Even as the consumer, you can still sell the salesperson. We have been learning about the importance of asking questions in a selling situation in class and how effective it is. I implemented that reasoning from the point of view of the customer, instead of the sales person. From the experience that I am going to share, I learned that as the consumer you can still sell the salesperson. You can sell them by negotiating the price or probing for a deal.
During spring break, our baseball team went down to Orlando, Florida to play eight non-conference games. The first night we got down there, I was responsible for ordering pizza for the entire team. I decided to call Domino’s to order 17 large pizzas. The Domino’s salesperson seemed to not be enjoying his evening. He answered the phone in a monotone, grumpy voice. Quick side note, I am sure we all know this is not an effective way to treat a customer. I started the call with a question asking him how his night was going. He gave me a normal answer, and I preceded to relay to him that I had a big order and I asked if that was going to be okay for them at that hour of the day. He said it wouldn’t be a problem so I ordered, got the total, then asked him a key question that saved Grove City College a decent chunk of money from the order. I said, “Dave, since I am ordering such a large order from you guys tonight, are there any sort of deals or specials that you could hook me up with to save me some money?” A simple, and straight forward question. He was receptive to the question and ended up giving me a bunch of buy one get one coupons that lowered my order by almost $100.
From this experience, it showed me that you can be a customer and still sell. Also, a key tool to sell, like we have been learning in class, is to ask questions. If I wouldn’t have shown interest by asking about Dave’s well being and been a polite customer, he may have not been willing to give me a deal on my order. Also, a key thing I learned here was that you never know until you ask. I took a shot in the dark to see if he would give me a deal, and it ended up working in my favor. Moral of the story, whether you are the seller or the customer, ask questions!
BoweryJE22
Really good post Nick! That was a good call asking about any potential deals for the pizzas. Asking questions is very important as you highlighted, and I feel like you can never ask too many questions. The more questions ask, the more information you get to help you make a more logical decision. Good work!
Great post!
What I took from this is the need for asking questions an dthe impact it has on clients.
Great post Nick! Such a simple yet effective way to help out your team. Both the customer and the salesperson need to be receptive and ask questions. If you hadn’t made a quick personal question then you’re right, you may have not gotten that discount.
Nick, this post is very well written and I really like the topic you wrote about. This was a really interesting story and a new perspective that I have not ever thought about. I was once given a piece of advice called, “the power of the ask.” I think this is a great example of that and it just goes to show that it never hurts to ask a question and in this case, it really helped!