What’s YOUR Best Sale Ever?
Great Lesson Here
I read a very interesting story today about the manager in a jewelry store who asked this question of his salespeople. After hearing some real big numbers, one salesperson said, “My best sale was for $49.00.” What?
He went on to say, “One day a lady came into the store and, after a lot of serious deliberation, bought a necklace for $49.00, and financed it. She was so pleased with that necklace. She obviously showed it to everyone she could because over a period of several weeks, one person after another came into the store and made purchases of their own, and each time telling me this customer had sent them. One lady who came in spent over $5,000 could not say enough about the good friend who had sent her to the store.”
He continued, “The lady who made the original $49.00 purchase came into the store every week and made a payment on her necklace. On the day she made the final payment, she looked around for quite some time and, once again, after some obvious inner debate, she bought a bracelet, this time spending $145.00. She hasn’t spent even $200.00 in our store, but she has sent customers in to see me personally who have purchased merchandise totaling over $10,000. That $49.00 sale was absolutely my best sale so far in my career! I’d love to have more of those.”
My Comment:
Never “look down” on a small sale; you never know where it will lead. When you place the best effort in the interest of your cutomer, your reward will surely come, sometimes from where you least expect it.
April 12th, 2009 at 12:57 pm
I learned a lesson years ago to never prejudge a person when selling.I assumed because of the customer’s appearance that she wanted her selection of jewelry in electroplate instead of 14K. She interrupted me and said only 14K and paid cash. She sent many people to me and all paid me in cash. My sales with this group totaled over $25,000. I learned a lesson to never prejudge again. You never know what sales will come your way from a single purchase.
April 12th, 2009 at 9:36 pm
Greetings everyone,
My best sale ever was seemingly disconnected to what I was doing, but in fact was directly connected.
At the time I was a Retail Training Consultant for a four branch jewellery group and had arrived in-store one day for a shortburst refresher training session on customer retention. I was prepared, a little early and just waiting for the all the delegates to arrive when a harassed ‘father’ towing a 12 year old son with him came in to the shop and was clearly upset and fussing (do men fuss?) Anyway, there was no-one to help so immediately and clearly as I was doing ‘nothing’ he made a beeline for me.
He was angry because his son had bought the wrong thing for his wife (another story there) but more so, the customer thought that ‘we’ had given the wrong advice and wanted a full refund on the sale item. I couldn’t get a word in edgeways to explain that I did not work there, but then just let the transaction develop. I spoke him down as it were, and because I was familiar with the stock, showed him and son other and alternative bracelets. JUST NOT INTERESTED. I explained that I was not an employee of the store, that I was a training consultant and that I would get management assistance for him. His attitude then changed completely, he couldn’t understand how I ‘knew so much’ about jewellery and stones etc, but I explained that it was my business to as I was a trainer and did public and private product training courses etc and so on. To cut a long story short, he took the cuppa tea I offered, and proceeded to ask me questions about jewellery, stones, precious settings, advice on rings, wedding sets, chains, the consignment counter, watches and so on - it seemed we went around the whole store while waiting for the manager. Interspersed with this were many questions about the retail courses I ran, what other work I did, and so on too. He also wondered out loud why I had stepped in to help him when I did not work there. I must have answered appropriately and thank heavens that it was in the one store with whom I had an excellent relatioship with management (long term training service etc)
I have to leave out a lot of information now, otherwise I will never get finished with this story!
Suffice it to say, the customer was on a ’settling in vacation’ as he had just moved up from Capetown to Johannesburg and was filling in time while waiting to take up a position as the National Operations Manager of a 40-store multibranch franchise jewellery chain. Little did I realise at the time that in fact it was a presentation I was giving, or a job interview of sorts.
I did not know who he was at the time, but was to go on to make over R500k in training sales and recruitment consulting with ‘his’ company.
And all because I used a bit of intitiative and stepped in to assist a Dad and son, who still go to that jewellery store every time they can to purchase the kinds of items they do not stock. I am sure they have also sent people there too, strange as it would seem.
Sadly he emigrated to Australia just two short years later!
My best sale ever … and by defaut as it were!
Cheers
Lestie
Jo’burg S A