We all have our favorite sales story. Sometimes they are stories about others and sometimes they are stories about ourselves. Let me tell you about one that happened to me a few years ago.
I was out of town doing a training loop around the Mid West. I was staying in a hotel that had a breakfast buffet included with the room. I got up early to have my coffee and this hotel had fresh baked muffins. I usually don’t like muffins, but as I was scanning the trays I saw a chocolate chip bran muffin. I don’t know what it was about this, but it sounded good so I picked it up. I made my cup of coffee and got into my rental car for the drive to the training session, about 45 minutes away.
On this day I was wearing a blue shirt and khaki pants. I was driving and eating my muffin, which was as good tasting as I thought it would be. A crumb fell off the muffin but I was on the highway so I couldn’t pull over to brush it off, and as luck would have it, the crumb fell between my legs onto the seat.
Here lies the problem, was the crumb a piece of muffin or a chocolate chip? I had no idea and couldn’t stop. I got to the training session, dropped my computer case and ran to the bathroom. I locked myself into a stall and quickly took my pants off. I was really afraid to look, I slowly turned the pants around so I could see the area where the crumb landed. IT WASN’T MUFFIN!
I got some paper towels and hand soap to try and clean the chocolate off my pants, after about 2 minutes I had made a 1 inch spot into a 6 inch stain. My clothes were back in the hotel, a round trip of about 90 minutes. The training was supposed to start in 30 minutes. What was I going to do?
I got dressed and left my shirt tails hanging out to “cover” my situation. I walked out of the bathroom and asked if there was a Walmart close to where I was. I caught a break, there was a Walmart about a mile from there. I jumped back into the car and headed there (first remembering to clean the seat so as not to make any bigger a mess. I found a pair of pants, but like every pair of pants I buy, they were about 10 inches too long. No big deal, I got back to the training site and found a stapler, rolled the pants up, and in about 5 minutes and 10 staples later had pants that fit.
The rest of the training session went great. On my way out one of the managers that had sat through the class came up to me and said, “Great training, but next time you should take the tags off your pants before you wear them”
When I got back to the hotel I took the pants off and looked. I still had the price tag, manufactures tag, and size tags on the pants.
The reason I am telling you this story is because I got an e mail today from a rep that was in that class. In his e mail he said he had something to tell me that he never told me before. He proceeded to tell me how at every break my tags were the topic of conversation.
All I can say is, DOO DOO HAPPENS! or so it seems!
Lorin
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