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Sales Series Part 5 – Advertising Options

STC Dressage Inc April 7, 2022
Advertising options
Our fifth and final installment of the sales series is all about location, location, location. It’s as true in horse sales as it is in real estate. Where you place advertisements for your horses will have a huge impact on how quickly your horse sells. There are a number of sales websites out there, each with their own niche that they serve. If you place your horse in the wrong one, you may not get much traction. That doesn’t mean you should simply place ads in all of them though. I know, I know, I can hear people screaming at me about how you never know where a buyer is going to come from. But in reality and in my experience, that is just not the case.
Time and money should be spent marketing your horse in the place that is most likely to produce a buyer quickly. The more time I spend answering emails and phone calls from someone with a $5K budget that just wants more pics of your pretty $50K horse, the less time I’m able to spend engaging with buyers who actually have the budget to buy him. (That means you’ll be spending more money while it takes longer to sell him!) So choose your websites carefully, and post the horse in the place most likely to generate interest from serious buyers and not just a bunch of tire kickers.
Social media is another important avenue, but it has gotten rather tricky to market horses in most social media platforms as they’ve cracked down hard on any type of animal sales. Pages, groups, and even personal profiles have been shut down, restricted or banned, and posts are constantly being deleted. It’s still possible if you know how to work around the systems, but it gets more challenging by the day. Still, for those savvy enough to stay one step ahead of the ban hammer, social media, and especially Facebook, are still the priority place to display your horse.
Also of note are the vast connections that a professional has. In addition to posting the horse in the right places online, we can get in touch with the dozens of trainers all over the country and even the world to let them know about the horse. And often times, they’re contacting us on a regular basis too to see if we have anything currently that fits the needs of a client they’re shopping for. So while that’s “free” advertising, it is not something to discount because a lot more horses sell that way than through ads.
All in all, you can have all the other parts absolutely spot on, but if you don’t put them in the right place to be seen by the right people then you’re going to be sitting on the horse, and all it’s associated bills, for quite some time. After all, you wouldn’t go to the middle of the Amazon rain forest to buy an Aston Martin DBS Superleggera, would you? It doesn’t matter how nice the car is, no one is going to see it, and thus no one is going to buy it. (But if anyone wants to buy that divine specimen of magnificent machinery for me, I will *find* a way to get to the middle of the Amazon!)
I hope this little series has helped you somewhat in marketing your horse better and more successfully! There is definitely a lot that goes into it, especially when you need consistent results and want to get top dollar. Of course, if it’s left you a bit overwhelmed, or if you have a horse that just doesn’t seem to be selling, I’m happy to chat with you to see if I can help. The market is red-hot right now for quality dressage horses, so if your horse has been sitting on the market for a while then there’s something not right about the way it’s being marketed. Just shoot me a message, or give me a call at 815-861-3005 and we’ll get a plan set up to get your horse sold

Sales Series Part 4 – Pricing

STC Dressage Inc April 7, 2022
Pricing
Part four of this series is about pricing. This one is a bit tricky, and typically everyone’s least favorite part of the process. There are so many things that can influence the price of a horse from breeding to competition history to potential, from the economy as a whole to the actual location of the market you’re selling in. It’s highly subjective, and often times the number one thing that stops a sale from happening. But if you can price your horse accurately, along with the other pieces of this puzzle being in place, quick sales can and do happen quite often.
When it does stop a sale from happening, it’s almost always because the price is too high based on the presentation of the horse (pictures, videos, misrepresented, etc.), as well as the other outside influences listed above. Like I mentioned in an earlier post, no one is gonna pay $50K+ for a Frankenhorse.
That said, it’s also one of the easiest things to get right if you work with a professional who knows the market, knows what horses are selling for, and knows how to price your horse to sell quickly. This is one of the most challenging things I have to discuss with sellers though. Everyone wants to get the most money they can, sure. And as an agent, it’s in my best interest to do so as well since I’m getting a commission. But it’s also in my best interest as a professional to make sure you’re not stuck paying several thousands of dollars more in board and training over the next 6 months just to get a couple thousand more on the sales price. That goes directly to my reputation as a seller’s agent, and I take it seriously.
Contrary to popular belief, I (and I’m guessing the hundreds of other trainers who sell horses, though I can’t truly speak for them) do not want to keep your horse there for those extra 6 months to get the board and training money out of you. Why? Because then you go and tell all your friends that I couldn’t get your horse sold, and they should send theirs somewhere else to sell. I want your horse to sell quickly, at a good price, so you go and tell all your friends that they should send their horses to me to be sold. But if you demand $50K for your Frankenhorse when the market will only pay $40K max, then it’s going to be hanging out for a while until that one buyer out of 10 million comes along who is willing to pay that price, or until the value of the horse increases. And in the meantime, you’ve spent an additional $15K on board, training, farrier, vets, shows, etc.
When you place a horse with a professional to sell, part of their job is to price the horse, based on all the other factors, in a place where visits start to happen almost immediately, offers start coming in within a few weeks, and the horse is sold ideally within 90 days. Less time is better, but that’s the max. If you’re not getting that, then your horse is likely overpriced and/or undermarketed. So then you need to ask yourself which it is. If your sales agent has been suggesting you drop the price, that may be the next step. If it’s a problem of being undermarketed, meaning the videos, pictures, etc are either not good enough quality or simply aren’t being distributed strongly enough to generate interest (ad distribution is coming up in the next post), then it may be time to find someone else to sell your horse.

