Right up there with the 3% rule as a Queensberry mantra is Good Better Best. We don't claim that either of them is original, just that they're common sense. In fact fundamental if you want to build a sustainable longterm career. Good Better Best is a strategy for up-selling – having products and services to tempt your clients across a range of price points. To be blunt, you're offering your customers what they want (something cheap!) while at the same time encouraging them to spend more. Simply put, it does so by offering people three choices… GOOD is your entry level – affordable if you like. BEST is aspirational (expensive). BETTER is in the middle – the sale you budget on! GOOD is what gets people in the door, part of your answer to the question, "How much will it cost to shoot my wedding?" Once you have their attention you can show them what else you can do, which is the sale you really want to make. Obviously there's a lot more to say about this, and we'll have more about it in future posts. Right now I want to use our own experience as a case study, because I must admit we'd stopped heeding our own advice. When the GFC started to bite in 2008-9 we took something of a hit on sales for a number of reasons. We were selling luxury goods at a time that money had become very shy, and new technologies were giving photographers options that never existed before. As well, many photographers had lost their confidence to the extent they were willing to grab any job at any price. In short, with customers tightening their belts, they took the service and options out of what they were offering so they could "compete". Sadly many photographers who took that approach continue to suffer today. Fortunately, we had an epiphany that took us in a more positive direction. We went back and looked at our own business in terms of Good Better Best, and it transformed what we do. I started to realise that in many people's minds Queensberry was top-heavy: all BEST, not enough GOOD or BETTER. If you wanted something "affordable" you went somewhere else. If you were just starting out maybe you weren't "ready for Queensberry yet". They had a point. We started to look, not at cutting our prices but at defining new price points and products to match them. We developed Press Books as a product that could be our customers' GOOD offering. Still profitable to make, still uniquely Queensberry, but a dramatically lower price point for our customers. We defined Overlay Matted and Flushmount as our BETTER albums. The Overlay Matted range was almost completely new, with many of the features people like in our high-end Duo. But we also simplified these products, which had become burdened with options that hardly anyone used at this level. In the other direction we positioned Musée at the very high end, something unique and exclusive for those who want the very best. I believe this strategy has been very successful. Our customers can now sell Queensberry profitably all along the Good Better Best spectrum, and new photographers feel we've got more to offer them. Today the new products account for half our sales, and yet we haven't undermined or compromised the high-end Duo and Classic albums we're famous for. Indeed it fascinates me to see people "optioning up" our cheapest professional product, Press Books, just like they do Duos, which are still, by the way, our most popular albums. The point of this story is to underline the importance of responding to the evolving market, and using Good Better Best and 3% thinking to think about your business. There are alternatives to slashing your prices and hoping for the best. And hopefully we won't forget to take our own advice again! Best wishes, Stephen