Reading Your Customer

Another glimpse into the world of retail selling came to me a while back.

This time I happened to be at a test food tasting in the week before an eaterie opened its doors.

Whilst I contentedly chomped my way through pretty much most parts of a cow, in between workers painting up glossy wall slogans and finishing off floor tiling, a lady of obvious experience was conducting training to the cast of waitrons.

I didn’t catch all that was going on, but what I did was intriguing.

Under the session heading, Reading Your Customer, great detail was shared about how to approach a new table, offer the menu and ask initially for drinks.

Given the place hoped for fairly decent throughput, proceedings began with  something along the lines of ,

‘do you know what you’d like to drink already?’

A line easily adapted to most b2b sales calls, yet possibly avoided sometimes on the fear of not having a solution for what the prospect sees as their issue.

Another gem overheard was around their speciality drinks.

The drink was never to be called simply by its name. Oh no. The adjective

delicious

must be inserted immediately prior, every time.

This too has entertaining b2b parallels.

For how often do you trot out the name of your product verbatim? Or exactly as it appears on the pricelist? Surely there’s scope and merit in a suitably distinctive and evocative prefix for you, too?