Hi, my name is James Shepherd.
Today I’m going to talk to you about how to walk into a business to make a sale.
It’s really simple, but you know what, one of the things that just cracks me up about
sales training is that sales training is usually made by sales people, who used to be really
good at selling 20 years ago and now they make these like big philosophical ideas.
Don’t get me wrong.
I love it.
I’m a big fan of Tom Hopkins and Brian Tracy, even Grant Cardone, some of his stuff I like.
I like it, but the funny thing about it is that a lot of times it’s just not very practical
and there is so much that they leave out.
I was actually just out in the field this last week and one of the things that really
struck me that is interesting is how much there is to know, just how to walk into a
business.
What do you do when you walk in and there are customers there?
Do you interrupt?
Do you just stand around?
Do you stalk the manager?
What do you do?
When the customer leaves and there is a customer behind you, do you let them go?
What do you do?
It’s really, really interesting.
I’m going to talk to you today about this.
I’ll be honest with you.
There are a lot of things I’m terrible at.
You can ask my business partner.
You can ask my wife.
There are a lot of weaknesses that I have.
When it comes to walking into a business, I doubt you will find very many people that
are better at it than I am honestly.
Of the businesses that I’ve walked into in the last week, not one of them has asked
me to leave.
Not one of them has been even negative.
Not one single business that I’ve walked into out of the 150 or so, none of them have
been negative about it at all.
I do know how to do this really well.
Let me tell you what I do and just kind of share my experience of walking into a business
and how I make it work.
The first thing I do is when I walk into the business, I always, always, always, walk into
a business like a customer.
I get myself in the mindset of a customer always.
The first thing that I say is always something that a customer would say without fail.
So when I walk in, I’m not carrying anything.
I have my one hand in my pocket where I have my business cards so I can quickly pull a
business card out and my other hand out of my pocket and I walk in.
When I walk in, I first walk in and look around.
Let me tell you why this matters.
This is so important.
It’s a little detail.
Boy, it really, really matters.
When you walk in and start looking around, guess what the manager is thinking.
They think that you are a potential customer that is looking around, and they get into
this mode where they want to come to you and they want to try to sell you on one of their
products and services.
It just puts them in a very different mindset.
If you walk in super confident, and you just walk right up to the counter, “Hi, I’m
James Shepherd.
I’m here to sell you something.”
That doesn’t work nearly as well.
I walk in and almost kind of like sheepish a little bit.
I just kind of walk in and I’m looking around and everything.
Then usually I wait for them to say something first.
Usually they are going to say, “Can I help you with something?
Are you trying to find something?”
When they say that, I always say exactly the same thing.
I say, “Wow, this is really a nice place.
I didn’t even realize this was here.
I don’t think I’ve ever been in here before.
How long have you guys been in business?”
I start with something that a customer would say.
That kind of gets a conversation going about the business.
I still haven’t even pulled my business card out yet.
They don’t even know I’m there to sell them something.
They think I’m a customer.
We start to have a little bit of rapport and then it is very difficult for them to switch
gears from that to saying, “Get out of here.
We don’t want anything.”
You know.
I talk to them.
I’m talking about literally 10 seconds of small talk.
“How long have you been here?”
“About 15 years.”
“Wow, that’s awesome.”
Then I transition right into me.
“Well, I actually just have a really quick question for you.”
They are like, “Okay.”
“I have a business right downtown here in Altoona.”
I go through my little spiel.
“I have a business right downtown here in Altoona.”
I talk about that and then, “I just wanted to stop by and drop off my business card.”
Then I hand them a business card.
Then I continue with the rest of my pitch.
That’s how I do it.
A couple of special case scenarios.
You walk in and there are customers at the counter.
What do you do?
You walk around the store and look at things as if you are a customer.
You can do that for five or ten minutes.
Look at that as your break for the day.
So if you walk into a store where it is like there is not a big line of customers; there
is just one customer at the counter and then you.
Just walk around the store.
If you walk in and there is a line of people, get in line.
When it is your turn, you hand them your business card.
You say, “I just have a really quick question for you,” and you do your whole spiel about
that.
The only thing you skip if there is a line of people and it is your turn, you don’t
say the whole thing about how long have you been here.
You just go right into “Yea, I just have a really quick question for you,” and you
hand them your card.
The other thing is always make sure you have a reason for being there.
If your reason is, I came here to sell you.
That’s a really bad reason.
Your reason needs to be something like, “I was actually in the area because I was checking
on my client XYZ company, or I just came from installing a new credit card machine, the
new EMV, the chip card terminals.
I was installing one of those over here at this place,” so that is why you stopped
by.
There has to be a reason you stopped by.
It’s not just to sell them.
What if you come in and there are people behind you?
You always go ahead and you wait your turn like any other customer would and then you
say what you are going to say, and then you move on.
Don’t be nervous about the other people around.
It’s just you and the owner.
If you can really focus in on that, you’d be surprised how many times the owner, this
has happened to me several times, the ower will say, “Hey Susan, come here.
Can you take this customer here?”
They’ll move to the side to have a conversation with you, if they feel that what you are saying
is interesting.
That’s where it goes into what you are selling.
Obviously, you’ve got to be selling something that’s of interest to them.
Otherwise, you are not going to get anywhere anyway.
That’s really it today.
It’s just details, just like little stuff, but if you are actually out in the field walking
into businesses, it does matter how you do that.
Hopefully those tips will help you today.
My name is James Shepherd.
Thanks for reading!