I was chatting with a woman who told me her son was a natural-born salesman. Naturally interested in hearing why she thought that I asked why. Her story:
At 3 ½ Joel asked me if he could make some money by selling lemonade in front of the house. It was a nice weekend day when a lot of people were outside walking in the neighborhood so I told him sure that would be fine. We made the lemonade, set up a small table in front of the house, made a sign and we were ready to go.
He turned to me said, “I can do it Mom, you can watch from the porch.” which of course I did.
Soon one of our neighbors, a man not known to him, came walking toward him. Instead of waiting for him to get to his little stand Joel went up to him and said,
“Hi, I’ll bet you’re thirsty”.
The man smiled and replied that actually he was.
“Well I have two kinds of cold lemonade, one is regular sweetened and the other is sugar-free. Which one would you want?”
Frankly I didn’t believe a 3 ½ year old could have done this. His mother insisted that was exactly how the conversation went and he did that time after time, never waiting but going up to people and asking the same question (creating awareness about a problem…thirst) and offering a CHOICE® Close (regular or diet).
Sometimes I think we over complicate things. It’s so simple: Find out what the customers want…and offer it to them!
Excuse me while I go ask Joel if he’ll autograph my book.