In the sales workforce there is one factor that decides your success or your failure. This factor is your presentation. When it comes to selling a horse, this factor is very important in the crowded online community. Thousands of thousands  horses are marketed monthly on the internet and at this time when supply heavily out weighs demand for horses, presentation should be your number one mission. Why should this be your number 1 mission? You cannot control the buyer and what he/she does. But you can control how the horse is presented to the potential horse buyer and having a quality presentation can help you in having success online of selling your horse. So what goes into a good quality online presentation of your sales horse? We will go over some areas that can help you in a better presentation.

Sale Horse Title

If you are posting your horse for sale on classified ad websites you will want to make sure that your title is very captivating. With the amount of horse being offered online in these horse classified ads websites, your horse can easily get overlooked if you give them no reason to look at your horse. Most of the websites list the horses for sale with a thumbnail and a title that links to the information about the horse. With a poorly written title, your horse will get passed by everytime. Take a look at this title for a horse for sale:

Howdy ! I’M “BUCK OWENS” Beutiful Buckskin !!

First off, I do not know what Beutiful means? You have to watch your spelling in your title. Second, this does not captivate me to look any further into buying your horse. I am sure I could have waited till I was in the specific page to find out the name of the horse. I also am not sure I needed the horse telling me hello. Now, here is what I consider to be a quality title for a horse for sale:

Beautiful Buckskin Ready For Good Home

To me, this is telling me a little about the horse I will be looking at. It is telling me that it is a buckskin, must be ready for something and is being sold to a good home. This helps to summarize the horse and weed out viewers that do not have any interest in looking at this horse. Obviously an olympic type trainer is not looking for a horse that is ready for a good home. But we do know that a family is looking. So we want to try to get families that are looking for a ready made home horse to purchase.

Pictures

Giving a potential horse buyer a good visual of your horse is so important. Use of bad quality taken pictures will hinder any chance you have a selling a horse online. If your photo is not clear and does not show the full quality of your horse, take a new photo. Taking a photo of your horse with your cell phone just shows how much you really want to sell your horse.

Try to keep the area where you are taking the photo as clean as possible. Do not take the photo with a barn halter on. That does no justice to your horse. Taking the photo with other horses around does not do any good. This only takes the eye away from your horse. This also can be in the way of showing your horse to the viewer.

Give your horse and bath and show that you are really trying to sell your horse. If you do not put the time into bathing your horse, brushing your horse, and more, you are not giving yourself any better of a chance in the sales process.

Horse Pedigree

Most all of your classified ad websites offer you the chance to add a pedigree. Take the time to fill this in as much as possible. Not doing this only puts you on the phone longer with someone requesting more information. Worse then that, it ruins a potential lead when they find out that the pedigree is not what they are looking for. If you, or your web designer, add a pedigree to your website, add as much information as you can for each of the horses listed in the pedigree.

Disciplines

Any part of your presentation should be very open and honest, especially with the disciplines. Seeing a list of disciplines for a horse like the following does not help me out much:

• Western Pleasure
• Trail Horse
• Three-Gaited
• Show
• Park
• Parade
• Great For Kids

• Field Trial
• Eventing
• English Pleasure
• Endurance Riding
• Competitive Trail
• Cattle Work

If I was to see a horse listed with these disciplines and read that the horse could do all of these at a higher end level, I would be expecting a major price tag on this horse. Do not confuse the potential horse buyer with a listing of disciplines that most horse can not accomplish. I am not saying that a horse is not capable of doing all of this, I am saying that if a horse does all of this, that horse will not be on the internet being sold. On top of that, the horse will be on the internet being sold for $6500, which leads to the next section.

