Working in a toy store, it is my job to constantly be selling toys, as well as selling the store. We are known for our fun-loving, high energy, smiling faces and that is a huge reason why Playthings etc. is so successful. Recently there was a man who came into the store and, to my surprise, was actually looking to sell me a product! I was very surprised by this when he walked over to me, shook my hand, introduced himself, and started rambling. This man did not take nearly enough time to let me explain to him that I am an employee and have no power over whether we sell his product or not. As a result of this, once he finished rambling on about his product, I simply told him that I had no power over this situation and I would have to get my boss. When I went back to the office, I was very clear to them that this man did not care about who he was selling to, he just cared about what he was selling. When my boss came out to talk to him, the man repeated the same rambling and, as a result, we didn’t buy from the man. The salesman clearly had a script to follow and had no personal relations and connections to us. This lost our interest and our desire to even consider the product, no matter how nice it could have been.
Ethan David 
ChloeGuntrum 4 thoughts on “Bad sales experience @ Playthings”
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Interesting how sales people like this even exist in today’s world with the ability to simply look someone up or write a review about someone. Frustrating sales experiences not only ruin your day but also ruin your business. Also isn’t just the worst when pushy target people who are likely not decision makers and try to get a quick sale with someone who may not be knowledge or who is new to the job. Great story and you handled the situation well.
Talking too much is a very easy problem to run into when in sales. I found even when selling my own product that if i didn’t tell them everything I knew they would trust me enough to keep them on the phone. However, I started to realize that wouldn’t work.
This is an interesting experience and example of what not to do. As we learned very clearly from Coach DiDonato, it is essential to conduct pre-call analysis and know who you are going to be selling to ahead of time. The fact that this toy salesman did not do this and made no additional effort to find out who he was speaking with when he got there, it cost him the sale. When salespeople are only concerned about what they are selling and neglect the who, it sends the message that they are only trying to make the money and do not genuinely care about how they could add value to the potential customer.
This is one of the biggest issues that salespeople have. Rambling on too much and not letting the customer feel like they matter and focusing solely on the product could lose you sales. It is essential to focus on the person and not strictly the product, and building trust and relationships between he seller and customer is the most important thing.