When I was a teenager I worked at a local mall in the food court area at a popular fast food restaurant. The restaurant offered the usual burgers and fries and even ice cream. My usual schedule had me working during both the lunch and dinner hours which made the time really go by faster.
One day at work after a visit from my boss’ boss when all went in for a store meeting and were told that our sales had been dropping over the past few months. My boss told us that the restaurant next door to us had been out doing us in sales and now was the time to do something about it.
I immediately knew why the restaurant next door was kicking our butt. It was because they had employees out front giving away free samples to anyone that walked by. This is a strategy that I use in my residual income business today. Clearly back then we weren’t helping our customers solve their hunger problem well enough and our next door neighbor was.
My boss watched what our neighbors did to lure customers for a week before he finally figured it out. He decided that we would basically copy their methods and start giving out free samples to every person that wanted one too. I ended up drawing the short straw and had to be one of the people passing out samples. Doing that all day and having to smile too was a challenge but it taught me a business lesson. It taught me problem solving as a selling method because we were solving the problem of hunger for our customers and reaping the rewards too.
In the case of me giving away free samples from the restaurant I was helping customers solve a problem of hunger, and when they wanted to solve that problem further then they would be more likely to come see me.
This shift in strategy as a teenager helped me in adulthood because now my sales approach in my residual income business is based around giving away something of value for free in order to help a customer solve a problem.
And when it comes to giving a little something to get a bigger something, either you want your business to grow or not.
