Published in the Charleston Regional Business Journal
Selling is child's play
Let's start with the basic fact that I
can't sell anything.
I once sold a car for $2,500 below what
the buyer was willing to pay. He gave me a look of disbelief and walked around
the car again to make sure there weren’t hidden problems.
I'm so far removed from the sales
process, in fact, that I can hardly buy sensibly.
I go to the grocery store and don't try
to figure out if the 24-oz. box is a better value per ounce than the 12-oz.
size. Who cares? Do I need 12 or 24 of
it?
So I don't do sales. That much we know.
What's amazing is how much I've been learning about sales lately—and from the
most unlikely source: kids.
Take the Girl Scouts and their cookies.
I go to the Piggly Wiggly and there they are out front with their mountains of
colorful boxes. Peanut Butter Do-Si-Dos, S'mores, Trefoils and those … yes,
I'll take two more boxes … Thin Mints. I defy anyone to pass them without
making a purchase.
How do they do it? I don't even like
S'mores and I have three boxes of them. A friend of mine whose daughter was in
the “Cookie Corps” (she herself was a second lieutenant on the force) told me
once it's because they sell them only at certain times of the year and even
then usually by advance order. Pretty sneaky if you ask me. I buy them because
I’m afraid I won’t see them again for a year.
And then there's the PTA wrapping paper
drive. Whose bright idea was it to hold a fundraiser in which all of the schools
sell the same thing at the same time in the same neighborhoods? Still—and I don't want to scare anyone here—I have
enough paper to last through Christmas 2024.
Persistence
or too cute to resist?
I think a lot of the sales success of
kids comes down the "good cause with angelic face" strategy. There's
just no way to say “no” to that eager young face at the front door.
But it also has to do with wanting
something badly enough to work hard to get it.
I have to admit I can relate to some of this. During my senior year in
high school our class raised money to go on a cruise. We sold everything from
Christmas trees to mace spray to candy bars. We would have sold our
grandmothers, but they were part of our customer base.
What I can relate to is the motivation
aspect. We wanted to go to the Caribbean, therefore we sold everything we could
get our hands on. Nowadays the kids who show up on my doorstep, well, I don't
know exactly what their motivation is. Maybe they're moved to help raise funds
so the PTA can buy new playground equipment. Maybe. I'm thinking they're
getting back at the adults for making them eat strained peas when they were
babies.
Last week I observed a new sales
tactic. It's called "I don't have any change." I bought two pocket
calendars and a key holder, none of which I have any use for, but it was for a
good cause. I think.
The total came to $7.50. I gave the kid
a ten. He looked at me with wide eyes and said, "Miz Watson, I don't have
any change, but you can get this brush set for just $2.50 more and that'll be
ten even. Or if you get this recipe box and two decorated switchplates, that'll
be another $7.50 and then this box of cashews on the back cover here is $5.00,
for an even twenty."
Made sense to me. That kind of logic I can
buy.