A Sales Tip You Can Use: Don't Step On Your Buyer's Toes!

A Sales Tip You Can Use: Don't Step On Your Buyer's Toes!

I’m getting really impatient with articles and their authors that tease you with a great title and then fail to deliver even a single tip we can use.

Yesterday, I read a promising piece about staying positive. It did a fine job of developing the problem of creeping negativity, but it didn’t offer a single antidote.

So, let me disclose up front, something you can use every day in selling. It’s a simple idea, but powerful:

Stay out of the way of genuine buyers!

These are folks that enter a typical retail store or who call you on the phone and they’re MOTIVATED. Obviously in a buying mood, they’re scanning your wares or your mind for something to take home.

All you have to do is be pleasant, and be available to answer their occasional questions.

But don’t ask them where they’re from, or if you can help them to find something.

If they’re motivated, or they want something from you, they’ll talk.

Just stay pleasantly within range, so when that small buying question comes up, such as, “Do you have these boots in size 12?” you’ll be Johnny on the Spot with an affirmative reply or a suitable alternative.

Speaking of boots, I was shopping for a pair because my Lama lizards were cracking from a little too much exposure to the elements. It was time for a trade-in, so I found a retailer through the web and spent a half hour on the highway to try on some replacements.

The salesman HOVERED, something I can’t stand. He pestered me with questions. I couldn’t get a second to myself to calmly evaluate the pair I was settling on.

Snapped right out of a definite buying mood, I saddled up and sped off.

No sale for that guy!

The following day, I selected a better outfit where the buying tone was just right, and so was the selection, and at this very moment I’m wearing the results on my feet.

Here’s the tip-off.

If the buyer is scanning your inventory with laser eyes let him take the lead, and his good, old time.

Develop your sensitivity.

Recognize when further involvement on your part will only result in stepping on your buyers’ toes!