Why I Didn’t BUY From YOU
Selling is simple and fun, I should know, I have been selling my services for years and just recently, real estate in Baguio City. Some people cringe when I inform people that I am in sales. I don’t blame them, being a salesperson doesn’t give me a title next to my name. But sales is exciting, because it takes brain power and a lot of understanding in order to bring you nearer to closing a sale. As a salesperson, you should know your product from every angle and how it could help solve the buyers’ problem or at least justify why the buyer should purchase whatever it is you are selling.
This brings me to the time when I had to buy a laptop for our company. Of course just like any sound buyer, researching online is a must. I came across an ad about a laptop for sale and for a good price too! The specs were within if not just above my requirements and the price is really a good deal! So without hesitation and with budget in tow, I headed to this laptop sales office. I asked about the laptop which they advertised online, however, to my dismay it was already sold out. The seller told me that I should have been there two days earlier. Believe me had I known two days earlier I would have, but yeah negative points to you for trying to put a blame on me. Classic move of some surreptitious salespersons, tying to guilt you and then telling you that it might take a while before new supplies. I mean you can just tell buyers that you ran out of supplies you do not have to blame the buyer.
My default is that the seller is truthful when he said they ran out of supplies. Okay, so I just proceeded to looking some other laptops, some with lower specs some a little bit higher but nothing comes close to what I wanted to buy. No matter, I told myself, I could just upgrade the laptop. I politely asked a bunch of questions trying to find out if I can buy the laptop, what possible upgrade I could do to the laptop and if it would fit my budget. The seller informed me that I could upgrade but it will take two weeks before I can get the upgraded unit, quite long. Well, if it comes to that and if the price is still lower than any mall prices then why not? I can wait. So it is settled then, so I just need to ask one question. How about warranty? and is there any service center here? By here I mean in Baguio City where I live.
As to my first question, because it is discounted, the only warranty is one that is provided at the service center. Okay, good enough for me, I proceeded to asking where is the service center here? or is there a service center here. I swear his answer confused me! He said GOOGLE MAPS! may be I had that perplexed look in my face so he proceeded to lecturing me about how i should enter the keywords “brand service center” and it will show me the service centers. Well, I know how Google Maps work, I was using it when it first became available in the Philippines, I am a mapmaker and now a Google Local Guide, but not pulling any ranks here I am just saying I know how it works. My question was is there as service center here? So I politely clarified my question and it became apparent to me that either he doesn’t know the answer to my question or he is just really condescending. I was really hoping that it is the former and not the latter. But as he continue to ramble on it became apparent he just wanted to feel all-knowing trying to answer my question without actually answering it.
That is when I started to doubt what they are selling. I asked myself how come they are able to sell “brand-new” laptops at a very with emphasis to the word very, low price, about five to ten thousand pesos lower. But instead of asking those questions I just humbly told him that I would give it more thought before buying a laptop.
Although I can wait for 2 weeks for the upgrade the need to buy a laptop is immediate, so I went to the mall with the hopes of finding a laptop that would suit my needs. Long story short I didn’t find exactly the same as the one that I liked in the previous store but I found a newer version with slightly lower specs which I upgraded, and guess what! They upgraded it in just 30 minutes! So I wondered why it had to take 2 weeks for an upgrade to be done? As for the price? well i got it slightly higher with all the upgrades but just by 1 thousand.
This encounter reminded me something that I learned from my mentor regarding sales and that is “if a buyer starts to ask a lot of questions, this is a signal that the buyer is ready to pull the trigger and buy!” so when this happen you as the seller should be glad to answer the questions, it might annoy you but believe me 2 out of 3 of the time it leads to closing the sale. As for the first guy who tried to sell me a laptop, I guess he didn’t pick up the buying signal and continued on to sound all-knowing.
I always tell this to my team, stay humble and when you figured into an argument avoid it, our goal is not to win any arguments our goal is to close a sale.
