Tucker is an Optimist

by Abe Sherman – CEO, BIG – Buyers Intelligence Group
November 22, 2022

Hours can go by without any sign of Tucker – I never know where he is in the house, until I open up the refrigerator or a package of food. Anything to eat, it doesn’t matter what it is. But as soon as he hears the rustle of packaging I can be assured of a visit from man’s best friend, our boy Tucker. As the world’s most resilient optimist, Tucker can be counted on to wait, albeit not so patiently, for some small handout. But Tucker doesn’t get people food, and just to be fair, I don’t eat his food either. The reason I say he’s an optimist is that he always shows up with enthusiasm and high hopes. He will sit at our side with his chin on a leg, looking up with his huge brown eyes, every single time.

Tucker doesn’t watch the news. He has no idea there is so much talk about recessions or wars or layoffs in the Tech Sector. Heck, he doesn’t even know that the Crypto Exchange FTX crashed two weeks ago. Tucker doesn’t care. He’s not trying to compare today’s snack opportunities to yesterday’s snack opportunities, let alone last year’s opportunities when snacking was really fruitful!

Of course, this isn’t about Tucker, it’s about your sales team. They know what’s being said on the news and the cost of food and gas and rent and some of them may be getting down on it all. If their sales goals are based on last year’s numbers and are unrealistic, they, unlike Tucker, will stop being optimistic. How do we go into the remaining weeks of the year? We cannot control the news (although we can stop watching it) or the cost of things, but we can re-set our expectations that every customer has the promise of at least paying for more than a meal or two. Here’s an example.

My best customer of all time (I spent 30 years in our family’s retail jewelry business) came in to have a watch band shortened for her son’s watch. After taking the links out, I thanked her for coming in. When she asked how much she owed me, I told her that we didn’t charge for this, it was our pleasure to help. She was taken aback saying that she had never not been charged for something done in a jewelry store before. As I handed her the links back in an envelope, I said, well, let me apologize in advance then, I’m not going to charge you to put these back in when he gets older (he was a big kid), so please hang on to these links. She smiled and told me she would be back.

Her first purchase was $50,000 and this was in 1979 when that was considered a good sale. And she kept coming back to buy more and then she started bringing in her friends. All told, it was probably a million-dollar relationship – not bad for taking some links out of a watchband.

Of course, these situations don’t happen every day but there are people walking in your door every single day that have the potential to be your best customer of all time. The message for the sales team is to treat every one of these folks as if they represent dinner or perhaps a week’s pay. Because you never know who they are or what they might want today or in the future. If only the sales team would have the optimism of our boy Tucker and expect success each and every time. Have a great season.