Episode 045 – Don’t Make This Mistake When Selling

High Ticket Sales Secrets | Coaching & Consulting Business / Personal Branding / Sales Training / Marketing / Get Clients

The Shirt Story

Last year, I was a key note speaker for a men’s style conference called Stylecon, put together by Aaron and Tonio, both are well-known YouTubers, both got over a million subscribers on their YouTube channels. In this conference, people come from all over the world. It is designed to help empower me to dress better, look better, feel better and really succeed in all areas of their lives. It’s incredible.

At the conference, besides the speakers, there were a number of booths. So you have sponsorships, people sponsoring and selling different types of products like belts and shirts and stuff like that. Right?

So I was the speaker and I finished my talk. I was browsing around the booth area and I met this older gentleman and he was selling his brand of shirts – and I won’t name any names. But we were talking and I like his material and I like his shirts to so I said to him, “Well, why don’t I buy some from you?” “Well, you know what we need to do is I need to measure you”, which is good. He did the measurement and I said, “Well, why don’t I just give you some money and give me some shirts?”

“Well, no, no, no. Why don’t we do this. Here’s my card and I would measure you…” and he’s wrote down all the measurements, “I’m going to send this back to my company after the show, have my assistant email you the mark up for it, if you like it, then I would send you a shirt and if you like it some more, then you could buy some.” I said, “Okay. Do you want to take any kind of deposit?” He said, “No, no, no. We’ll just do it this way.” I thought that was very interesting because if that was me I would have taken the deposit because people’s lives get busy, you might lose the sale. That’s selling 101.

Shipping the Shirt Took Forever

So I come back to Vancouver it’s almost a month later – you have got to understand. Almost 30 days later I got an email from his assistant saying, “Hey, the shirt is ready, we’re going to send you one and it’s going to be on his time, he’s not going to charge you anything. If you like it then you can buy some more.” I thought, “Wow! Isn’t that interesting?”

And I understand because he’s sees me as an influencer, he wants my business obviously because I can buy a lot from him. I spend a lot of money on suits and shirts. I said, “Great!” He sends to me which the shipping took another 20 days. So it’s almost a month or two months later to get my first beta shirt, if that makes sense. I tested it, I wore it, I loved it, and I liked the material. It’s wrinkle resistant and it’s fitting is awesome. So the whole thing is really good.

I Wanted Five More Shirts

So I replied, “Great! I loved the shirt. Appreciate you sending it to me and you haven’t charged me anything. I want to buy 5 more from you. Exact same shirt, send me 5 more.” So I text the assistant. Nothing. No reply. I said, “Okay.” A week, two weeks later, I emailed the assistant, no reply. Then I emailed the owner because I have his business card. I said, “I want to buy some. I got your shirt. You’ve done a lot of work. I want to give you some money. Can you take my money?” He said, “Yes, okay, I’ll get into that. I’ll make sure my assistant gets back to you.” “I want to buy from you.” “Okay.” And finally, “Yeah 5 shirts would be this much.” I said, “Fine. I’ll pay. How will you take the payment?” He said, “Well, we don’t really take any online payment.”

They Don’t Take Online Payment

Are you kidding me? You don’t take online payment? I got a ton of money in PayPal, I can PayPal you. I could use my credit card, whatever! Just take my money, for god’s sakes! And the whole process went… I’m talking like there’s so many details in between. Back and forth and back and forth and back and forth. I was so frustrated. I’m like, I’m trying to buy something here what he has, and he’s making it so difficult for me to buy and take my money. An entrepreneur like that, I can guarantee you. He’s not making money.

Because clearly what he should have done is, hey, knowing that I was the key note speaker, charge me upfront. At the booth you should have gotten a deposit, get the money first and just charge for that test shirt. I would have charged for it. And you wanted to buy some more? Take PayPal, take credit card, something. Why is it so difficult to buy? It took so many attempts for me to give him money, I got frustrated. I said, “This is insane!”

The Sales Prevention Department

He has what I call a sales prevention department. A sales prevention department. Don’t laugh because you might have something like that in your business that you might not even realize that you have it. A sales prevention department. He’s done all that work. Think about it. Getting ready for the show, getting ready for the conference, selling all the boxes, travelling there, staying in a hotel, booked a room in advance, set up the booth, have the samples there, talking with hundreds of people throughout the few days, finally have generated some leads and I’m one of the leads and not following up and not closing the freaking sale.

Can you believe that? And it’s more common than you think. So do you have a sales prevention department in your company? Are you the sales prevention department? Do you have leads that you are supposed to follow-up with, that you have kind of put on the side and neglect? Do you have things that you should have implemented that could have helped you close more sales, yet you haven’t? Are you making it difficult to buy? Are you making it difficult for people who are ready to buy, ready to give you money? Do you make this mistake with selling?

Don’t Prevent Those Sales

Don’t make this mistake. Look at what you’re doing. Where, in what area are you preventing those sales? I know it makes no sense but many people do it. So at this point, let me finish the story. I still could not buy from him. I’m waiting to hear back from him, “I’ll take the money, we’ll figure out how to take the payment, maybe a check.” For god’s sakes, a check. Right? And then after finding time to write him a check and maybe I have to mail the damn check, have my assistant go down the post office, it’s just on and on and on versus just sell. And wouldn’t it be a good idea, knowing that I’ll buy 5 shirts, “Maybe I should sell Dan some more stuff while I’m shipping some stuff to him?”

The Better Way To Do It

Think about it. If I was him, “Hey Dan, you buy 5 shirts. You need ties? You need cufflinks. What else do you need? Pants. Belts. Oh, I’m shipping stuff anyway so I can throw that in without charging you more on shipping. What else do you want to buy?” If he knows me that I’m a busy, busy guy, I would have easily, “Oh sure, let’s throw in some cufflinks, throw in some stuff” and boom. I would have easily turned that whatever x amount of transaction to two, three, five times the value of that transaction, that deal, that purchase.

But yet, not only he doesn’t do that, he doesn’t even let me give him money. Isn’t that funny?