A forum I follow called IndieBride has got to be the most honest forums out there. If you ask them a question they are not going to dance around the edges; they will flat out, in your face give you their opinion. How refreshing not to have to read between the tulle. When asked what they wanted in their wedding vendors two things stood out: respect and communication.

They want you to respect their choices. Most brides are floundering along planning a project much larger than their experience. They are trying to make it personal despite all the comments from their own peanut galley. And they are unsure of both their choices and their options. Why else do you think these forums are so popular? When a bride comes to you with an idea, don’t just immediately shoot it down; find out what is behind it. Respect their reasons. For the most part, these young ladies are scared. And need you to respect that.

If they come to you with an idea that your years of experience tell you is a bad choice, find out what is behind their decision. Take for instance the new trend of using an iPod instead of a DJ. They may be trying to save money or they may be afraid of the DJ not listening to their requests and playing the Chicken Dance anyway. Respect their reasons and find them an alternative that takes their concerns into account.

They want to be treated with respect at bridal salons. They don’t want to be told they are fat or short or oddly shaped. They don’t want you to point out that they will look pregnant in the empire waist gown in the picture they brought in. Let them try it on. They are big girls; let them decide that for themselves. They want you to listen to them. If they say no pouffy dress, don’t bring them pouffy dresses. Yes, they have come to you for your expertise but they are also afraid to turn their choice over to you. Guide them, lead them, and validate them.

They also want you to communicate with them. If there is a problem, tell them. Nothing makes our brides angrier then trying to sweep something under the rug. If the Chilean sea bass got stuck in customs, call them and recommend a substitute; don’t just serve salmon. Likewise with a floral snafu, don’t try and play it off be honest. If the cake they have designed is not going to survive outdoors in August, listen to what they want but explain the reasons why it might be a bad choice. Don’t just tell them no, tell them why.

It is all about customer service. You don’t have to bend over backwards, you just have to listen and respect their reasons. Retail is hard. Working in the service sector is hard. Putting on that smile every morning and sharing it with every customer that crosses your path is hard. But, it is what we do.

We all know about lead lists. I’ll bet most of you do one of 3 things: Ignore it, Email blast it or send out a single post card. Suppose you did something outrageous instead?

It’s tough/expensive to do much more than the three things I just mentioned with a lead list of 500 to 2000. With direct mail, you have to put together a piece that will get noticed. How many postcards do you think brides get right after a bridal show?  What is going to make yours stand out enough to even get noticed? Add to this, it is proven that you need multiple mailings of standard direct mail before you have any chance of the lead acting on it. So now it isn’t just about sending out 500 to 2000 post cards; it is about multiplying that by at least 5 to get the response you need.  Now that is starting to get expensive.

Blast email can work with a couple of caveats. For one, you have to have permission to send them. Any reputable bulk mailer will require that you have gathered the leads yourself. That means that the list that you get from the shows or from bridal mags you advertise in are usually prohibited. What’s more, even if you found a way around the system, about half of those email addresses are bogus or are just junk mail dumping accounts. The second caveat is to get around the spam filters you really have to know what you are doing when you craft your email. That is particularly true in crafting your headline.  If you start getting caught by the spam filters you may well find your email address or isp blocked altogether.

Of course at least these two options have a bit more of a chance than doing nothing. Unfortunately, that is what most people do with the lead lists.

Now suppose you really analyzed those lists ,compared a few different lists, pared them down to only the really juicy prospects, and separated them by wedding date? You may end up with maybe 3 leads some months, maybe 7 to 10 for others. Now that is a doable number. You could pull out all the stops to get their attention then, couldn’t you?

So now what? That is where your unique creativity comes in to the equation. How outrageous do you want to get and how much are you willing to spend to get a great client?  I read something recently about a house cleaning service that would cherry pick their leads and send the ripe ones a DVD player with a DVD full of testimonials of happy clients shot in their clean homes. Now that is pretty dang outrageous, but if you get one out of 3 and stand to make a good bit of money on their weekly service, it was worth it. They did this once a month and grew their business by at least one or two new clients a month.

