Throughout this past summer, I had the fantastic experience of working/managing a new location of a local coffee shop. While working there, I experienced first hand how to sell and to sell well. Unfortunately, my boss was very busy at the time (she was starting up 2 other locations at the same time) and ended up not continuing the location I worked at once I left for school. There are many lessons I found myself learning through this experience, and since it was my “first job,” I had a huge emotional attachment to the store.
In a small farmer-style town with the downtown consisting of a motorcycle bar, an ammo shop, and one boutique, a hipster ice cream/coffee shop was not expected. However, despite my boss’s absence due to busy-ness, I made sure to get to know the community. You see, in a town this size, relationships with people are EVERYTHING. It is very important to introduce yourself to the other business owners in town and even to partner up with them during certain events. My boss was kind enough to trust me with essentially the entire business (besides holding the purse). This included building relationships in the community, one of my favorite aspects of the job.
While my experience in sales this past summer is not quite what people think of, I think to be able to read the community and adapt your business model to it is extremely important. In this case, knowing customers by name and remembering what “their usual” is helped the shop I run to maintain a stream of people. While the location was bad (ultimately causing it to close), I am so thankful for the sales experience I gained while running it.
I hope to make this a series and recall all the fun stories I had as a way of recording them so they can never be forgotten.
BoweryJE22
Relationships are a huge part of a business that I think many sales people cut short. I know it makes a huge difference to me if I am a repeat customer and employees start to remember my preferences and name. I think this element is often overlooked and one that I think is essential, especially in a small business.
I can say from personal experience than a personal relationship in selling is huge. The feeling you get when an employee remembers your name and other things about you is fantastic, and certainly sets up a returning customer to becoming a brand ambassador for your business.