Don't Quit Before the Payoff

After unsubscribing to the Daily Retail Quote newsletter, a (now former) reader commented, "I'm not that impressed with your quotes."  When I looked at her history I discovered that she had been a subscriber for three whole days.  I don't understand why someone would quit after trying it for only a few days, especially since it doesn't cost a dime to receive it.

I'm equally puzzled when I see businesspeople do the same thing in their stores.  A few years ago I was working with a store on increasing their average sale and units per transaction.  My agenda for this particular day was to show the staff how to suggest additional products before taking customers to the register to ring up the sale.

One employee was clearly not enthused about this initiative. With her first customer, she asked if he wanted to see anything else. He said, "no thanks."  With her second customer she suggested something to him at the counter and of course he said, "no thanks."  She asked her third customer on the floor.  The customer politely declined since she was in a hurry.  The employee came to me and said, "See. It doesn't work."

After a little "coaching" from the owner who reminded her that it really takes very little time and effort to suggest additional products to the customer, she soldiered on.  And sure enough, the fourth customer politely declined to look at anything since he was in a hurry. But then her luck turned around and she was successful with her next three customers. She ended up enhancing the purchases (some of you call it add-ons) of over 40% of her customers that day, increased her average sale by over 20%, and almost tripled her UPTs. And to think, she wanted to quit after three customers.

As a friend of mine says, "Don't quit before the payoff happens," especially if it doesn't cost you anything to try.