Interesting character #2, I shall call her Cleveland.
Currently I'm working in commissioned sales, which is a story unto itself, but we'll save that for another day. One of the things that anyone in this environment has to learn how to do is to overcome objections. Nearly every person will say that he or she is "just looking" and it is the responsibility of the successful salesperson to overcome that objection in any number of ways. There are entire books written on the subject and the management of any retail establishment will argue that there isn't an objection that can't be overcome. Well, none of these folks met Cleveland.
So my afternoon began like any other. A customer walked through the door and I waited for her to walk in and get acclimated before I approached her. I said hello and asked how she was doing, she replied in kind. I asked her what brought her into the store today and she mentioned that her sister had ordered some end tables made by our company and she'd like to see what they looked like. Everything seemed to be moving along swimmingly. I asked her questions about the tables, even showed her a few. We found some that weren't exactly what her sister had described, but she really liked them just the same. The set had a square cocktail table with inlaid black marble and matching end tables. Perfect. Exactly what she needs.
"Would you like me to go ahead and write those up for you?"
"Oh, I'm from out of town, I was just looking really."
"Oh, where are you from?"
"Cleveland."
Since the Easter holiday is this weekend I assumed that she might be in town to visit family or something of the sort so I asked what brought her into town.
"I'm visiting a friend who is in the prison here."
I bet no one ever anticipated that objection. Needless to say I didn't close that sale. You just can't make this shit up.
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4 comments:
I can honestly say that I used to know NO ONE with friends or family in prison. Since living here, it seems that half the people I know have a friend or relative in the slammer.
Sigh...
I will NEVER forget my first sale at a jewelry store that I worked at. The customer had the ring in mind that he wanted and he stated that he was buying for someone else, I believe it was an aunt. We were trying to determine the correct size so I was asking the typical height weight questions when he stopped me cold with a very glib "Well, I guess it doesn't matter since she's dead".
It turns out that his aunt had always wanted this particular ring and since she never managed to acquire one when she was alive they were going to send her six feet under with one.
Again....you can't make this shit up.
It had to be one of those situations where you're just hoping the expression on your face doesn't give away what's going on inside your head.
So charming! I used to work in retail but apparently toy sales lack interesting stories.
Miss you lady!
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