Now I am not saying you need to send brides DVD players but there are other outrageous things you could do. I spoke with a florist recently about sending out a small floral arrangement to 3 leads a week. She would just order a bit of extra flowers and deliver them herself. I can guarantee that she will be on that bride’s radar so much more that an email or postcard would have done. If you are a baker, how tough would it be to send out a few boxes of cupcakes a week?  Hey DJ’s, how about a CD of the 15 Best First Dance Songs?  Caterers, could you invite 4 couples to a tasting a month? Remember, you are only hitting the very best prospects, those prospects that your close ratio should be high on if you can get their attention.

I know a bridal salon that does appointment only champagne shopping on Sundays. There are signs posted and she tells the brides that come about it. How much more effective would it be if rather than waiting for brides that already had been in her shop to book an appointment she started sending out selective invitations to good prospects off of her lead lists. Maybe do a private fashion show once a week for a select number of girls.

Yes, all of this costs money; all marketing does. This kind of marketing is done on a small scale and is highly track-able. It is also so outside the box that you are bound to get noticed. Or you can keep doing what you have been doing and hope it works.

I do a lot of research on how women buy. Did you know that 80% of adult women believe very strongly that individuals can affect the environment. However, nearly 60% believe that they are personally not doing enough to protect it; this according to an Eco-Insights survey. Further more, previous research has shown that nearly 50% of women say they want more green choices – a sentiment reflected in the recent Eco-Insights study as well.

Another fact about how women but is that they are less price driven than men and more cause driven. An example of this is all the pink ribbon marketing you see. If given a choice between two product, one endorsing the breast cancer research cause and one ignoring it, women are highly likely to pay a bit more to purchase the product that they consider more socially conscience.

Which brings us back to green and the environment and your marketing. If you are offering any choices that are environmentally friendly you need to be sure that you are using that in your marketing.  You should be offering those choices right along with all of your other choices. You don’t have to separate them.  I have this awful image of a big flashy page of “NEW GREEN PRODUCTS.”  Keep it simple, something as easy as a green leaf or asterisk next to the name.  Make it as natural as possible.

Another thing to remember is that you have to be genuine and honest. Women consumers today can smell ‘fake’ a mile away. Not only will they not buy the product, they are activists and may well work to shine a light on your deception. Bottom line, you can’t slap a coat of green on something and think it will work. You are going to have to actually do the work to find the products and choices that really do make a difference.

Now that you have found some environmentally friendly options to offer to your brides the question becomes how you let them know.  Blog about them. Talk about why you choose them, why you are excited about this/these products in particular and why they make a difference. Again, you have to be genuine. Do your homework enough to know why the product or service matters. Give them examples of the difference it will make. Tell them that it saves energy or pollutes less or comes from sustainable resources. Be as specific as you can. Remember, women want information.

It also helps if you can get involved in local events and causes. Remember, they can smell ‘fake’ a mile away. Here is an example, if you are in the culinary end of things, get involved with the local foods movement. Then use that as a talking point in you blog and your About page. Whatever aspect of the wedding industry you are in, a simple google search will turn up some possibilities as will your trade magazines and site.

I realize that not everyone is going to find this an enthusiastic topic. If environmental causes aren’t you cup of tea, find another cause that women in your demographic embrace. You may not think it’s important but every little thing, no matter how small, resonates with women buyers. Every_little_thing.

Are you catering to the middle? Are you trying to just play it safe and satisfy that giant pool in the middle of the market?  Where are your superlatives?

One of the first questions that I ask a new client is what makes them special. You would be amazed at how few people can answer that question. Guess what, if you don’t know what makes you special, your clients won’t either.

The goal of your marketing is to give people a reason to exchange their money for your goods or services. So what’s your reason? What makes you the single best place for them to part with their money? What do you offer to make people seek you out? If you can’t answer that question and are trying to market, you are marketing mediocrity.

What the heck do you do better than anyone else in your market? Unless you create a truly one of a kind product like hand painted invitations, you had better figure it out. There are about a bazillion wedding vendors out there today all scrambling for the same dollar. If you can’t give your potential clients one good reason why they should pick you they aren’t going to!

You can spend a bloody fortune on marketing and never really get anywhere. Or, you can tweak and tune your business to be a superlative and you won’t have to spend a dime. It will market itself.

When was the last time you saw an ad for Google or Starbucks? Do you know why? Because they have created such stellar products that they market themselves. They have such customer enthusiasm that the customers do the marketing for them. What have you done?

It is time to stop swimming in the middle and to start exploring the fringes. That is where that kind of customer enthusiasm lives. Have you ever met an enthusiastic WalMart shopper? I bet not.

