In 1970, my father told me that I needed to get a job to help pay for gas and insurance on my new car. I planned to buy a car with my bar mitzvah money. In his understated way, Dad was trying to teach me a lesson about appreciating the value of money, hard work and responsibility. I did learn that valuable lesson but also learned about customer relationships.
Karlin’s Paint Store was around the corner from where I lived. Mrs. Karlin sold everything you needed to paint a house from paint to ladders to brushes. She always struck me as a good businesswoman, and I’d enjoy listening to her tell her stories.
Beyond a paycheck, I learned some invaluable lessons about customer relationships, running a business, sales, and marketing. At the time, I thought I was just learning how to stock paint on a shelf.
Marketing Lessons in Broad Strokes
Something always stuck in my mind about that experience and working in that store.
Mrs. Karlin was a storyteller.
Every day, she repeated the wisdom that as important as it was to count the money in the cash register at night, she was equally concerned with building relationships with customers that would last a long time. She said the investment in long-term relationships with customers will fill my cash register next week and next month and next year.
Mrs. Karlin instilled in me the idea that if her customers trusted her, they would keep shopping at her store and not go to the local Kmart or Channel Lumber that had opened up in Springfield, NJ, my hometown. She preached this idea that trust and relationships will help her get the types of customers she wanted.
She was a very short woman – almost Yoda like in my memory. I don’t think she was 5 feet tall, but what a powerhouse.
People didn’t buy paint, she once told me, they buy the chance to refresh their lives. She’d say, as if a marketing guru, people don’t buy paint, the buy a dream about tomorrow. At the time, it sounded hokey to me. Today, I realize how wise she was in her pronouncements.
Customer trust is worth money in the bank. Maybe not in my cashbox today, but over time, that trust and connection is golden.
It was Mrs. Karlin’s policy that she had to make sure her customers got their money’s worth even if it cost her money in the register. Their happiness mattered more because she didn’t want to make one-time sales.
Painting The Town
Without any degree, Mrs. Karlin understood one of the most critical experiences about success. She listened very carefully to her customers and never tried to “upsell” or oversell them things they didn’t need.
She had an unconditional guarantee that if someone weren’t 100% happy with their purchase, she would refund their money. No questions asked. In the year I worked in her store, I never saw anyone take advantage of her.
Customers would come in all day long, and she would respectfully listen and sell with the touch of a master. Usually, the conversation wasn’t about paint but people, families and their lives.
Mrs.K sold paint by understanding that her customers weren’t just trying to paint a wall. They wanted their world to look clean and fresh.
She realized the transactional side of exterior versus interior paint, but her focus was on people and the real benefit they got from a freshly painted place to live. She understood the deeper motive of why people bought paint from her and the job they wanted it to do.
Questions to Ask About Your Sales Approach?
- Has your sales team been trained to be empathetic? Or are they pushing so hard to make the sale, that they forget about the human being in front of them?
- Are your incentives for a single sale or an ongoing customer? Anyone can sell something once; only master salespeople can build enduring customer relationships.
- Does your sales team focus on the function of what you sell, not the emotional benefit connected with the sale? Of course. People buy paint to paint their wall, but there is always a story that a customer has that goes more in-depth.
Mrs. Karlin’s Paint Store was in business for at least 25 years. When I visit my Mom in New Jersey and walk past that storefront, I still remember how much she cared about her customers.
Sales isn’t a paint by numbers activity.
You need to focus on the human being, and what they want to achieve and the stories they tell themselves.
Need help bringing some new color to your brand? Let’s talk. 919720 0995 or email me at jeffslater@themarketingsage.com or book an appointment on my calendar.
Photo by RhondaK Native Florida Folk Artist on Unsplash
