W.W.P&D.D?

Today I had to do something that made me uncomfortable. It logically wasn’t something that should make me uneasy after years of sales experience but it did. I had to ask a brand new customer to pay in advance for the items we needed to fix their scale. We’re buying the items from a vendor that we’ve never worked with before and with the age of our business and current credit history, credit accounts are never a shoe in. We’re working hard to power through some financial struggles and taking on more debt just isn’t a wise option even if we could guarantee we’d get approved for the credit account.

For some added context, we have a lot of potential for growth with this customer and they are coming to us because they are unhappy with the service they recieved from another company. They are putting a lot of trust in us based on a recommendation given to them by one of our other customers. I DO NOT want to lose them.

I have complete faith in The Hubs’ ability to take care of their problem and get their scale fixed. I know that once this job is done we’ll have their business for the long haul. I was afraid of my own shortcomings and lack of confidence in this conversation causing our failure. I was afraid of upsetting them and losing the job before he’d had the chance to really show them our value.

I called the customer to have this conversation on Thursday but they didn’t answer. I stressed all weekend long when I didn’t hear from them. My anxiety monster/imposter syndrome had me on edge. I very nearly put off the call today but I thought about how hard The Hubs has been working and knew it was time to nut up or shut up. They were expecting me to order products so we could fix their scale and I needed to do it ASAP.

I gave myself a mental pep talk, reminded myself that I needed to think with my customer’s wallet and not mine, took a deep breath, and made the call. After all that stress the whole conversation lasted no more than three minutes including pleasantries. The customer was completely unfazed and told me to send over the invoice so we could get the parts ordered. I hung up and breathed a sigh of relief then called my grandmother, Dear.

Dear is my Entrepreneurial Sherpa. Before he passed away, she and my Pop built their company from the ground up. She’s an incredible saleswoman, all around awesome person, and a wealth of knowledge. Pop was too. I keep a sign next to my desk that has a picture of them and says “W.W.P&D.D?… What would Pop and Dear do?” I swear she talks me off the ledge at least once a week and has listened to me cry as we navigated this business more times than I can count. That whole “think with my customer’s wallet instead of mine” is directly from her. It’s how I’ve grown our profit margins and learned how to sell with confidence. I never sell someone something they don’t need, but even when a customer needs your product the dollar signs can be daunting.

For some people what I did today may seem small. Heck, it’s not even close to my biggest sale. But I faced my fear of failure head on and didn’t let it prevent me from doing what needed to be done to provide for my family and take care of my customer. Today, I think I definitely did what Pop and Dear would do, and I’m damn proud of myself for it.