A Word From Charles
News Letter Day
Moving the News Letter Day really has made this a lot easier on me, and I want to thank you all for the patience you've shown with that transition. It was really necessary to have my work days lined up for work, and my off days lined up to rest and recovery. Knowing I had the weekend to relax really did wonders for me.
A Look Behind the Curtain on Sales
So I know many metaphysical sellers get these questions, I get them a fair bit too. "When is this going on sale?" "When will you have a sale above X%" "Do you think you'll put this on sale below this price?" These are all good and valid questions. I have a policy of letting my clients look behind the curtain at how we make decisions, why we set prices at certain points, and why we have sales at certain points.
So on the when and what of a sale, I often plan my sale on the day of a News Letter, and we operated for a long time, several years in fact, without putting sales up except on holidays. Our pricing structure has to take into account a lot of things when we put a sale up, ranging from how much we have in the work que, to potential sales, clients with locked in long term projects, and things of that nature. I often don't know when I'll put a sale up as a result, because the timing on a sale has to be perfect. If it's not, we slow down the shop, and your orders take longer to get to. A mild head cold could delay us months getting to orders if I don't make decisions in this way. I'd love to set an automated sale schedule, but that isn't possible.
On depth of sales, we price within the sales on a range of factors like that as well. If it's been a slow month, I have spare altar space then, time, other resources including specialized tools that have often hundreds, or thousands, of mu of power necessary to do the work I do. I can only create so many "Professional Grade" tools in a year for myself and still keep up with client demands. When we put a sale up over here, I have to make sure that the work, stresses, and resources won't result in a back log that would see months of wait time.
We pride ourselves on being FAST over here as well as POWERFUL in our work. I can't recall the last time I've had a client wait more than a week for a service unless there was discussion happening around the service, or they had a backlog of high level work just for them. I factor a lot of things into the sales. Generally, most things we can, under the right conditions that week, put on sale anywhere from 25% - 40% off. I say most things, because several things, such as our ATS, Soul Sword Training, and a few others just take too much out of me, or too much altar space or various other resources to put on deep deep sales.
When we do put something on sale at 50% off, that is either very unique circumstances where we have no orders anticipated that are very large, no other commitments that week, and are at the right period in terms of tools and energies to do so. Sales of 60% off or more tend to be very rare because we simply can't do the work at that price without creating the dreaded back log. Those sales often come at a personal cost to me, because to keep backlog down, I get no time off then.
Since I've joined the metaphysic sales and spirit keeping community, I've been practicing magick long before that, I've watched many great and powerful practitioners backlog themselves into oblivion. It's why I'm slow with my e-mails, will skip The Wizard's Tower Shows, and put so much emphasis on getting orders done both EXPERTLY and EXPEDIENTLY! I know that backlog could actually end our business if I let it happen.
We are two practitioners, myself, and Lady Blackrose. I handle the bulk of the Norse, Rune, and such workings in the fields I know, including custom work, the finalization of attunements and talismans, laser etching, and a larger part of the conjuration. Lady Blackrose handles specialized conjuration, and services where her unique connection blows me out of the water when working with those particular beings. She handles staining laser etched workings, some specialized crafts, and some special request projects where her skills are superior to mine.
She also has to deal with keeping me sane and healthy as I'll forget both my own mental health and to eat properly if I move into the double edged sword which is the hyperfocus state that allows me to do as much as I do. I also handle 100% of the Spirit Attunements and Upgrades, all of the Servitor Creation, and 90% of the Conjuration side of the store, all of the paperwork, sales, writing the News Letter, etc.
While our prices have, and do fluctuate, based on a number of factors, they are pretty steady most of the time. We don't generally release things at an extravagant markup and then do a mega discount to make it look like a deal. We price based on what we expect the work to cost, taking into account various other factors. That price is set to assume "a moderate to busy work week." I'm sure if you've read this far you can see how that connects to the rest of my planning.
Some things I can't put on sale until I develop technologies that can help me cut the price. Soul Force Attunements outside of the Soul Sword were hard locked in price for well over a year. What changed? I had time last month with large orders from clients who wanted a lot done, so I didn't focus on big discount sales. Instead I had time to develop new technologies that offset SOME of the burden. If I could offset ALL of the burden and price these things at $5, I would, but there is no way to do that.
Anyway, this was more of a ramble than I wanted to do. I feel though that the more my clients understand about why we do what we do, the more they see how much hard work and effort we are putting into this. I pride myself on the strength of our conjures, and frankly, I sometimes feel like our Level 1 conjures get undervalued because we have a level system. I spend long hours trying to find ways to do more for our clients, often developing new tools at levels of power that stagger even me.
So when I'm slow to respond on e-mails, or when you see something that hasn't went on sale for awhile, there are a lot of reasons there. What you will see though also, is that you don't wait very long for an order to get started. Sometimes it takes a bit to finish a project if it is a really big one, but not to start. That is something I want to continue.
We've had people suggest we should seriously consider changing our value system. Backlog is good. Clients can wait. I consider everything people bring to me, but honestly, that goes so much against the purposes I had when I started this shop, I just can't bare to do it.
We implemented an mu system because I wasn't happy with "arbitrary levels" and you know, I'm proud of that change. Our pricing has come down in recent months after a full inventory and re-estimation. While you can be sure we are always advancing what our shop can do, and how much we can do in a week, I'll refuse any option that means I have to hear a client say "If you'd have gotten that reading to me last week it would have made a difference" or "if you hadn't taken a month to get to consultation with me I'd have been ok." I refuse any option that leads to that direction.
I am always looking to develop new technologies to cut prices. I'm currently hashing out a kind of ATS with a premade build that I could more easily empower quickly. I don't have a decided plan on that, and it may fail the development tests, but that gives you a window into the kind of decisions I make. I'm also looking at ways to develop new uses of Divine Ki to benefit your familiar conjures, or power our spell work, without breaking myself in a way where I work one day, and have to take a whole week off to recover.
In short, thank you for understanding, and I hope the look behind the curtain gives you a window not just into the struggles we face with decisions like sales, pricing, and work load but also you see that we care enough to ensure you get the best, highest level of quality and service at each step of the process. We are constantly thinking about our clients and what we can do to help you reach your goals. A lot goes in to what goes on behind the curtain to keep things running smoothly, and I've hit on about 5% of that today. I really considered deleting this article, but I DO pride myself on letting you look behind the curtain of why I make my decisions.
Some other things I'd like to look into would be something like a "vote for a sale" option in a News Letter in the near future. I don't know if I can implement that, but I'm looking into it. Remember your feedback is important. I check every e-mail even if that does take me a bit longer with ensuring we stay on track for a week. I may be the guy who runs the shop, but you are the people who make it possible to do so!
