Lessons from a piece of pie

Are you trying to make a sale?

Recently we had dinner at a local diner; the ones we enjoy with home cooking and like many – a pie case that you would not miss seeing as you were walking to your table. Dinner was an interesting experience.

As others were asking about items on the menu and dressings available for salad, Shelby, our waitress, mentioned it was her fourth day on the job. Not to be deterred, she made a point to obtain answers to each question.

When I noticed and commented that the “breakfast served all day” sounded good, I quickly followed with a, “that wouldn’t sound good with my having a piece of pie for dessert. Shelby quickly agreed and suggested I try something else for dinner.

All three of us enjoyed a delicious dinner, but I was surprised when Shelby stopped by and quickly dropped the bill on the table. I picked up the bill and held it up until I was able to get Shelby’s attention from a distance. Quickly she came to the table.

“Aren’t you going to sell me a piece of pie?”, I asked. To which she responded with a typical, “What kind of pie would you like?: “Do you want it heated?” and, “Would you like ice cream on it?”

When she returned with the dessert, the teaching side of me came out. “As you have been here only four days, let me share a lesson with you. Your job is not to take orders; your job is to sell food. The more food you sell us, the bigger our bill and as your tip is proportionate to the bill, you will wind up getting more money for yourself.”

She said she would write that down, but as she turned to leave I followed up with another question. “Aren’t you going to try to sell dessert to these other two? It is selling Shelby. Your job is to sell food; not just take our orders and expect we know exactly what to order”.

The same is true in all kinds of businesses. We hurt our sales; we show a lack of interest and lack of skills when we say things like, “Is that everything?”, or “Did you find everything you needed?”.

There is a very substantial difference between what a customer needs and what a customer wants. There is even a step further when we can offer things a customer has never seen or thought of. That is our job.

In a situation like a restaurant, it can be easier to demonstrate to a person like Shelby why they should be a salesperson and not an order taker; she will easily see the reasoning when she gets her tips for the week. However, in a store it is different.

You are paying a person by the hour and they get the same amount regardless of how much they sell. This is not to be a reason for you to change everyone to commission selling. But it can help explain why you do not have salespeople.

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This article is copyrighted by Tom Shay and Profits Plus Solutions, who can be reached at: PO Box 128, Dardanelle, AR. 72834. Phone 727-823-7205. It may be printed for an individual to read, but not duplicated or distributed without expressed written consent of the copyright owner.