One of the things that my father always taught me was that the first impression that you make is the most important.  If you screw that up, chances are that you will never be able to recover.

So as a business person, I have followed his advice religiously.  When I am meeting a client for the first time, I make sure to do a bit of rehearsal beforehand, and make sure to brush my teeth.  I also make sure that everything is in its place and that I am organized for my meeting.

I have also put my diploma display in a central position in the room, so that they can see my credentials immediately.  I find that most people gaze long and hard at each college diploma frame to get a grasp of my education background.  Considering that I went to one of the most prestigious schools in the country, most of them are impressed even before we sit down to chat.

For the most part, I do succeed at making a great impression the first time, but when I fail, I make sure to ask for feedback from the customer as to what I could have done better.  Most of them have given me some constructive criticism, and I apply it so that I can be more likely to succeed for the next client.

Technorati Tags: college diploma frame, diploma display

One of my friends is a photographer.  The bulk of his business centers on weddings and graduations.  From what he told me, while weddings are a lot of fun, he makes most of his money off of graduation photo services.

My friend is one of those people that you see standing at the podium that takes your picture as you are getting your diploma.  He then takes proofs from all the graduates and solicits graduates for those photos.  Also, he does specialized sittings for these photos.  He will even sell you a customized graduation picture frame for your photo.An item that has been particularly popular with some of his customers is combination diploma display.  With this display, you can put both your photo and a picture taken of you on the day of graduation.  It is very popular, and very expensive.  From what he told me, he makes about 70% profit on the frames.

From an average graduation class of 400, my friend says that he will get around 100 sales.  For his time and effort, he claims that he breaks even after about 4 sales.  As you can see, graduations are wildly profitable for him.  Of course, college graduations are only once a year, otherwise he would probably just work graduations and nothing else.

Technorati Tags: diploma display, graduation picture frame