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Do You Make It Easy For People To Buy From You

Written by: James Yuille

Article Overview: What do I have to do to spend my money?

Do You Make It Easy For People To Buy From You

What do I have to do to spend my money?

I went shopping for clothes today.

My plan was to buy a navy blue sports coat, a couple of shirts and ties and maybe a pair of shoes.

Understand that as a sales trainer, I want people to ask me to spend my money. I'm not going to buy unless asked. Unfair you say. Maybe but here's the thing... Unless you ask me to buy, I won't.

How hard would it be for me to spend maybe $1,000? As it turned out, very. Let me recount what happened.

Store 1. A well-known CBD menswear store. Actually they were having a sale - up to $200 off sports coats. I went to the display, took a coat off the rack and put it on. A size too small. A well dressed, well-groomed senior staff member came up and said there was one in the next size and gave it to me. I tried it on and it fit and looked good.

Reduced to $399 and there's me with cash in my pocket... I said I wanted to look at shirts so he put the coat back and left me alone. taking two shirts I went to the tie rack and picked out two nice ties. Then I took them back to the coat rack and held them next to the coat.

Talk about giving out buying signals!

I was completely ignored. All they had to do was to say, "Great selection - they go together really well. Was there anything else you wanted?" and over $700 would have found its way into their cash register.

I left the store with my wallet intact and no new clothes.

Store 2. Drove from the CBD to a suburban mall. I knew the store I was going to; found the sport coat rack, tried one on as two staff watched. I looked at myself in the mirror, went to get a shirt and tie and held them up in the mirror too. No one spoke to me. I was there for ten minutes and again left with my wallet intact. Of note was that there were no other customers in the store at the time.

Store 3. A little more down-market this one - a guy with a purple open-necked shirt hanging outside his pants (looked like the host from a reality TV show like "Idol"). He saw me hovering around the coats and asked me if I knew my size. I told him and he showed me where they were, giving me four different colours and styles to try on. He was really helpful, explaining fabrics and what to wear with them. I politely told him that they weren't quite what I was looking for so what he did next was to refer me back to store 2 where he said they had "better brands"

No sale. Three times I'd tried to spend several hundred dollars. As I write, it's still in my wallet.

No one asked me why I was buying the clothes; what I was planning to wear them with or where I was planning to go when wearing them. No one attempted to get my name for their list. No one bothered to ask me to buy. It's so simple, it's annoying.

Please understand, I don't want to be sold, I want to buy but I sometimes need help. Here's the message: If you don't ask, you won't get.

Brought to you in the interests of better customer service, more sales, more repeat business and more referrals.

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Re: Quote of the Day - "The only people witho - Thanks for sharing this Evan, there are some very powerful quotes in there, I particularly like this one:- You are now at a crossroads. This is your opportunity to make the most important decision you will ever make. Forget your past. Who are you now? Who have you decided you really are now? Don't think about who you have been. Who are you now? Who have you decided to become? Make this decision consciously. Make it carefully. Make it powerfully. regards, Mal.
Re: e-Commerce and e-Payment providers - When I came back to Japan in 1999 I sometimes used to ask my students if they would buy anything on the Internet and at that time most thought it was too risky. I'd encourage them to try by using well known sites such as Amazon.co.jp and also pointed out that using a credit card on a reputable site was safer than using it at a restaurant. I can't remember the last time I had that discussion or when the "tipping point" occurred in Japan. To answer your other question, I use Paypal for several reasons: 1. Brand familiarity 2. Easy to use 3. Free to withdraw 50,000yen+ to my Japanese bank account - a huge benefit (but maybe other systems also offer that...?) 4. Easy to cancel subscriptions On the down side, their transaction fees are quite costly, they are difficult to contact and when disputes arise you can sometimes lose even when you can prove via your tracking service that the disputed item was "delivered" to the customer's address!
Re: Domain name sugestion - Hi Anelly, Support-Box.com sounds very good to me. Easy and catchy.
Re: What is Email marketing? - You can use something like constant contact to keep in touch with your clients or customers. I find it's a better tool for providing knowledge and staying connected, versus selling -- though a small ad at the bottom of your newsletter doesn't hurt. I wrote email marketing campaigns for companies in a past career life (before becoming a coach), and the response rates were much better when the newsletter was more like news and less like a sales pitch. For instance, write an article about a new study showing how healthy running is, and then offer a discount coupon for running shoes on the bottom of the email. People are bombarded with ads and they are usually boring. Make your email more interesting and you'll improve response rates, which are typically quite low for email. You can build an opt-in list by providing some value first. For instance, get a free (fill in the blank) when you subscribe to this newsletter. Make sure it's something fairly small and easy for you to deliver. Or attend events, offer a contest, etc. "win a ___ and get a free newsletter." That's a great way to capture a lot of emails. Also make sure your subscribers can easily opt out, as nothing is more annoying than being caught on someone's list who has made it impossible to opt out.
Delegating - Good info and interesting list. Easy to see how the authority or power is slowly passed to the person - the secret would be knowing WHEN to move to the next step. I like to avoid people who are stuck at the #1 level. Chris


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