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How a New Mindset Could Help You Close More Sales and Make More Clients Happy

Change your outlook on selling in order to solve your customers’ needs.

Published

6 days ago

May 23, 2023

Peter Hannes Instore June 2023 Issue

I HAD TWO CLIENTS that really touched me this week and reminded me why I love doing this. The first one came in asking for an orange watch because “I just put my cat down this morning and he was an orange cat, so I want an orange watch to remember him by.” He bought an orange Zodiac watch because watches make him happy, and in his moment of despair, he thought not only of a watch, but a watch from our store to cheer himself up. Even more than I wanted that sale, he wanted the watch.

The second client was one who we’ve been working with for a few months. Started with a watch battery, which led to multiple watch repairs, which led to a diamond necklace for his wife’s birthday. He came in to pay a few hundred dollars at a time over the course of a couple of months.

He sent me a text the day that he was coming to pick it up asking to have it boxed and ready; he was bringing his wife in for a surprise. They sat down at a desk, I brought out our gift box with our special Husar blue bag, and she couldn’t believe the box was for her. She opened it and cried, thanking her husband profusely. Even more than I wanted that diamond sale, my guest wanted not only a special something for his wife, but a special moment with his wife.

We seem to be conditioned as salespeople to think that the sales process is something we do TO people, not FOR people. The shift in mindset is powerful. Those of us in retail are lucky if customers come to see us: Most of the time, they already want something, and a want is a problem waiting to be solved.

More than you want the sale, your customer wants their problem solved. We must stop thinking about the sale as ours to have, but rather, a customer’s problem that needs solving.

Next time you’re with a client and you’re trying to pull out all the closes you’ve memorized over the years, you must begin with the idea that your client is better off to buy than not to buy.

Don’t sell it for yourself because you want the sale. Sell it because it will solve the client’s problem and leave them better off for having made a purchase with you.

Time for More “Me Time”? Time to Call Wilkerson

Rick White, owner of White’s & Co. Jewelry in Rogers, Ark., knew it was time to retire. Since the age of 18, jewelry had been his life. Now it was time to get that “me time” every retailer dreams about. So, he chose Wilkerson to manage his going-out-of-business sale. White says he’d done plenty of sales on his own, but this was different. “Wilkerson has been a very, very good experience. I’ve had the best salespeople in the history of jewelry,” he says. “I recommend Wilkerson because they are really the icon of the jewelry business and going-out-of-business sales. They’ve been doing it for decades. I just think they’re the best.”