Once I asked my mother (who is an excellent merchant and expert in serving well) about what were the most important keys for her to sell: “The important thing is not to sell, it is to make people happy, because maybe you do not buy today but they will buy you tomorrow. ” Since then I repeat that phrase anywhere I’m going to talk about sales because his vision, loaded with wisdom, is challenging and not without controversy. This phrase full of content hides several key points that are often forgotten by the desire to ‘close’ a quick sale at any price, even higher than what is obtained in return.
First of all, it is a mistake to focus on the product before the customer, and since each customer is a world, putting the focus on what we want to sell prevents us from knowing exactly what the devil this client has come to do to our business. , since one thing is what we think we want and another thing what we really look for; What we are really looking for has not so much to do with the material as with the emotional.
Secondly, if someone feels good and smiles he will stay longer in the store or business, he will feel more secure and the chances of buying will grow because we will generate trust, something indispensable to sell in the middle of an ocean of almost equal products to each other.
Third, successful business models of the future do not take place in the short term and finally, putting the focus on the most emotional dimension of the client allows us to play with a whole universe of resources much more interesting, fun and convincing than a good seller of the ‘all life’: strategic management of space, smells, colors, lights, environments, messages, universes, designs, etc. which gives more life to our sales space, whether real or virtual and, what is even more important, makes us feel better to customers and more secure than we have to sell.
With all this ready, magic arises when in this emotional space we have the option of doing one of the most beautiful things and that give us more sense and authenticity: telling stories. I do not say that you have to forget to sell (the last end of the activity) but that the focus has to be placed more and more on the experiences that the client can experience and on his feelings to achieve long-term sales, more important, lasting and stable .
I Owe You is the perfect example of a story behind each product. The object of this web dedicated to the on-line sale of handmade textile products is ‘to discover the history of the garment and the person who created it, at the same time as interacting with the artisan’. Each IOU garment has a story behind it, from the conception of its name to the merchant who bought it to sell it in his shop, going through the history of the craftsman who chose the color combination and wove it.
Another example of the power of stories is the concept of Japanese store Pass the Baton, a second-hand store located in Tokyo that explains who was the original owner of the product and the story it had with it: the doll that accompanied a girl in his childhood, the jug where the grandmother put the biscuits of the snack. and that endless number of objects that endow with a soul and meaning a product that initially may seem boring and have nothing special.
In short, all things can be special if we dare to tell the stories that make them unique. Any place, object and person shows all its meaning and potential when it discovers the unique history that exists in it, so beyond selling and focusing on “closing” one more sale, the important thing now is being able to ‘open’ a sale Through stories that give meaning to the sale and happiness to the client and this is the one who freely decides when to end.