A man approaches the counter and the salesman says, “Is there anything you want?”
The customer, puzzled, looks at the young salesman and thinks, “I wouldn’t have asked that question if I were him… he ought to be able to tell what I’m looking at…”
The “cringe” continued as the customer picked up two or three blue ties from the counter, examined them for a moment, and laid down all but held one light blue tie that he had found particularly mesmerizing.
The young man, seeing his customer’s interest offers more help, “Isn’t this one a beauty?” as he shows the man a yellow tie…
The man thinks again to himself… “I hate yellow ties…”
Annoyed at the experience, he walks to a different department where he’s greeted by an older salesman who says, “Is there something I can do for you today?”
The customer thinks, “If there ever was something you could do for me… today would be the day… because I’m sick of the customer service in this store… this should be an easy sale…”
He replies to the man, “I’d like to look at dress shirts. Do you happen to have a blue, slim-fit shirt?”
The older salesman replied, “I am sorry sir, but they are not wearing that style this season, so we are not showing it.”
Furious, the man leaves the store, feeling his intelligence insulted, but is encouraged when he sees a smaller, more private store a few steps down the path.
He walks into the store where he is greeted by a man behind a counter who simply says, “Good morning, sir!”
After exchanging pleasantries, and almost too automatic for some people’s comfort, the salesman says, “Which shall I show you first, shirts or ties?”
The customer, still a bit frazzled from his earlier experience manages out, “Shirts.”
The salesman takes a moment… glances at the style of the shirt the customer is wearing, asks the man’s size, and begins laying out shirts of the very type, size, and color for which his customer was wearing and begins to paint a picture of elegance by explaining how each of the shirts was made.
Without missing a step or a single letter in his delivery, the man smoothly moves to the tie racks and lays out three beautiful blue ties that match the shirts, perfectly, calling attention to the harmony in which they sung.
In five minutes, the customer had purchased three shirts and three ties and was on his way out, packages in hand, feeling that he had found the only store he would shop at the rest of his life.
You may recognize this story from Napoleon Hill’s experience in his timeless classic, “The Law of Success”.
How often do we have similar experiences in our day-to-day lives, where we have a seemingly mindless person, offering suggestions that are so far from what we’d actually purchase that they ought to have their head checked?
Even more importantly… how often have YOU been one of those first salesmen?
Customer Intimacy
In Treacy and Wiersema’s book, “The Discipline of Market Leaders”, they define the three disciplines of a business as “Operational Excellence”, “Product Leadership”, and “Customer Intimacy”.
They argue that the market leaders in any industry understand which of these three disciplines they provide and move accordingly. (And in their book, they offer that each business is only allowed one of the principles unless they have an absorbent amount of funding.)
Customer Intimacy is defined by Treacy and Wiersema as “providing the best total solution for the customer.”
In these sorts of businesses, the organization employs the top salesman and rewards them handsomely for working with their clients.
Those team members must be incredibly skilled and listen to their customers, because of the three different disciplines, this one rewards the salesperson handsomely as that is where the company survives- the clients being deeply satisfied by the customer service that they’ve received.
This doesn’t mean that the salesman is a pushover or that the “customer is always right”, but it does mean that the salesman is going to take their time, understand the wants and needs of their customers, and make requests and invitations accordingly.
Making Invitations
Today, I’ll be discussing the topic of “How to Invite Someone to Hear a Presentation” on Influential U‘s eCoaching lesson, with John Patterson. He’s laid out a few key areas to consider when making our invitations:
- Have you crafted a compelling message? (We will be studying how to create an invitation that intrigues and motivates an audience to want to “find out more”.)
- Do you understand your audience? (We will delve into the importance of “tailoring” …pun intended… our invitations to fit the interests and breakdowns of our prospective customers.)
- How are your communication techniques? (We will explore various communication channels and techniques to present invitations.)
- How is your timing and follow-up? (We will discuss how to determine the best time to extend our invitation into a follow-up to increase the likelihood of acceptance.)
- How do you handle objections? (We will discuss how to prepare for hesitations and learn how to address them effectively.)
In an age in which Artificial Intelligence is all the rage, our soft skills may give us a better edge when it comes to exciting and enticing clients to “find out more”.
Unlike robots, we can think, reason, and feel, and when we use those senses to compel (“influence”) others to accept our ideas, offers, and advice, the entire transaction will be a smoother one, leading to a more efficient and satisfying experience not only for the customer but also for the salesman.
I invite you to take a moment and consider whether you are really “giving the people what they want” or rather “pushing them towards the yellow ties…”
…because if we’re all completely honest, blue is a much, much prettier color…
(For more information on Influential U’s Thrive Program, please visit https://influentialu.global/thrive/ and use code “30DAYS” for a free thirty-day trial of our self-guided study.)