Lesson 5

Lessons Learned

This week I appreciated learning about how to upsell and bundle products. Before I had my baby, I was a sales associate at a high-end retail shop. Every day we were encouraged to upsell products. If someone came in wanting a jacket for the cold weather, we would suggest ‘add-on items’ like scarves, hats, and gloves. We would do exercises where we would pretend to be shoppers with our coworkers. Many of us got the concept and were able to put it in practice during our shifts. We were always told to give the customer what they wanted, and not try to push a sale. They would appreciate the comfortable service and return when they needed something. I believe these tips made me a better salesperson. I wish all of my coworkers could read those articles!

$100 Challenge

This week I got the chance to conduct some casual interviews with friends about my $100 business challenge. Explaining that I’m going to start selling baked-frozen goods, I asked them how much they’d be willing to pay for a dozen cookies. Their answers were not what I was hoping for. Most of them said about $3 because they could just buy cheaper cookie dough from the grocery store. I quickly realized that I won’t be able to make much profit if people won’t be willing to pay more. Towards the end of our discussion, I mentioned that 100% of the profits will be donated to the Kiva organization. Almost all at once, they said they’d be willing to pay more if it was going to such a great cause. This taught me that I really need to angle my product to appeal to the philanthropic side of people. I need to make it very clear, before anything else, that they’re not just buying baked goods. They’re buying supplies for a woman in Zimbabwe to start her own business and support her family.