So a while back my husband and I were purchasing wood floors for our house. It had been a long time coming. Who would of thought to put white carpet in a house with three boys? We had been shopping around for a few weeks and went into a local store and found some samples that we liked. The sales guy was great. He was Super patient with us especially since we had 3 boys wanting to run around and touch everything. I noticed what a great job he did connecting with us by talking about his son too. He offered to come out and take measurements and bring the samples so we could see what the carpet looked like with our furniture and walls.
We set up the appointment for him to come out and take measurements. When he came in he didn’t seem like the same happy sales guy we had met on the showroom floor. Something had changed in just a few days. He seemed like he was going through something and had a lot on his mind. We looked at the samples, he measured all the areas we were changing and seemed annoyed when asked which wood we were thinking about purchasing. He sits at our dining room table and begins to write up a quote. I put my two cents in about the floors I liked. However I let my hubby make the final buying decision.
So I started dinner and did what I needed to for the night but I could hear him talking with Aaron about the quote. Aaron is a dove (kind), probably an owl (analytic) too, so he likes to take his time and think about things. He is quite and looking at the quote; and I could tell he was processing.
Then bam…the sales guy starts going into this story about how he has a kid and needs this sale, blah blah blah. Well the eagle (direct) in me was about to make that goofball sales guy my prey! DUDE-I’m not really interested in why you need the sale! However, I knew Aaron would make a good decision and I would be okay. What really upset me was that he was making the sale about him when it should have been about us! I mean, we have a mortgage and three boys and bills we have to pay too. This was going to be a big purchase. I needed this to be all about whether or not those floors were going to make me happy not about whether or not he can send his little boy to college!
I wonder how many times when we are selling that we make the sale about us, when it should be all about the customer. We need to think about how the “sale” of birthday party is going to make Jordan the happiest kid in the world! Or how putting on an amazing group event will make the coordinator look like a hero when their Christmas party is just awesome! We need to remember it’s NEVER about us! We say the same thing in social media, it is all about the people who follow us and engage with us, what are their needs? What do they want? How is it going to benefit them?
I know you are dying to know if we bought those floors from this guy. Here’s the crazy wrinkle in this story. My kind husband, Aaron signed the contract. A few hours later we saw a news story that the company filed for bankruptcy and had several lawsuits against them because they had not delivered on flooring that had been sold! So to add fuel to the fire this guy simply lied to us about being able to even sell us flooring that we could actually have delivered and installed in our home! I knew that something was hanging over his head when he showed up at our home so completely different then thy guy we met in the store. We backed out of the deal.
