Still Wondering about this Mattress Sale

This week during a sales meeting one of our Branch Managers told a story that had most of us chuckling and scratching our heads.

A few weeks ago Jim and his wife went shopping for a mattress for their daughter. They went into a large national mattress store and were greeted by a young sales associate who showed them the mattresses available. Jim said they hadn’t done much research on mattresses but the prices seemed fair. They went ahead and picked out a mattress and were ready to make the purchase at the price the associate quoted. So far so good.

Then without Jim or his wife asking for a discount, the associate told them of the store’s policy to meet any competitor’s lower price. Next, without any encouragement the sales associate whipped out her cell phone and looked up the price on Amazon which was about half the price for the same mattress. Jim while please with the savings was stunned that the associate would make such a blunder when he was willing to pay the original quoted price.

Jim leads a very large, dynamic and successful sales team and seemed to be miffed that someone in sales could or would make such a mistake.

After the meeting, a couple of us were discussing Jim’s story and wondering if we had any Account Managers that might be making the same mistakes.

We kind of came to the conclusion that the sales associate probably didn’t make a purchase without getting online and checking prices and figured everyone else did the same or she may have thought Jim and his wife were just so nice she would just give them a break (they are really nice). Who knows, but the associate sold the mattress for half the price that Jim was willing to pay.

So I’m sitting at the airport waiting on a late night flight back home and find myself still thinking about Jim’s story and how we can prevent this from happening to our sales team.

I’m wondering how much our sales style is predetermined by the way we like to buy?

• If price is the main driver of the things you purchase are you more likely to sell on price?
• What if the features of a product are your main concern are you more inclined to lead with features and benefits?
• Maybe you analyze the products you buy to determine value of the product. Will you assume everyone does the same and sell on overall value rather than selling on price?

If the mattress store’s sales associate would have just asked a couple of questions she most likely could have determined what were Jim’s motivating factors for buying the mattress. The associate probably assumed (oops) price was the key factor which would have been her motivating factor.

Jim told us that the price of the mattress wasn’t a big deal he just wanted to get a mattress bought, get back home and continue with his weekend.

I would probably question the sale’s associates sales training or maybe lack of training in this case but without knowing more all we can do is wonder why.

I do know that without a good sales process in place, becoming solid in the sales basics and being intentional with every sale we make we probably have a tendency to sell like we like to be sold.

I would like to hear your thoughts or if you have had similar experiences as Jim and his wife.

Please leave a comment below or you can email me at feedback@wewaonthenet.com.

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Now let’s get out there and over-deliver!