(This blog post is geared towards companies who sell B2C or sell multiple products or services at a low to middle price point in the B2B space.)

My daughter, who is in 1st grade, joined Brownies this year and started selling Girl Scout Cookies for her troop.

We had a late start on sales so I gave her some suggestions on whom to call.

I texted several friends of mine in advance and asked them if it was okay if she called them and that they were fully free to say no and tell her no as well if they weren’t interested in purchasing cookies.

Several friends gave the go ahead for my daughter to call them. I want my daughter to learn how to communicate with adults, especially by phone, which I think is crucial. I also wanted her to experience rejection at a young age. Getting told “No” is okay and better to learn rejection now, than for the first time at 18 years old. Finally, I wanted her to get good at asking people for orders and be direct, rather than prance around the issue.

So my daughter made sales calls while I sat there and listened and critiqued her. She ended up selling 44 boxes or so in less than 2 hours.

One thing I did NOT coach her on was this: After she wrote down the order, she asked on her own as she was getting to hang up: “Do you want anything else?”

Funny thing is, several people made additional requests for more boxes.

I was one proud Dad! I didn’t teach or coach her on this phrase at all. I don’t think my daughter realized she was upselling.

If you sell multiple products or services, this is a perfect question to ask, assuming you’ve built trust and credibility. Plus, it’s better than asking, “Hey, do you want fries with that?”

“Do you want anything else?” is a great ending question for salespeople to ask once they receive an initial order. Happy selling folks!

Answer: They both should arouse curiosity if they are done properly.

Crude analogy? Perhaps!

Is the desired end result the same? I say yes! Read more

A few years ago I bought a brand new Toyota RAV4 which came up with an optional subscription for satellite radio. I won’t say who the company was but it rhymes with “curious”.

I tend to keep the radio off in my car to think and clear my head but do like commercial free radio as well. Especially the 80’s music since that’s when I grew up.

Every September is renewal time. Like many other companies out there, if I wait long enough and ignore multiple calls and emails to renew, I know the price will come down.

The yearly subscription fee was $231.05. Would I probably renew at that price? Yes.

So the company left me message and I finally called them back. I told the customer service rep the price was too high. She immediately dropped the price to $131.05.

I hesitated and said simply, “That still sounds too high.”

She responded and said that she’d like to put me on hold and talk to a manager. I said that was fine. She got back on the phone a few minutes later and said they could do it for $104 and change. I agreed and renewed for another year.

I’m in sales and typically have some sympathy for other sales reps. Again I probably would have renewed for the full price.

People are conditioned to ask for discounts. Nothing wrong with it.

BUT, you don’t have to say yes. The prospective client may feel they have nothing to lose by asking for a discount. Or they want to make sure they’re getting your best pricing. So they ask for a discount but will invest or purchase what you have regardless.

Maybe the customer service rep should have asked me, “What did you have in mind?” and put the ball back in my court. She handled the call well by the way.

Moral of the story: Ask and you may receive. If you don’t ask, you’ll never know.