Up selling skills

As a sales person, the first responsibility is to make the first sale. Then, to make the second sale and so on.

The best example that I have come across on Upselling goes like this...( it is an extract from the book Entrepedia by Prof. Nandini Vaidyanathan, a Mentor and Coach to over 500 mentees, including this author).

Quote...

A week before Christmas, the Wal Mart store in Denver, USA was gearing up for the big Christmas sale. It had hired close to a hundred people in Sales and the HR Manager was exhausted. Just then a  young sardar boy walked in saying he was looking for a job. The HR Manager said that he had just finished hiring and there was no vacancy.

But the boy was persistent and would not take no for an answer. That's when Sam Walton walked in and the boy went up to him and said,"Sir, I have just come from India and I need a job. I will come at whatever time you ask me to come tomorrow and I will work till I'm required to. At the end of the day, if you are not happy with my performance, you don't have to pay me a cent. But please give me the one chance.".

Walton perhaps saw some spark in the boy, so he asked him to report at 8.15 the next morning and work till 8.15 at night.

The next night Walton went in search of the boy and found him wrapping the shift up. So he asked him: "Young man, how was your day ? How many sales did you make ? "The boy diffidently replied:" It was ok , I made one sale."

Walton said:" On an average, each of our sales people makes 30-45 sales per shift. Just before Christmas, it is as high as 65-70. If you have managed to make only one sale pre-Christmas, you are obviously not good enough. I'm sorry but I don't think we can hire you."

Walton was about to walk away when something made him pause and ask: "What was the value of the sale?".

The boy replied :" One hundred thousand dollars."

Now it was Walton's turn to do a double-take. He asked the boy: "One hundred thousand dollars ? What did you sell? ".

The boy said,"Oh ! A customer came in wanting to buy a small fishing hook, I sold him a set of large ones and some bait. Then I told him, 'Since you bought so much of fishing equipment, why don't you go upstream and catch some really big ones?'

The customer said that it was a very good idea but he didn't have a boat. So I told him, 'That is not a problem, we have a lovely boat,and we can sell it to you.Then I told him, Now that you have the boat, why don't you go to the woods that the river leads to and camp the night? We will even throw in some Budweiser Beer for you '.

The customer said,  he loved the idea, except that he did not have any camping equipment. So I told him not to worry, that we have some wonderful ones that we could sell him. He looked at all that he had shopped and said," I have done so much shopping, how will I carry all of this with me?' and I told him ' Don't you worry, we have an awesome 4X4 truck and we would be more than happy to sell it to you ".

Walton then asked him :" Are you seriously trying to tell me that a man came to buy fishing hook and you sold him a boat, camping equipment and a truck?"

The boy replied: No sirjee, the customer came in saying he had a headache and wanted a pill for it. I told him fishing was a good way to get rid of the headache.

What was it this boy saw that the other hundred people in the store did not ?

The boy saw opportunity.

Did he only see the opportunity ? No, he also cashed on it.

Did he only cash on it ? No, he even created it !

Unquote...

Do you have any such incident to share with us ?

Posted in: Upsell, Wal Mart