Social Selling (Issue 741)

In which we are reminded that the value we post on line - our social selling and personal marketing – can take us to markets and people far beyond the local market we serve. THAT’s why we do it.

“I’m sorry, sir. I can’t have you behind the counter.”IMG_8705

“Sorry…. sorry.” I moved back toward the front of the FedEx shipping store, leaving Emma and John to their work, wrapping my cased guitar and a small Randall amplifier in sheets and sheets of bubble wrap.

“I just want to make sure they’re securely wrapped so they arrive in Michigan in good shape,” I said, standing tippee-toed so I could watch Emma’s work with the guitar. “I’ve had ‘em since they were new.” A lot of years.

“Yes, sir, we’ll be careful.”

After a bit, Emma brought the guitar, now looking more like a recovered mummy than a guitar, to the front counter.

“Look OK?” she asked, first displaying the guitar, then pointing to the amplifier, now unrecognizably round in bubble wrap.

Following my approving nod, she and I slid the mummied guitar into a long box and she taped it shut.

“It’ll be fine,” she reassured me, affixing “Fragile” and “This Side Up” stickers to the box.

This whole adventure was a bit of a shock to me. After deciding to sell, I’d listed the guitar and amp separately on Craigslist in Boston, MetroWest to be exact, figuring that one of the local guitar crazies would see the ad after a few days, come to the house, play it, buy it, and carry it off. It’s a great guitar, an Ibanez MC300DS in almost-new condition. I hadn’t played it much and I’d been very careful with it.

Knock me over with a feather, within four hours, a guy living out in the woods in Western Michigan hits the ad, emails me, then calls, and we talk for 30 minutes about the instrument. Turns out, he collects Ibanez guitars. From the serial number and the pictures, he could tell when it was built, where it was built, and how it was different from the standard model that appears in the catalogs.

Well, long story short, he sizes me up on the phone, we haggle the price and agree, and the deal was done.

Michigan! I put something on the Boston Craigslist for local buyers and I sell to a guy in Michigan!!! Out in the woods, Michigan, no less!

Lesson learned (as there is much more to sell, now that we’ve started!). When we post valuable stuff on the web, there’s no telling who will look at it, where they’ll be, and what opportunities will open as a result. Social selling at its best! Frederick Remington bronze statues up next!

 

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