How much are those Shoes? “Nothing is bought, until its sold”
By: Oscar Egbogu
Tags: Sales, Customer Service

How much are those Shoes? “Nothing is bought, until its sold”

I came to have a healthy respect for the art of selling. If you come into contact with a good salesperson, you will invariably buy from them. Conversely, if the encounter is with a not so good sales person, the chances of you buying the product are dramatically reduced. . Broadly speaking, it always stands to reason that the better the sales effort or process, the greater the chance of achieving a sale.

One particular incident springs to mind and I want to use this it to illustrate my point that; “nothing is bought until its sold” This incident involved my sister who lives in Port Harcourt (Nigeria). One weekend she visited Enugu with her husband and she called my en route to ask me if I could take her shopping in Enugu on Saturday afternoon. Just for some context, my sister is a medical practitioner and mother with an infectious optimistic and happy nature.

She is blessed enough with a lifestyle that sees her routinely travel to Europe and America and is as likely to be found shopping in London as she would be shopping in Nigeria.

With my sister at an event in PH

So I picked her up at the appointed hour and we drove into town. Our first stop was New Haven. As we drove along the main high road, a handbag in a shop window caught her eye and she excitedly yelled for me to pull over so we can visit the shop.

As we entered the shop, we were greeted by two salesgirls. In that moment I made a commitment to myself to be a non active observer in this potential transaction. Given my sisters obvious initial enthusiasm, these sales girls were surely going to make record sales this afternoon and I was not in any way going to interfere in this exchange.

As she examined the handbag, her smile beamed wider and all you could hear her exclaim is “Its so nice” The cost of the handbag was ₦75,000 ($195 approx) My sister also noticed a pair of matching shoes. The price for the shoes was ₦85,000 ($220 approx). My sister is now inquiring about payment methods. (Buying Signal) whether they had a PoS (Pont of Sale) payment system etc.(Another Buying Signal) She also asked whether they would do a discount for her bulk purchase. (Yet another Buying Signal)

The Salesman in me was thinking; these sales girls have got to close this deal surely. There were buying signals all over this potential transaction. Some moments later, we were walking back to the car. My sister still happy but somehow couldn’t quite strike up a relationship with the sales girls that would enable her to buy goods she was clearly intent on buying.

The sales girls had failed to close the deal They failed to entertain any discussion on discounts and didn’t even attempt to call the shop owner to see if there was room for negotiation, which is quite typical in such circumstance.My sis was still in a great mood even complimenting the shops products even if she was not able to make the purchase.

We got in the car and drove some 50 yards before another shop caught her eye and we stopped, parked and entered the shop.

This shop sold household items; fine dining plates etc. She carried the same happy mood into this store and seemingly came across more responsive sales staff. 10 mins after we entered that shop, we were loading boxes of serving dishes into the car. My sister has spent ₦40,000 ($105 approx) on serving plates.

She felt so happy that she had made some purchases and as we entered the car to depart, she made a casual remark; “They were so nice and they even put on the Gen” (Generator for Electricity). I didn’t mention that there was a power cut in New Haven (Not unusual) that afternoon so the shops that we visited were rather dark inside. The hardware store lit up the shop the moment we walked in. That and their friendly manner easily helped them close a sale.

The moral of the story, is that the fashion store with all its big ticket items could so easily have achieved a sale if only the sales girls had switched on to a potential customer walking into their store. Or simply recognized the buying signals. As I said in the earlier; “Nothing is bought until its sold”