But Christine, you say, if I don’t try and have something for everyone I might miss a bride. Oh groan! If your only claim is that you have a bit of everything you are going to become a price destination.  If you have the same motley mix as every other vendor in your category you have no choice but to compete on price. Those are not the kind of customers that breed enthusiasm.

The ones that breed enthusiasm and word of mouth are the ones with unique needs that you fill. The obvious one that stands out to me is the plus size brides and the bridal salons. If a bridal salon buys deeper in those size samples and treat those brides better than anyone else they are going to build some amazing word of mouth among a fairly large (no pun intended) target market. Or what about the edgier brides, the ones that don’t want a traditional gown, but something hip or goth or in red. Take a risk. You may miss a sale, but you will build a very enthusiastic audience. Which will bring more sales.

I know a planner that every one of her weddings looks alike. Believe it or not she has a pretty large following. Why? Because for brides that like that look, no one does a Mary Ann wedding like Mary Ann.

When I did wedding cakes I specialized in fondant and handmade sugar flowers. I love doing both and at the time I did it better than anyone else in this city. I had some very enthusiastic customers. Did I get a lot of brides that wanted basic buttercream cakes? Not really, they could just as easily go to Publix or Costco for that. The brides that wanted high style, magazine worthy wedding cakes sought me out. Did I miss some brides? You bet. Things is, I didn’t have to advertise once I had gotten my name out and the brides that did choose be didn’t ask about price.

What are you doing to stand out from the crowd? You can’t stand out by being mediocre.

I would imagine that by now you know you have to be online and that you have to do it right. It is pretty competitive out there and having a website designed isn’t exactly cheap. So here are a few tips to getting the best website for your needs.

1. Know what you want and need before you approach a designer. Have a clear idea in your mind about what role you need this site to play. Is it simply an online brochure? Do you want to use it to build a community? Do you need it to be an e-commerce site? What do you want this site to achieve for you? If your answer to that last one is “more business” tell me how it will do that.

1. Know what you want it to look like in terms of style.  Bring up 5 or 6 sites you like and really give them a good hard look. What is it you like about them? Is it the visual elements or the functionality that caught your attention? They don’t have to be in the wedding industry, feel free to think outside the box a bit.

1. Know what you want to include. Do you offer multiple services that can all be included or would they be better served with individual sites?  For example, someone that plans both weddings and corporate events may be better served with two sites, each with a very different look. Ditto for the photographer that does both weddings and sports photography. The people seeking sports photography are going to be instantly turned off by the style that would attract brides. Not so for the photographer that does weddings and family portraiture; those two would easily blend. Think about your target market(s).

1. Find a designer that understands your industry.  Someone that understands your industry will understand your target market. I can’t over emphasize how important this may be. They are crafting your online presence, if they don’t understand your target market they won’t have a clue how to reach it. The may build you a technically spectacular site and still miss the mark.

1. Don’t micromanage it. Trust me; you are the only one that the minutiae will make any difference to. Yes it is important that the overall look is right, that colors and graphics are spot on to your branding and that the functionality is flawless. Moving an image 10 pixels to the left isn’t that important. Trust that your designer does this for a living, they know what works. Just like you would not want your brides to micromanage you, don’t micromanage your web dude.

1. Don’t rush it. Take your time in making the decisions in the first 4 points. Don’t put impossible deadlines on your designer. Every site is different and there is always something that has to be worked through. Better to let them work through it and get it right than to have them slap some band aid on it to hit your deadline. Be patient; remember right is better than quick.

1. Admit what you don’t know and ask questions. Yep, we tend to be a bit techie but a good web designer should be able to answer your question with an explanation that you can understand.  The key here is in the admitting what you don’t know. Just tell them it went over your head and to explain it to you.

I hope this has helped. I wish I had had a list like this when I had my first site designed. Wow, was I clueless. Jesse, if you are reading this, I am so sorry.

Time was that most brides booked their wedding professionals a year or more out.  That seems to be slipping; couples are waiting longer and longer to book.  This may just lead to an untapped marketing opportunity for savvy vendors.

How nice it is to look at your book and see weddings slotted in for the next 12 months or more. So easy to plan cash flow, so easy to manage your staffing, ah yes so easy. The problem is that our lovely brides aren’t cooperating anymore.  Whether it is a lack of funds or a fear of an uncertain future, today’s brides are waiting until much closer to their date to book a lot of their services.