Description

Most of us love a good fictional story, but not when it comes to buying a horse. Using a description that goes beyond the scope of what the horse really is can damage any thoughts you have of selling your horse on the internet. The description is a great place to give background information about the horse that will save you time from having to answer when the person contacts you in person. Listing a history of the horse, show records, medical records training records, etc. can really be helpful in getting someone to have all of the facts about the horse. Listing a description that was used for the title and disciplines above, here is what it read:

HAVE TEAMED-UP TOGETHER TO OFFER THIS GREAT HORSE TO ALL OF OUR DISCRETE AND MOST PARTICULAR CUSTOMERS, HE’S A KEEPER IN EVERYWAY, AND IS AS GOOD AS THEY COME *

***** 30 DAY MONEY BACK GAURANTEE !!! *****

*** CHECK OUT THIS GUY HE’S “FANTASTIC”***

SUPER NICE 4 YEAR OLD GELDING, THAT IS BROKE AND TRAINED BY THE BEST. HE DOES “EVERYTHING” LIKE ONE IS SUPPOSSED TO DO AND MORE! HE IS STUNNING TO LOOK AT, AND TO RIDE. HE BEHAVES LIKE YOU WANT ONE TO, AND HE IS AN EXPERT IN THE CROSS TIES. LOADS AND TRAILERS LIKE AN OLD PRO, AND BESIDES ALL THIS, HE IS AS LOVING AND FRIENDLY AS YOU COULD ASK FOR.

*** WE ARE “PROUD” TO OFFER HIM FOR SALE  WITH A 30 DAY MONEY BACK GAURENTEE, SELLER WILL FURNISH COGGINS AND HEALTH PAPERS, BUYER IS TO FURNISH TRANSPORTATION, THERE IS A 10 PERCENT RESTOCKING FEE IF HORSE IS RETURNED. AS ALWAYS “HAPPY TRAILS”

Lets look at how this does not make much sense.

First, this is being offered to popular customers.

Are they saying that anyone who goes to a website offering horses for sale is there customers?

Second, a 30 day money back guarantee and a re-stocking fee.

When you buy this horse make sure you also buy a computer that you can also re-stock. I am not for sure if re-stocking is something that is done with horses. That is as far as I will go with this statement.

Third, read this description and tell me if this type of horse is sold on the internet? Answer, NO. This type of horse is sold before there is even a chance to consider putting it on the internet.

Enough of that description. When putting together a description, be honest stating the good and the bad. Use this as a place to tell a history of the horse. Stay far away from a fiction story like this or you will be throw into a class that other frauds are in that try to take your money with online scams.

Price

Having a realistic price tag can only be accomplish by the quality of the horse and the presentation used. I have seen plenty of horse sold for price tags way beyond what the market calls for, but because the way the horse was presented, the sale was made possible. Staying with the example title, description, and disciplines used above,  here is the price tag: $6750.00. After reading the description and seeing what disciplines the horse does, I would be going along the lines of $50,000 and above. Then I get let down with a price tag of $6750. I am not telling you to raise the roof on your horse price, I am telling you to keep it in line with the way you present your horse. When I read this description and saw the rest of the information I was thinking major price tag. Then I see that price. My first thought was that the person is lying to me or that it is a scam. Stay away from this or the rest of the potential buyers will be thinking along the lines I was.

Summary

The presentation of your horse on the internet is very important in how far the potential buyer goes into signing a check. One thing you can be guaranteed: They won’t do it from seeing a horse online alone. The internet is a new avenue for researching horses for sale. All it is, and should be used for, is a means of getting a potential buyer to contact you and request more information. The presentation and how you tell the story of the horse will determine if that request is ever made.

There are other factors in presenting a sales horse online, both visually and psychology, that is not talked about here. Take what I have offered here and use it, blend it, mash it, throw it away, however you see fit. Just keep in mind that the quality of your horse alone will not sell your horse. Just because you have a great horse and you put it online does not mean your horse will be wanted by everyone, if anyone. Present the horse the best you can, with the greatest of presentations, and you will increase your chances of someone becoming interested in your horse.

Mash it over.

God Bless,
Rob

 Email To A Friend  |  Print This Page

Tags: equine marketing, horse consulting, horse marketing, horse sales —