Tell Your Customer To Buy Elsewhere?

In the Christmas movie “A Miracle On 34th Street” the Macy’s department store Santa sends parents to competitive stores for items that Macy’s doesn’t carry. At first, the Macy store’s management is furious. Then they discover that the goodwill generated by their Santa is actually increasing sales, and they tell sales clerks in every department to adopt the same practice.

The idea made sense, so I tried it in my rental store, beginning with the Christmas and New Year’s rush for rental of party tables, chairs, dishes and so on. If we didn’t have what the customer asked for, I had my staff get on the phone and find another rental store nearby that did have what they were looking for. And it worked, just like in the movie.

People were so impressed that they promised to make us their number one rental store in the future. The part we hadn’t expected, though, was that our competitors began to return the favor. If one of their customers asked for something they didn’t have, we would get a call to see if we would help. We had our best December yet, so we plan to continue this policy as a permanent thing.

L. Tollet, Bohemia, NY

Read in-depth articles about Sales Presentation ideas