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116 • The 100 Greatest Ideas for Building the Business of Your Dreams

ing and make the place look welcoming. Your customers are used to being treated
as people in a line, or as targets for smooth salespeople; shopping with you should
be a different sort of experience. The opposite of pressure and intimidation is to
leave them alone unless they ask for help and to go away when you have answered
their question and they look as though they are going to move on to another product
or even another shop. Remember, you are in this for the long haul; they will prob-
ably come back if they felt no pressure. Oh, and leave the door open whenever the
weather allows it. This avoids any feeling of being trapped.

The shop will obviously change slowly as you sell items and bring in new stock,
but a consensus of opinion says that you should make a point of changing the place
dramatically from time to time. One person who sells rare books told me that it was
his practice to start a collection of new offerings but keep them in a bottom drawer
until he had a good display. This meant that he was possibly not selling the books as
soon as he could, but it also meant that he could send out a mailshot inviting cus-
tomers to come in and see the new display when the time came. He did this when
the shop was otherwise closed, gave them a glass of wine and frequently did well.

One other person who sells a small number of quite highly priced goods made
sure that on the counter there were a number of attractive but inexpensive related
items, in this case postcards of well known paintings. This meant that everyone
could buy something and was also a useful source of petty cash.

Idea 70 - Count your customers

Every sale you make, every business card you receive should be part of your cus-
tomer database. Build it from the start and you will quite quickly and for ever have
the most precious marketing tool of the lot - people who have an interest in your
products, and know you or your business.

The owner of the art shop explained it like this.