What You Say. How You Say It.

A friend of mine who was a rep for one of the larger agencies loved to relate the example of how one of the stores he serviced dealt with customers who walked in the door asking about scuba lessons.

A customer would walk in the door and, when asked “How can I help you?” would indicate he was interested in learning to dive.

“Great,” the salesperson would reply, “Let me put this away and I’ll tell you everything you need to know. In the meantime, look over this album of customer photos and see what interests you.”

At this point, the salesperson would feign being busy long enough for the prospective student to page through the photo album. “Now,” he’d say to the customer, “What looked like the kind of diving you’d like to do?”

If the customer said, for example, that he liked the pictures of divers on wrecks, because that’s something he’d always wanted to do, the salesperson would say, “That’s easy. All you have to do is take the beginning and advanced course, then you can go right into the Wreck Diver course. You’ll need a few special equipment items for wreck diving but, for the most part, your standard scuba equipment will do. Then you’ll be ready to go with us to Truk Lagoon, where these pictures were taken. It’s the wreck diving capital of the known universe.”

At this point, you can probably see what the salesperson was doing.

• Instead of just selling a beginning scuba course, he was selling a beginning, an advanced and a Wreck Diver course at once. (In fact, it was actually easier to sell all three courses because doing so met the customer’s needs and expectations better than just an entry-level course would.)
• He made it clear that acquiring equipment was part of the process — both basic scuba equipment and specialized equipment for wreck diving.
• He planted the seeds for travel. You want to be a wreck diver? Then you need to come with us — because we’ll show you the best wreck diving on the planet.
• More than anything else, he showed the customer how to become a real scuba diver — and have fun doing it.

Dive store owners often wonder why so many of their customers do little more than just get certified. The answer is, because no one ever showed them how much more they can do.

Take control of your classroom »

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