with profits and losses. For consumers, people expect that the term Black Friday equates to some of the best prices all year.
It is so easy to be tempted into purchasing things you don’t really need. That’s true for personal purchases, or gifts, but also true for purchases for your small business. Somehow, because there is a chance that you could make money from the purchase, it feels less like an expense and more like an investment. Will you actually follow through? Do you have enough bandwidth (time, energy, attention) to make use of your purchase? Or will it gather digital dust and distract you from your real mission?
A phase on the Freelancer to Entrepreneur journey is the dreaded Bright Shiny Object Syndrome zone. Once you see that others are making money working for themselves, and that you have the power to that too, the world holds a myriad of options for you. You can’t do them all. You can’t do more than a few, at least not at the same time. It is very easy to get ahead of yourself and acquire more business software and other assets than you can use within the next few years. As fast as things change, a few years from now things you’ve invested in may not be accessible or even functional.
The best thing you can do for your sanity and finances is to plan your Black Friday. After making your Thanksgiving dinner shopping list, make your business shopping list. Decide what you are in the market for. Are you looking for website hosting? A website builder? An email marketing service? Project management software? There will be deals to be had, but if you take the money you save and blow it on other things that you don’t need, plus more, then you will defeat the purpose of Black Friday shopping.
Here are some things to keep in mind when Black Friday shopping for your business:
- The deals may be good, even great, but they will come around again. If you archive emails with irresistible offers, you may find that not only just the offer but even the email wording is exactly the same next Black Friday. Or next June.
- It is not uncommon for deals on premium products when there is a free version of the same product which will meet your needs. Do your homework and check the website.
- Nobody’s perfect. You might succumb to temptation and hope and impulse purchases. Decide on the amount of money you can splurge on your dreams and do your best to stick to that.
Black Friday for Sellers
If you are a seller of products or even services, you may have started planning your Black Friday promotions months before the date. It’s not too late to put something together, though, at a few weeks out. You don’t even need to have products to make money from selling them as an affiliate. It is surprisingly easy to enroll in many programs. You need some way to be paid. A common way is through a PayPal account.
While it is helpful to have a mailing list to promote affiliate products to, and a website hub where you post your offers in articles and blog posts and on resource pages, many have earned affiliate commissions through posts on Pinterest and social media sites.
Knowing that a lot of people overdo it on Black Friday, how can you avoid contributing to the excess? Your view might be that you are simply presenting information, and it us up to the buyer to exercise caution and restraint. Caveat emptor. While it is the buyer’s responsibility to buy wisely, there are some reasonable expectations that buyers expect. You will build the trust factor with your audience if you do the following:
- Only recommend products you believe will deliver value.
- Don’t overstate the benefits of your offer. Your prospects might like to believe that just by owning your book or your course, they can earn a thousand dollars a day. Don’t be an enabler. Remind them that they actually have to take action on your advice. And that unfortunately, action is rare. But that you can help them.
- If you are delivering the product or service (not merely an affiliate) it is good business to make sure that the purchaser is receiving value. Paying attention to customer success is important to building customer loyalty, repeat business, and referrals.
- Help your buyers navigate the confusing array of products to find the ones that are the best for them.
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