For the savvy wedding professional, this might be an interesting opportunity.

In the earliest planning stages, a bride has a nearly limitless number of choices. It has been proven in study after study that too many choices can lead to a kind of paralysis causing them to pick nothing. Too many boxes of cereal on a store shelf and the customer is more likely to walk away empty handed. Too many options for centerpieces and she may well dither around and put off calling the florist.

Part of closing a sale has to do with critical timing. You have to be the one they are with when they decide to make a decision. The closer they are to their date the closer you are to that critical timing. What’s more, if they are leaving a very short window you are now in a position to limit their choices. Fewer choices makes choosing for them easier and making the sale easier for you.

Now the question becomes how to position yourself for this market change.

First up, get your business in order to handle this new market.  Know what products you can get on the fly, and know the current market price off the top of your head. Line up a source of staff that you can have on call or on a moment’s notice.  Get together a list of what you can and cannot offer on short notice. Think about this in terms of not only resources available but time invested.  If for instance you are a floral designer, don’t agree to do really complicated designs on the fly, fill your list with arrangement you could make in your sleep or hand off to one of the less experienced members of your team. If you are a bridal salon, have a range of off the rack gowns that are easy to alter. Cake designers can leave the labor heavy hand made decorations out in favor of fresh fruit and flowers. You are creating almost a “pret a porter” list instead of a “couture” list.

Next it is critical that you get the word out. Of course you will create a page on your website and mention it in your ad copy. More important still is to get the word out to the other vendors in your local market. Let them know that you are putting together a special service for last minute events. As more and more couples put off their planning to the last minute, you will become a valuable resource for the wedding planners in your market. If they know that without a shadow of a doubt you have put the people and resources in place to pull them out of a time crunch they will be your undying fan.

It will be hectic and scary at first as you watch weekends approach with no bookings or start committing to taking one more wedding for an already full weekend, but in the long run you will have built a new market for yourself that is likely to only get bigger as we move into the future.

If you are a regular follower then you know I am electronic media’s biggest fan.  It is everywhere from the demise of newspapers to E-vites and email rsvps.  So what’s with that headline?

It is exactly the fact that online marketing has become so ubiquitous that I think it may be a time to give snail mail a fresh look. We all have our spam filters set and a separate email address that we use when we have to give an email address that we know will result in junk. Junk mail has fallen off and doesn’t crowd our snail mailboxes like it once did. Hmmmm.

So just why do I think a postcard will get any more attention that it did 4 years ago? Well I don’t think a postcard will, but a nice fat “lumpy” mailer will. What’s a lumpy mailer, you ask. A lumpy mailer is a padded envelope or box with something in it. Don’t YOU always open those? I know at one time I had a whole collection of pens that said “Your name here” LOL

This, of course, is not the most budget conscience option but it may be effective. Even that behemoth of the online world, Google, is doing it. They sent out little spiral bound note cards in bright green listing tips for using Adsence to advertise.

So what do you put into a lumpy mailer? Well it has to be unique and it has to have a connection to your business. Ideally it should be something that the recipient will either keep or remember.  Suppose you are a caterer, how about a sushi shaped eraser with your information on the bottom? I know I’d keep that. A bridal salon might have some mini jewelry bags made up out of bridal fabric with a tag sewn in with their information. Photographers might send out picture frame key chains. Get creative.

I’m not recommending that you buy a list and send these out blindly to a couple of thousand engaged couples. I do think you should send them to hot prospects though. Maybe drop one in the mail to a new consult on the day you meet with them.  Or harvest the best from that list you got at the bridal show and send by snail mail rather than just handing it out at the show, for just a bit more money you get a second exposure.

This kind of thing also works great for business to business sales. Think up something that will get the attention of other vendors that you want to refer you.  You might even consider spending a bit more on something for this purpose. Say you are a florist, find a vase shaped pencil cup that you can put your information on and send it out to rental firms, caterers and venues. If it is unique enough they will use it on their desk, keeping you in the front of their mind. Double score if it is on the desk where they meet with clients.

The old rule of thumb with postcards was that you need 7 exposures to be effective. If you add that up you may not be spending all that much more doing one lumpy mailer than you were on the postcard campaign. If you want to track the success, set up a mini page on your website and have that URL printed on your collateral. Then you can simply track how many people enter on that page.

