My Favorite Non-Customers
I talk a lot of people OUT of doing business with me. The most common situation involves two friends who want to open a retail store together. Me-“Do you want to be friends or business partners, because you can’t be both.” Them-“But we’ve been friends since high school…” To let you in on the big secret, what happens is that one of the two friends will be much better at sales than the other. Finding an equal role for that second person becomes a challenge and the better salesperson starts resenting the other person. Then they start talking to me about how to dissolve the partnership.
The second situation I find is that someone wants to open a retail store when the numbers don’t justify it. But by the time they call me, they have already made up their mind on the matter and are hoping that I will concur. When I don’t, they usually get frustrated and they certainly don’t want to do further business with me. Oh, well. (However, I recently had some initial discussions with a potential retailer who decided AGAINST opening a store. He kindly sent me a very nice bottle of wine.)
The third one is the one who wants me to review retail ePoS (electronic point-of-sale) systems for them. I have seen a lot of them and there is a lot of crap out there in systems. It is very easy for me to look at a system and tell immediately if it has any value in retail decision-making. However, every year, I have some retailer who wants me to review some specific systems and their yardstick, by which they measure the quality of these systems, is price. Me-“It doesn’t calculate turns or have a retail stock ledger or an open-to-buy. It has two basic reports and neither one has much value for making a decision”. Them- “Yeah, but it’s affordable!”
So this is a little insight into what I do with new prospects. In a few days, I’ll share a little about my favorite customers.
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