Increasing sales by over 6000%! (can you do it any better?)

I'm fairly new to this website and I want to contribute my own personal example as to what can be accomplished even when the situation seems hopeless.

I worked at a Best Buy store doing a JVC tv demo on their 52" HDTV. As part of my demo I wore a required JVC shirt.

My first week, I got the credit for a sale; but I don't claim responsibility - I didn't do a demo nor explanation with this customer who did his own research and already knew what he
wanted (the Super Bowl was a month away). Since that time I had 23 straight goose eggs (I worked weekends through a retail marketing firm).

I identified three specific problems:

1) The name JVC wasn't associated with TVs
2) The technology being demonstrated was new (which scares a lot of people when it comes to spending $2,500 to $3,000 on a tv).
3) The shirt I wore turned off customers

The first two problems I dealt with showing prospects information from websites explaining the D-ILA technology wasn't really new (it was used in other areas before, it was new to TVs). Also I showed information that another tv manufacturer was also using the technology plus I proved it was used in a sports arena and by a major Hollywood screening theater.

While I got some interest, there was no action. I still had to deal with the biggest problem of that JVC shirt (gray colored that easily distinguished me from the blue shirts - in fact a lady pointed out my shirt to her husband).

At this point I'm breaking off. I want to give you a chance to come up with your solution before I give you mine to demonstrate how hard it is to solve a problem of this type (a hint: I used a somewhat gutsy solution). I'll allow one to two weeks before I post my solution.

I had one other sale during those 23 lackluster days.

As I said, I was wearing a gray-colored JVC shirt that immediately distinguished me from the blue-colored shirts that Best Buy associates wore. This was hampering my sales of the JVC tv because customers immediately knew I was representing that one tv from all the brands displayed in the tv department so I wasn't offering consumers a choice when they asked for a recommendation (incidentally a retail marketing firm was the outfit that set me up at the store).

The only advice I got from a Best Buy supervisor was to sell the other tv brands which I couldn't do (in fact I was supposed to stay within six feet of the JVC HDTV and not go traipsing around the tv department selling other brands, whether they were JVC's or not). The situation was getting desperate as I only sold one tv in 23 days of work (working the weekends at Best Buy).

I came up with a solution. Next to the JVC tv were two others based on competing technologies. After I gathered lifestyle information and the customer's interest, I recommended a choice between the JVC tv and one the others next to it.

In two weekends I cleaned out the warehouse selling 11 tvs in those four days!

The quota was one sale a day on the tv.

Do you feel providing the immediate choice is what made the difference?

Originally Posted by Liberty Do you feel providing the immediate choice is what made the difference?

Yes I do. What makes this more interesting is due to experience, I knew what the problem was and it took awhile for me to come up with using consumer choice as a solution (one of the Best Buy associates was shocked that I "...cleaned out the warehouse").

There's another time when I applied consumer choice as a solution. When I sold newspaper subscriptions, I always got turned down, mainly due to loyalty, by someone subscribing to another newspaper (downplaying his paper or singing the virtues of mine didn't work). So I tried telling the prospect to compare his paper with mine (which was perfect as I was doing trial subscriptions).

As a result some people finally took me up on my offer (here the choice was to decide to stay with his current subscription or go with mine after a eight-week trial so the final decision was suspended).

I'm going to post under the Closing The Sale forum. Look for my post titled Decision Making which is kind of a follow up to this thread and I think you will find interesting.

Wonderboy how was consumer choice the solution? What other variables were in play?

Originally Posted by Mikey Wonderboy how was consumer choice the solution? What other variables were in play?

Mikey, no other significant variables were in play (e.g. specials, season, holidays).

See my posting under decision making in the Closing The Sale forum for more information.