In today’s market you have to think outside the box to get noticed.

Further reading:

What Google Can Teach Us About Printed Marketing Materials

I love email marketing. Getting a well crafted e-mail campaign in the inbox of your potential client is a wonderful thing. In the past we have talked about building your list, not getting blacklisted as spam and why it is an important part of your overall marketing plan. This month I want to give you some tips on bad vs good email design.

You may be doing all the right things in terms of list quality, consistency and e-mail services and still not be getting the open rate that you hoped.  Here are some pitfalls that a lot of people don’t even consider when designing their campaigns.

Subject lines

Think hard about your subject line; often it is the only thing that your recipient will see. If they have the preview pane turned off in their email client (like I do) your subject line IS the headline that will have to grab their attention. Be sure to reference your business name in some way and give them a reason to open it. Tease them. Stay away from spammy words like Free. Click here for a great list of tips on writing good subject lines from the e-mail wiki.

E-mail Length

Longer is not better. In today’s world people want fast e-mail. A couple of paragraphs with links out to more information do the trick better than trying to explain everything in the text body.  Another reason to think short is the growing numbers of people that read their email in hand held devices like Blackberries or iPhones.  No one wants to have to scroll through 4 screens to get to what you want them to read. In fact, most people won’t even bother.

All Images

An increasing number of e-mail clients have the defaults set to NOT display images. If your entire email is an image all you recipient will see is a blank box with an X in it. If you are luck and have included an alt image tag at least they will see that, maybe. Some e-mail clients like Yahoo and Hot Mail won’t even display the alt image tag. A better plan is to use mostly text in your email (especially in the upper left quadrant) and add images sparingly. Any image you do include should carry an informative alt image tag so at least your readers will know what they are missing.

Plain Text

I’m guilty of this one and I  overcame it in 2009. Once you have designed you e-mail in HTML with all its lovely pictures and links be sure to check the plain text version. The system I use allows me to edit the plain text version separately from the HTML version. Take a look at yours. A lot of times what happens is all those links and images end up looking to the untrained eye as lines of gobbledygook.  So just get rid of them. If there are links that absolutely have to be there, write them in plain language.  Ditto the images. Just get rid of any links to outside images since they won’t show up anyway. Next, take a look at the layout. There really isn’t any way to make it pretty but at least strive for clean.  Why is this important?  It’s important because about 50% of e-mails open in plain text. I thought that number was a little high until I considered the number of people viewing their e-mail on mobile devices. Sadly, I expect the number to grow.

These are just a few tricks of the trade. The other thing you absolutely must do is preview and test. Then do it again.  I test every campaign in at least 3 different e-mail clients. I send it to my Outlook acct, my Thunderbird account and my gmail account.  You can set up free accounts on Yahoo and Hotmail as well and then just add those addresses to your test account. Most bulk e-mail programs don’t charge you for your test emails so there isn’t any reason not to test like crazy.

Put these tips into practice and watch what happens to your open and click through rates. I think you will be pleasantly surprised.

It is a common fallacy to stop marketing when money gets tight. It is very easy to see your marketing budget as a quick fix place to cut. Don’t do it. You need your marketing now more than ever.

So what do you do when those high dollar spends like magazines and bridal show keep getting more expensive and returning less. I didn’t say you had to keep marketing the way you were, I just said that now is not the time to stop.

Right now the most cost effective way to market is through email, but you need to do it right.

Here are some of the things I have learned along the way.

