Is everyone in sales creation or sales prevention mode this Holiday season? Well my experience was sales prevention today…

Today I went and did a little last minute Holiday shopping. First a stop at Game Stop for some video games for my son. Here’s where the fun began. I responded to a marketing promotion for a new Wii game. They got me! So I’m at Game Stop cash in hand, and I start asking questions about compatibillity of the included controller, and some basic questions regarding the game itself (that was in the promotion mind you). The answer I received was, “sorry we don’t know”. Ok, so I thought this might be just a case of a new un-educated employee…Nope! So, I proceeded to ask the store manager. She then proceeded to tell me that if I bought the game and it didn’t work I couldn’t return it. Perfect, I’m sold.

Hoping this was an isolated case, I continued shopping. On to Brookstone looking for a digital photo album that play video. Front and center and it’s on sale. Perfect. Just a couple questions about compaibility for uploading video and I’m set. A friendly sales associate approaches and I fire away with the video upload questions. She didn’t have the answer, but her co-worker did, she “will be right back” with the answer. Waiting…Waiting…Nope, she didn’t return. I guess they don’t want my business, so I ended up buying it at Target.

Am I that hard to please? I’m starting to think maybe I need a coffee to perk me up. So I grab my coffee where Starbucks nails it as usual. Same cup of $4 coffee I know and love delivered with precision…

One last stop. My wife was looking for a new piece of furniture for the office. Just a quick stop in and out…Oh boy, strike 3 on the day. We find the product we are looking and head up to the counter to purchase the goods. Denied! The sales associate informs us that the server is running too slow to process my card, but they can take cash. Perfect, “where’s the nearest cash machine?”. The answer, “I’m really not sure”…So, we end of leaving with no purchase, no sale, and a sales associate with no commission. What a day…

Is it just me or is this all too common?

Lesson of the day: You can get your customers to know, like, and trust you. You can drive them to your product and service with your marketing efforts but If you don’t deliver the goods they won’t be a customer for long. I have ran into many small business owners with great marketing but their operations, staff, internal delivery couldn’t keep up with the leads they drive into their business.

If this is you, clean up your house before you expand your marketing efforts in 2010. Make sure you keep those hard earned clients and don’t join the sales prevention department.

Go Target, Attack, and Profit!