The other day I got a call from my brother. Out of the blue, he’d decided we should take up tennis. Well, the last time I played tennis was probably 15 or 20 years ago, so not only did I need to buy a racket, I also needed someone to advise me on what brand, weight and size to get.

So, I set out for one of our local sporting goods stores. Let’s call it XYZ Sports. Again, I didn’t really know anything about tennis or buying the gear so I thought that they could give me some much-needed advice in exchange for my business. I mean, that’s what they do, right?

I walked in and here’s about how the conversation went:

Me: “Hi, I’m just getting started playing tennis. I want a good quality racket, but since I don’t really know what I’m doing, I definitely don’t want to go all out. I’m wondering what you’d recommend.” I knew that you could easily spend $200.00 or more on a racket, but since I wasn’t trying to be a tennis star, I figured I’d spend – at most – about $60.00 - $70.00.

Salesperson: Blank Stare. He searched the store and, looking lost, finally found what he’d been looking for. A sign hanging from the ceiling that said “TENNIS.” He started walking toward it. Not sure exactly what to do, I followed. He arrived at a wall of rackets with me a few steps behind. Again, he stared blankly…this time at the wall of rackets. There was a pause that lasted for an uncomfortably long time.

Me: (Trying to break the silence and get some sort of response from the “salesperson”) “Yeah, I’m not really sure what I want, but I’m looking at spending about 50 or 60 bucks.” (The amount of money I was willing to spend was beginning to shrink based on this guy’s contribution…or lack thereof.)

Salesperson: “Lemme see if I can’t find somebody who actually knows about this stuff. I don’t really know nothing about tennis.”

Me: “Okay, thanks. Sounds good.” I began checking out the rackets and a few minutes later, he returned. Alone. He picked up a racket and started playing with it.

He spoke again: “I couldn’t find nobody. Here’s one. This is a great racket. It’s the perfect one for what you want.”

Not wanting to point out that a few seconds earlier, he said he didn’t know anything about rackets, I just said thanks, I’ll keep that in mind and walked out after spending (or wasting, depending on how you look at it) 20 minutes in the store and exchanging all of 3 sentences with salesperson.

Morals of the story:

1. Engage your customer
2. Know your product
3. Don’t talk your way out of a sale

It doesn’t matter if you’re selling 3 million dollar capital equipment or a 40 dollar tennis racket. The principles remain the same.

Submitted by: