I was out shopping with the family over the weekend and we stopped at a beautiful antique and old wares store in a very small town. We were really surprised at the quality and sheer volume of amazing antiques on offer. We actually hurried through the store and took over an hour with two young ones in tow!
When we were ready to check out, we asked the woman behind the counter if she would negotiate on two large items, 1 pianola and 1 large workshop workbench for the garage. She said, “I’m sorry I only work here, you’ll have to speak with the owner on that”. “OK” I said, “when is he / she available”? to which she answered,” he’ll be back in a couple of weeks”!!
We really wanted to spend around $3,000 and in tight times this is a good sale for a shop like this. We ended up walking away without her having taken any of our details, without the offer of having the owner call us straight away, no mobile number of the owner given!!! This lack of empowerment and willingness to make a sale gives me the s*its.
No wonder people do it tough!!
Empower your staff, let them make decisions at a certain level or let them know you are available for sales at a certain value. To me this is simple stuff, when people want to buy from you make it easy for them to do so.