Today I had the opportunity to stop in to a few of the businesses that are in the center of town. I just moved into this quiet little neighborhood. The population is about 3800 with an average household income of 60k. Not too shabby for this area. In town center there are about 5 stores closed and available for either purchase or rental. I went in to the pharmacy and they are always willing to honor any requests I have. I went to my bank and my account representative was all too happy to see me. (He was probably hoping I was making a deposit). He is always happy to see me and others as well, willing to fill any requests at any giving time.
I then went into a small store that sells (or should I say, displays ) mattresses and dinettes with a couple other miscellaneous pieces. This is the type of business that sales must be made and all appropriate steps to making a sale must be met. The owner must be very wealthy cause he did not take the time to introduce himself nor ask my name or even try to qualify me in anyway. He was way to happy to push catalog sales, he was proud of his catalog collection. There's an important rule I always abide by ...Sell What You Have In Stock. The customer gets immediate gratification and you get paid at the time of delivery. The owner, needless to say, let me out the door with no info about his business, such as a brochure or a card, nothing. Upon me going back in to the store and introducing myself, he explained that he did not pursue me because I stated: "I wasn't really looking for anything." WOW, if only I still had a dime left from each one of my customers that had told me that: "They were just looking," I would be rich off of that dime right now because GOD knows I already spent the commission I made on the sale to those who told me: "They were just looking or not interested."
Any body that walks in to your door is a potential customer and should be treated as such. What sense does it make to go to work or to spend money on a sign, a building, inventory, and advertising and then not take advantage of each opportunity. If he had took the time to gather some basic information, qualify me, land me on a product, show true concern as to wanting to help me get what I wanted, it's just possible he would of either made a sale then or could of given me a call later when he got in exactly what I was looking for. This person started pitching me a product that I was just walking by.
When it comes to someone saying: "I'm just looking," keep in mind Buyers are Liars, always were, always will be. Everybody is just looking until a professional salesperson steps up and directs them to a purchase, presents them with the product features and how it would benefit them and then asks them to buy. The person I bought a new mattress set from that day, took the steps needed to make a sale and did.
The easiest thing to do when your business isn't doing well is to blame it on something else. Why is it everyone always says it is the economy? Because then it makes it look like it is out of their control. So for all you that can't own up to your shortcomings, you keep blaming the economy especially when the last person to walk out your door, just went down the street and made a purchase. Maybe the economy will pick back up for you and you can go back to being a Sales Clerk instead of working your craft, which should be: A Professional Sales Person. Anybody can stand there and take orders in a good economy. Also anybody can sell to a laydown. ( a laydown is a person who buys anything at any price at any time from anyone). In a bad economy there isn't very many laydowns and salespeople actually have to sell. There's nothing like working on a sales floor, the rush you get when you hear the words: "I'll take it." In fact, there is only one thing better to hear and that is: "I'll take that also." Unless you hear: : "We'll go ahead and order that for them also." Those words are praise, letting you and everybody else know that you did your job.
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