At some point during your time in this hobby especially if you breed, you will have to sell the animals that you produced. Making snakes is the easy part, finding room for babies is easy, as they grow up finding space becomes harder and harder, so selling/giving away is the only option unless you want to continually expand your room. Selling is the infinitely harder part, good customer service and dealing with people is by far the hardest part! There truly is an art to the sale, an art I’m truly just beginning to comprehend. I’m like in the remeadial class of selling animals, I haven’t even made it to the 101 level yet!
The first step is good pictures, this is something I didn’t actually put a lot of stock in till recently. I’ve been trying to sell some caramel jags for over a year, I finally take some decent non cell phone pics of them and they are all almost gone in a week. Go figure. Buy a camera, with either a macro setting, or a macro lens, and practice! Remember lots of light, natural if you can!
Second step, where do you run your ads? I’d say Facebook, and a couple websites, kingsnake has always been so strong!!
Third is what to say in your ad. List what the animal is, the morph/morph combo, price, whether shipping is included or extra, and any lineage info you have!
Notice all this has to be done before you ever talk to customers! Without all this in place and at least running above 80% you won’t ever get customers, and notice how I haven’t mentioned shows, that’s cause I don’t do shows so I can’t speak on selling at shows. At some point I’m going to have to change my opinion on shows but right now at this stage I don’t need them!
Talking with customers, oh the talking and dealing with people. I didn’t understand till recently why so many people just say call me. I’d rather talk to you on phone then answer a million questions via email. However it’s not about what you prefer, it’s what makes the person buying from you happy! That’s the best part of this. This hobby has brought me so much joy over the years, and the ability to pass that on is priceless. So try to make them happy and as comfortable with the process as can be done. Some people tho won’t be happy no matter what. Realize this, but still try. The things to keep in mind, respond promptly, especially during the week, weekends can be your time if you choose. I pick either a sat or sun (which ever my wife have off together and do a no screen day once a week. So the weekends are kinda bad for getting in touch with me, unless you have my number. Respond with enough information to accurately answer the question and give them prompting for more questions/say they want the animal.
