In last week’s column, “After Shave”, I shared a story about a barber whose response to my request fora light trim left me little short of a shorn sheep.  He did “light trim” his way – “That’s the way I do it.”

It wasn’t my way. We didn’t have the same understanding of the request.  My fault for not being clear. His fault for not ensuring HE was clear.

One of our readers replied with her own story…. too good not to share.

Nick,

Your Weekly Sales Thought tickled me.

In my former life I was a Cosmetologist; I always asked a ton of questions during the consultation phase and, as a result, I received a massive amount of repeat business from clients. They always appreciated the extra time spent making sure I understood their vision.

In fact, when I interviewed with the first bank I worked for they asked what made me successful in my role as a Cosmetologist. My response was….

“Clients have to feel you have their best interest at heart and so I asked a lot of questions during the consultation in order to understand what was important to them.

Furthermore, I didn’t take for granted the next interaction; I didn’t assume they’d want the exact same thing the next time around, so if/when they came back, I asked what they liked and didn’t like the last time and how I could make it better.

From there I’d build rapport while I took care of them; that slowly turned into trust over time. You see, if I didn’t show a client that I was concerned with what they preferred,  they wouldn’t give me their repeat business…..the key phrase is their repeat business, because they are the ones who would decide where they’d go the next time around.

Just because a customer/client returned for repeat business didn’t mean that they were looking for the same thing again. Rather, the repeat business could be directly correlated to the way a customer/client was treated before getting down to business.”