Sales Series Part 3 – Ad Copy

STC Dressage Inc April 7, 2022
Part three of our sales talk, the ad copy.
For those unfamiliar with the term, ad copy simply means the written part of your advertisement. This is also an important piece of the presentation, though for me not as much so as the pictures and video. Buying a horse is far more visual in the ad, and kinesthetic in person. Couple that with the fact that nearly every single ad you’ll ever read sounds exactly the same… FEI Potential! Uphill mover! Olympic Gold Medal Prospect! Great hind leg! Etc. Etc. Etc. Then you look at the pictures and the horse looks like it hasn’t had a bath since it’s mom first licked it clean when it was born, and the video shows a horse that’s lame in all 4 legs and is so hindquarters-high that you’ll get a nosebleed if you were to stand up on it’s rump like it seems so popular to do these days.
But still, some effort should be put in writing the copy. There is nothing that buyers hate more than a misrepresented horse, so don’t say your horse has FEI potential if it fits the above description. That’s not to say you should make your copy a laundry list of the problems it has. Again, we’re trying to leave the buyer wanting more information so they call you. But barn blindness is a real thing, and the best thing you can do for your reputation as a seller, and to keep people coming back to buy more, is to honestly and objectively represent your horses.
Psychology plays a big part here though, so do try to word your ad to play more on emotion than logic. There’s a common saying in marketing that when someone comes in to buy a drill, that’s not actually what they want. What they want is a hole in something. You don’t sell them the drill by listing all it’s technical features. You sell them the drill by showing them how easy and wonderful of a hole they’ll get with it. Sell the hole, not the drill.
If your horse is being marketed as a pleasure horse that is easy to ride, never spooks, is low maintenance, etc, then paint a picture of how the buyer can enjoy peaceful trail rides where they can just let their worries disappear for a while. Or perhaps it could also be marketed as a “husband horse” so you can spend more quality time doing things together. If it’s truly a top quality competition horse, paint the picture of the rider progressing through the levels with the horse and going to championships.
Be creative, but also be honest in your ad copy. Again, it’s the sellers that misrepresent their horses that give a bad name to all sellers. But for the seller that can create an honest picture of how their horse will help the buyer achieve what they want, there’s a deal ready to be made with that buyer who is desperately searching for your ad after 6 months of frustration looking at bad ads and misrepresented horses.