• Don’t use your regular email. Use a quality bulk email system that has a good opt –out  application.  I like A Weber and Emma. I like Emma enough to become an agency for them. Both offer great tracking and are ridiculously easy to use. I recently started using Constant Contact for a client. I have to tell you, I am not a fan.
• Preview, preview and preview again. A good system lets you send test emails to yourself and a limited group free of charge. In my case I send them to myself at email addresses on three different email programs just see how they look. I use Outlook, G-mail and Thunderbird. Be sure to check how it looks in the various preview panes on your mail programs. Sometimes that is all your recipient will look at. Once I have it tweaked, I add the client to the final test for their approval.
• Have a “Tell a Friend” button prominently placed in your email. Most systems have this feature just be sure you enable it.
• Use good lead lists. The single best way is to build your own list. As I have said in a previous article, the ones you get from magazines and bridal shows are dicey at best. In fact, Emma won’t even let you load them.  If you do bridal shows, have brides sign up IN YOUR BOOTH. Offer them something in return, a discount coupon works well.  Set that up as an auto-responder when they opt in, don’t just hand them to them at the show.
• Make sure you have a lead generator on your website. Again, offer them something to sign up. It can be information, invitations to events or a coupon. Give them something.
• Be regular in your mailings. You can’t send an email blast every now and then and expect it to work. You have to send them out on a regular consistent basis. Remember, brides take between 12 and 16 months to plan their wedding. If you take away the months they spent getting around to thinking about your particular service or product and the months the need to book in advance of their date you have a window of 6 months at best, probably more like 4. Looking at it in that light, weekly isn’t a bad goal.
• Make your emails short, sweet, lively and fun. Make your readers look forward to the next one.  Include a few interesting illustrations but don’t overload it. To high of a percentage of images to text sets off the spam filters.
• Include pertinent links to things you talk about. Say you are having a special on Fondant cake, include a link to your description of fondant and a galley of fondant cakes on your website.  Running a special on Maggie Sottero Gowns, link to their website. You can track those click-thrus to find out what gets your readers interest; then do more like it.
• Tracking. Yes any good system has good tracking stats and you need to be using them.  I’ve said it before, there is gold in your statistics if you would just use them.

Email marketing is easier than you think and it certainly is more cost effective then most other forms of marketing. Here is one more little thought to get you thinking…

Among 18- to-34-year-olds, consumers are more likely to be influenced to make purchases based on e-mail marketing messages and direct mail than from advertisements or marketing messages on social networks according to new research from Ball State University and ExactTarget.

If you would like the Agency @ Think put together you email marketing strategies send me an email here.

I have gotten an earful lately from the photographers about price. I hear too many considering dropping their prices to compete with all the lower priced (read less experienced) options out there. Holy moly!! What are you people thinking?

Are you marketing the intangibles you offer? I have had this conversation over the course of the last few years with the bridal salons.  I still am as a matter of fact; some get it, some don’t. Now I think I need to direct it to the rest of those industry professionals that have been at this for a while, that have built up a sterling reputation, that have become remarkable but are now running scared of the newbies nipping at their heels.

You need to take a good hard look at the intangibles you offer that they can not. I am not just talking about your product, I am talking about all the things you have learned to do over the years that they have not. It may be as simple as the way you package your products. I know a photographer that sends out his proofs in a beautiful custom designed box. I know a florist who deliverers her bouquets in special disposable vases so they stay in water as long as possible, even between photos. I know caterers that never have a wrinkled linen or a water spot on the silver, I know others that can’t say that. What are those things that you do that you don’t even think of anymore. The little touches, the extras that you don’t notice but that make all the difference.

Get your staff together to brainstorm. Ask the vendors that refer you. Ask your clients why they picked you. You may be surprised to find out just how spectacular you are. Make a list of all the things out of the bare minimum that you do for your clients. Let me give you an example…

When I did cakes I always put them on custom cake boards to match the cake. Never thought anything about it, I just hated those I would see with foil on them. One day a florist said to me that they were always happy when they knew I was doing the cake because they knew they wouldn’t have to try and hide the base. I added that to my marketing and the brides loved it. “Oh cool, custom board” To them it was a perk, to me it was just standard procedure.

I know a florist that has had two different brides mention his wonderful collection of containers. Now he is using them in his marketing. Not only are brides finding it a huge selling point but he is making an upcharge on rental. Duh!

Find out what you do differently than all the rest and find out why that may be important to your target market. Then you have to find a way to highlight it.

With bridal salons, one of the biggies that a bride should expect over ordering online was the way their gown arrived. If you order online the gown arrives inside out, compressed into a box that you or I would never believe it could possibly fit it. Needless to say it is a wrinkled mess. A bridal salon receives the gown the same way; the difference is that before the bride see her gown it has been steamed and fluffed and is looking fairy tale perfect. I suggested to salons that they buy a very cheap gown online, unpack it and put in on display just like it arrived along with the box. It made the point.

None of this will stop all the price shoppers. Nothing will; but now at least you aren’t having to defend your price with nothing to point at. Sell everything that you do, that is what makes you remarkable.