Show customers exactly what they might be hiring

Experienced marquee erectors will be able to look at a garden and just see exactly how a marquee will fit and exactly what it would look like. Always keep in mind that your customers won’t be able to do this, giving them a few details and asking them to use their imagination is going to be a tough sell.

So what can you do?

Floorplans: supplying one or two suggested floorplans showing how everything is going to fit in to their marquee is going to be a big help. It will show that the numbers you’re talking about will fit in to their garden-often this comes as a surprise to someone who’s just marked the space out on their lawn. You can use our handy marquee planner for this – print it and cut it out or take a screenshot, crop it down and add it straight in to quotes etc.

Photographs: The best thing you can possibly do is have a photograph of exactly what your customer wants. This isn’t easy, especially when you’re starting out but if you have photographs in your portfolio of all the different jobs you’ve done then eventually you’ll have some clear favourites – expand on these ones in particular. You always want to have choice available but the best scenario for both you and your customer is for them to say ‘I want exactly that’. For us the most popular option was honeybeige carpet and ivory swags for weddings and blackout linings with black & white dance floors for 40th/18th birthday parties.

Look at a website like rightmove – when someone goes to view a house chances are they’ve seen pictures of it, they’ve seen a floorplan and they’re just going to see how it all comes together in a package. Make life easier for you and your customers by offering similar information.

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Many thanks to JF Marquees and Premier Party Tent (again) for helping us dismantle our Showmans Show marquees in record time (an hour & 30 minutes). The show itself seemed successful with most hirers having a positive outlook for 2012. Our new products on display seemed to go down very well including our new solid frame doors (only £400) and our simple gable pieces that give so much more flexibility to hirers. Thank you for everyone who came in to see us and especially those who mentioned they read this blog, I’ll try my best to keep helping as much as I can.

Thanks for reading

Spencer