“Do you think you could close this sale?”

A friend of mine went into a local electronic store to purchase a big screen TV. She had the money and was ready to buy. Her son was in karate and had a limited amount of time to spend on the purchase and she has a short buying cycle. She found the TV that she wanted and it was $2,000. She found a sales person to help her and gave him a credit card. As David Sandler would say, “Do you think you could close this sale?”

As I mentioned before, she was short on time, which she communicated to the sales associate. Instead of processing her order, he insisted in trying to sell her more complimentary products that would work well with the TV, she had chosen. Guess what happened? He lost the whole sale. He had her money in his hand and lost the sale. My friend said she needed to leave and would have to buy a TV another time.

I am sure the person never even knew he lost the opportunity. My friend walked away angry and said she will never go to this story again. In addition, she decided she really did not need a TV that badly so she kept her money to spend another day.

The moral of the story is “Sell Today, Educate Tomorrow.”