Cold Stone Creamery serves up a Triple Scoop of making Sales Effortless The professional staff of teenagers who help make this national chain of Ice Cream Parlors selling system work expertly reminded this old pro of lessons too often and too easily forgotten by most selling professionals.
Learn these three valuable lessons to make sales close easily and the average sale amount will skyrocket!
From the minute you walk into one of Cold Stones 1000 stores the smell of fresh-baked waffle cones permeate your nose and seem to extend to every living pleasure sensor in your body. While you soak in the experience of this delectable smell your ears are greeted with a fine tuned and in unison staff saying, “Welcome to Cold Stones”.
Lesson #1: Overcoming the Ultimately Crucial Unasked Objection.
Walking into a Cold Stone you’re likely to see a line of patrons being waited on by your typical looking teen. Without question triggering the negative questions; “Is this going to take too long? What type of attitude am I going to get this time?” Most of us over the age of 28 have developed the bad habit, (even if sometimes warranted), of complaining about service. Slow service and unfriendly service is all too common. The simple task of giving the positive feedback that the Cold Stone staff gives you simply for walking in the door will instantly build hopeful expectations. It will also wash away any negative expectations, and make the wait bearable, not to mention walking out is now unthinkable. How often as sales professionals do we forget that any initial meeting with a prospect starts on an uneven scale and that scale is not in our favor. Prospects have been beat up by bad sales people and usually expect the same from you. Make a point to find some way to make the person calling or walking in feel good about you and your company from the get go. If you don’t, you’re working a lot harder to close sales than you need to. What is the unasked objection? This is it; “Am I going to get good service and be treated fairly?” If you don’t answer this immediately you can expect more objections toward the end of the sales presentation.
Lesson #2: Build an experience even better than expected and see the average dollar amount of your sales grow.
I am now standing in line with hopeful expectation of a good experience and for some reason I am convinced without having ever tried their ice cream that this might just be the best ice cream I have ever tasted. Mind you I am with three kids in tow, two grandparents and my wife, all vying for attention, which would normally start me thinking of a good exit plan for when the two young ones start getting impatient with the wait. Not the case here. Not only did they make me feel great for walking in the door but now smiling teens, (yes smiling teens), are singing and not too badly, the theme songs from my favorite shows I watched when I was a kid (cleverly twisted to promote their products). Notice songs from my generation, their target market. The theme to the Flintstones, the Adams Family and others were expelled from their lips with perfect timing every time a tip was given to them. Have the lesson yet? When you’re off to a great start, keep the experience going by providing unexpected great service and attention. Don’t forget to make it fun whenever possible. Remember this and you’ll see your average sale go through the roof.
Lesson #3: Give your customer the royal treatment while presenting and treat your product or service as a priceless gift for them. You must build a presentation that demands it.
Oh, how easy it is for us to get bored with our own products or services. After hundreds, even thousands of presentations some of the natural enthusiasm you had in your relationship with your company, its product and services can get stale. Cold Stone Creamery’s presentation is foolproof because each Ice Cream Consultant must mix your choice of flavors and topping right into the ice cream in front of you on a real “cold stone” (frozen by a method unknown to me). Never before has my ice cream been handled with such care. By now you must have guessed that when it came time to pay for my ice cream that the value in my mind of this particular custom creation was far more than anything they would ask me to pay.
Closing the sale at the end of the presentation? It was not needed; they had me at “Hello”! The ice cream was some of the best I have ever tasted. But the point is, regardless of whether the ice cream was good or not, the service and experience was so good for me and my family that I will gladly drive the forty five minutes it takes to get to the closest Cold Stone Creamery the next time we are looking for some fun.
The ultimate lesson here is that once you have a qualified lead, the difference between the prospects buying from you or the next guy is all about the simple emotional triggers that make them feel good about you, your service and your product. Better not forget it or you will pay the price!
Cold Stone Creamery serves up a Triple Scoop of making Sales Effortless - To learn more about this author, visit Matthew Fiorenza's Website.
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Matthew Fiorenza
(Visit Matthew's Website)
Mr. Fiorenza has generated millions of
dollars in revenue for his clients using
his unique and highly successful “Client
Engagement Process”, a process that
guarantees your company will receive the
desired results.
Reflected in his work is more than twenty
years Direct Selling experience;
experience that ranges from selling goods
door-to-door to consumers to closing six
figure sales solutions over the telephone
to Fortune 500 companies. Matthew
Fiorenza is an expert in direct response
and database marketing. It’s this
combination of sales and marketing
experience that allows him to create
marketing campaigns that compel customers
to respond to his client’s offers, and
build the sales process for his clients
that convert those prospects to sales.
When writing copy for sales and marketing
manuals, sales letters, or business
systems, his work demonstrates a special
talent for expressing the personality,
value and purpose of his clients. Among
the services offered by Matthew Fiorenza
are, Marketing Strategy, Writing Sales &
Marketing Copy, Sales & Marketing Systems,
Training and Coaching. For more
information, contact me Mat
thew@FindingPrime.com
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