When Fred and I were in sales and made our print shop rounds – me, a paper rep, he a seller of presses – we would sometimes be greeted by an owner or pressman clutching a printed sample, who would say something like, “I’ve been waiting for you to visit! Take a look at this!” whereupon they’d shove the paper into our hands with no explanation as to why it was so important for us to view it – the dreaded Surprise Reveal Without Preface. We were forced to study printed pieces all the time, hundreds of them, holding them to the light to check opacity, taking them outside to get away from fluorescent lighting, hovering over them with a loupe; and after years and years of inspecting them, it felt as if we’d crawled over an immense printed sample that could have covered several central
Washington counties, giving us bad cases of visual overload. After years of doing this and depending upon circumstances, we could find it hard to distinguish the good from the bad. Did our excited customers think their pieces were the greatest things they’d ever produced, or the worst? The margin for error was off the charts.
In time, we learned how to safely deal with it, and it saved us many times. It could save you as well. Read and learn:
Take the item and look at it, cock the head slightly, adopt a tiny squint/frown, and wearing a small open-mouthed smile that can easily morph into either a big grin or a grimace, say “Huuuhhhh” in a thoughtful, relaxed glide from higher to lower tone, as if both a question and an answer. An additional “Well look at that” can be used here, but it’s optional. This is the stage where you’re presenting a response that says, “Can I be seeing this?” because at that moment, you have absolutely no idea which direction this is going. They may tell you that the sample makes them wildly happy, or makes them want to quit the business. Your reaction at this point should appear neutral, but interested, so when the customer finally gives their reason for showing you the product, you can easily and appropriately respond.
At home, we would practice with each other, handing odd pieces of mail across the kitchen table and saying, “I’m glad you’re here. Take a look at this,” so we became quite adept, and it can still work today:
“Hey, Babe, take a look! I decided to get my hair cut a lot shorter this time.”
“Huuuhhhh …”
“Look at these cargo shorts! Found them at Costco for only $15.99 and I bought every color they had.”
“Huuuhhhh …”
Trust me. It works.
Cheers!
Pat Detmer
March 29, 2023