Less than a Minute Life Lesson-2407 Character and Competency

Sales Lesson on a Rainy Day

Way back in 1997, I was running a sales training franchisee centre in Chennai. My office was located in a prime area in a commercial complex. In those days we didn't have the concept of Coffee Vending machine, hence we used to order for Tea/coffee from a local tea shop. 

The tea shop had boys who used to deliver tea/coffee as per the preference of the commercial establishments, in case we have guest, we will call the tea shop and place the order. 

On a heavy rainy day, my team couldn't go to the field and hence we were chatting in the office. We had young Tea boy, who used to relate with us well and he was also fast & prompt in serving us.

On that rainy day, we did consume more tea & coffee than our normal quantity. Since, it was raining heavily we decided to have our evening tea early & hence our order was delivered immediately despite of heavy rains.

In the evening the tea boy came to collect the flask and said “we are making hot Bajis, Vada, Pakoda etc, why don't you try it”, the way he said it in Malayalam Tamil accent was really attractive and team felt it was a good climate to have something hot and hence we decided to have our all-time favourite dish, Baji.

At the end of the day, the tea boy came with a small diary to note down our daily consumption to close the account for the day & obtain our signature. 

When we were checking the accounts, the bill was more than our daily average and in fact it was double than what we spend on a normal day. 

The tea boy made a statement telling that "if I visit your office twice, I get X Business, but if I visit 3-4 times my business doubles, apart from that I should come and tell you about our daily evening snacks too".

I said "for next two days don't visit my office", the tea boy said “sir, tomorrow morning if I don't come by 11 you will call my shop”, in a way he was right. 

He also said, "if we keep visiting the customer regularly, he will also feel like having more tea and if we keep talking about our snacks customers will also be tempted to try some snacks" and left the place. 

  

His words made lot of sense in terms of sales

1. Meet your customer regularly.
2. Make it is a point to meet him on a rainy day (During his crisis).
3. Talk about what you do other than your core bus.
4. Match your allied services to customers’ needs.
5. Never hesitate to propose, new products or services.
6. Be confident when you talk.
7. Rainy days are business days .
8. Anyone can teach you how to sell, provided you are willing to learn.
9. Upselling and cross selling are natural ways to improve sales 
10. Ask for business by creating interest

Unforgettable sales lessons on a rainy day for an Ace sales training institute sales team from a humble tea boy

M.L. Narendra Kumar