A Sears' Salesman

After a week working in a job I really didn't love even though I was good at it, I moved on to Sear's.  I had many high-school-age friends working in the mall.  I mistakenly assumed I would be working for minimum wage in the clothing or housewares departments on the first floor.  Imagine my surprise when I found I was working on the top floor in the lawn and garden (and seasonal Christmas items) department.  I thought at first it sounded like a terrible place to work.  At the time, I just wanted to be able to buy my own baggy pants and "fly" shirts (yeah, I wasn't that cool even in high school).  Why would I want to sell reminders of hot summers mowing lawns?

My friend and I started working in the same department at the end of my Junior year of high school.  We had the most menial tasks you could get.  We stocked shelves, ran down to check the backroom for the commissioned sales employees, cleaned the showroom and ran inventory numbers.  We were making minimum wage and were happy to get our meager paychecks every two weeks.

However, I was watching.  I watched the commission sales people work.  I watched the beautiful art of the sale.  I watched someone come in for something they knew they wanted/needed and watch them leave with it as well as something they didn't know they needed.  It all fascinated me immensely.  Here was someone simply needing to get something done and they had come to a name they trusted, Sears, to purchase a product.  Now before this becomes a commercial for a retail department store chain, understand that this was my first excursion into retail sales.  Realistically, it wasn't that amazing, but it was my first experience.

 It took me only a few months, but I proved that I could sell products at a level that a commissioned sales job required.  I was probably too eager and raw to perform correctly at the levels in the department, but I sure tried.  I can remember my first sale.  It was really nothing of any great importance.  I sold a nondescript lawn mower to an average middle-aged man.  The commission was paltry.  Maybe five dollars or perhaps ten.  However, there came with this sale a sense of accomplishment.  I had a goal.  I had the knowledge.  I knew I could do it, however, until I actually did make a sale, all of my training meant nothing.

I also found the value--although I realize it more today then at the time of its happening--of fostering a relationship as opposed to simply closing a sale.  One day a customer came in that was just money in the bank.  They knew what they wanted, they knew we had it and they were paying with their ample credit line on their Sear's card.  Booya!  Probably the single biggest sale I have ever made.  Several hundred dollars landed on my pay stub at the next pay period.  In my ignorance and pride I showed/told almost everyone I knew how well I did over that two week period.  The other shoe fell however as this savvy shopper later returned the items when they finished whatever task they needed it for, which negatively impacted my next check.  I went from rubbing people's noses in it to staring at my meager base rate and the message that my commissions were not able to cancel out my returned item negative entries.

Around the same time as I was wallowing in self pity over a tiny paycheck, I had a man come in and ask about weed trimmers.  Most salesman on the floor despised "little items" as their commission payout was too low.  More out of desperation to get my numbers up than out of a desire for superb customer service, I went over to help him out.  After talking to him for a couple a minutes, I found out several things: he had never owned a weed trimmer he liked, he felt like they wore out to easily and he wanted me to point out the "easiest to use" model among the gas power units.  I realized that this man didn't even know how to operate his coming purchase.

At 17 years old, I became a teacher to a man of 35+.  I took him out to our return/refurbished models and talked him through the most effective ways to start and care for a gas powered weed trimmer.  We practiced it together and he even bought one of these discounted models.  He then asked me how old I was.  I thought this was an odd question, but replied that I was 17.  He handed me a card with a picture of an over-sized bull statue on it.  (I knew it was over-sized because he and a car were directly next to it.)  He then told me to call him when I was 18.

Looking back today at my first long-term (a year and 3 months) job commitment, I realized a few things:

1. The best customer service requires that I think of the customer first as a person--and a needy person at that--before a sale.  This concepts fosters long-term customer relationships which leads to more sales.
2. Success is only temporary.  Enjoy it, but don't lose sight of the prize.
3. Failure is only temporary.  Learn from it, don't do it again and move onward.
4. Bragging--while it comes as a challenge for me to refrain from it--never makes me look good in the end.
5. The bird in the hand needs to be controlled or it will go back to the bush eventually.