Sales Series Part 2 – Video

Sean Cunningham April 6, 2022
Next up in our sales talk is videos.
If a picture is worth a thousand dollars, then a good quality video will be worth significantly more. After all, this is where your buyer will get their first, and lasting, impression of how the horse moves. As you all know, for dressage, how the horse moves is everything.
I’m here to help you get as much as possible for your horse, and to stop leaving thousands of dollars on the table. If there’s one place that I can convince you to put the most effort and investment, it’s in a good quality video. To be clear though, good quality does not mean long. It’s been my experience that most buyers won’t watch more than about 2-3 minutes of your video. That’s based on looking at the actual video view metrics of my own sale videos over the years, so it’s not just a guess. If you don’t know how to look that up, I suggest you figure it out.
Good marketing is all about data. It doesn’t matter how much you like your 15 minute long video of you putting bunny ears on your precious little fur baby that you think could be the next Valegro. If 99.9% of your prospective buyers are clicking away from the video in the first 20 seconds and you aren’t getting a single phone call, you need to change it up. It matters what your prospective buyers like, not what you like. The data will tell you very quickly if your video is resonating with your audience or not.
Many of these tips come straight from highly successful sales campaigns that others have run as well. I’ve worked with a few professional videographers over the years, including one who has sold over a million dollars worth of horses through the sales videos she’s produced.
So taking all that into account, what’s the best practice? You need to show what the horse can do, and leave them wanting more. Is it a training level 3-4 year old? Great. Show them trotting and cantering down the long side each way with maybe a transition or two thrown in. For the walk, 20 meters worth is more than enough. You don’t need to show an entire diagonal. I typically include some video of their personality, including some grooming time, tacking up, clipping, trailer loading, etc. But that segment is never more than 1 minute total, and usually less. The entire video is rarely longer than 4 minutes, and also usually less.
If it’s a Grand Prix horse, also great. Show all the movements they can do, but again, keep it brief. A full Grand Prix test is only 6 ½ minutes long, so your video shouldn’t be running for 10 minutes. Regardless of the level of the horse, think of the video as a ‘tease’ for your buyer that leaves them wanting more. When they want more, they’ll call you to come see him. Awesome, you’ve now converted cold traffic into warm traffic, and you’re one step closer to the sale!
As with the photos, plan your video so it’s early morning or late afternoon and you can keep the sun behind the camera. If you have a good team, you can get the pictures and video on the same day. Also as with the pictures, think about the best angles for capturing the movements. General trot/canter work, tempi changes, piaffe/passage, it’s best to film from the side. Half pass, shoulder-in and sometimes pirouettes are better from directly in front.
All the same rules apply with cleaning your horse too as in the previous post about pictures. But again, you should try to do it all on the same day so you save yourself the work of having to get all cleaned up a second time.
And for God’s sake, use a tripod. I don’t care if you think your hands are steadier than a world class neurosurgeon. They’re not, and when you put that video up online it looks more like you were riding out a 6.5 on the Richter scale. And the jerky kind of earthquake, not the easy rolling kind. My peeps in SoCal know what I’m talking about.
Finally, remember to zoom, but carefully. If you don’t use the zoom at all, it’s tough to see the horse when it’s the size of a mouse at the far end of the arena. And if you zoom in or out really fast, or in a really choppy manner, it gets nauseating. So practice being able to work that zoom button smoothly.
I’ve seen and heard of good quality pictures and especially videos more than doubling the price of a horse in extreme cases, so don’t neglect to put massive effort into these two segments of your sales presentation! If you don’t have the equipment or knowledge to properly capture and edit the footage, then pay a professional. The few hundred dollars you’ll spend up front will be recouped in thousands, or even tens of thousands of dollars when the horse sells

Sales Series – Part 1 – Pictures

Sean Cunningham April 6, 2022
Let’s talk about sales.
There is so much that goes into a proper sales presentation, so this is going to get split up into several posts covering each part. We’ll go over pictures, videos, the copy of the ad, pricing, and advertising options. After nearly 2 decades spent marketing and selling horses, these are the top tips I have based on endless testing and observation of different strategies. All these tips added together can make a massive difference in two critical areas; how fast they sell, and at what price.
For today’s tip, we’ll start with pictures. They say a picture is worth a thousand words. But when it comes to sales, pictures can be worth thousands of dollars gained, or also lost.
In both the conformation and under saddle photos, many of the same practices apply. Let’s take a look.
Camera position: make sure you’re standing perpendicular to the horse. Standing either towards the front or back and pointing the camera at an angle towards the horse creates an image that makes the front and back end of the horse look very out-of-proportion. No one wants to spend $50,000+ on a Frankenhorse. For under saddle photos, you should be moving around the arena. General trot and canter photos look best from the side, but lateral work like half pass are best shown from directly in front where you can capture the crossing legs.
Location: Hard, level ground for the conformation photos, obviously you’ll be in the arena for under saddle. Flowers are always nice in the background, but of utmost importance is a clean, clutter-free area. The focus is supposed to be on the horse, not on the mud pit next to the water trough or a pile of manure that someone couldn’t be bothered to pick up.
Lighting: Early morning or late afternoon is always best, with the sun at your back. This avoids the extra harsh shadows, and while a silhouetted horse may look lovely from an artistic point of view, it’s a sales presentation, not a gallery exhibit. This applies to the camera position for the under saddle photos above too.
Clean. Your. Horse... Seriously. Having your horse looking like it just won the Saturday night mud wrestling competition down at the local bar isn’t going to add any dollar signs to the price point. They should be bathed, I prefer them braided but they should at least have a neatly trimmed mane, hooves oiled, body shined, tail brushed, and looking ready to go in the show ring. The rider in the under saddle photos should have clean, polished boots, and a clean, professional outfit on. For conformation photos, a clean leather halter with a nice lead rope is sufficient, though a bridle is also appropriate for older horses.
Equipment: While your phone is good for some things, this isn’t necessarily one of them. While it is more expensive to use a professional like me to sell your horse, you’ll usually also get better results because I enlist the help of professional photographers and videographers to get the best quality footage possible. At a minimum though, you should have a good quality digital SLR camera with a burst shot setting to get the best photos of your horse.
Of course, there are still a ton of other minor details you can focus on to make your horse looks it’s best in the presentation and bring top dollar to your pocket, but those are the main action items.