One of the highlights of our trip to Egypt this Easter was an excursion to Cairo to see the Great Pyramids at Giza and the Egyptian Museum, which houses all the amazing artifacts from Tutankhamen’s tomb.
It was a long day, with a flight into Cairo and then a private tour that I had booked for the six of us (Sue, me and the four children, including Fabian who is only seven). Our tour guide was a very entertaining Egyptian chap with the unlikely name of Robbie (no, I don’t think it was real!)
Robbie looked after us really well – he made us feel very special and having toured the centre of Cairo and spent a couple of hours in the museum, we headed out towards the pyramids, which we were all very excited about seeing (they really are quite incredible by the way).
It makes you feel very humble and small to see these colossal structures (all the photographs I’d ever seen completely diminish the scale of them) and climbing inside the Great Pyramid all the way to the burial chamber is something that I think will stay with me forever (although it’s not for the claustrophobic) However, I digress…
On the way out of Cairo to the Pyramids, Robbie explained that he was going to stop off at the International Papyrus Centre, where he thought the children would really enjoy painting some Hieroglyphic characters on papyrus. In addition, he said, there were some great things for us to see.
Now, I cottoned on straightaway that there was likely to be a commercial element to this stop off, but we were having a great day, everyone was in good spirits and I was happy to go along with it.
The driver of our little minibus (there were only the six of us on board, don’t forget), pulled up outside a very nondescript building, which did indeed have above its doorway the heading; “International Papyrus Centre”- and here’s the first lesson; Calling itself that gave the establishment a sound, at least, of authority and respectability. In truth, it was one of more than a dozen papyrus shops in and around the Pyramids that we saw, but this was the one where Robbie obviously had his deal and, after all, it had the official sounding name!
We went inside and it was very beautifully kitted out; very deep pile carpet, beautifully cool air conditioning and the walls were all hung with hundreds of classical Egyptian paintings, all on papyrus, all images of ancient Egypt. Some were small, but many were huge. We were greeted by a lovely lady, whose name I forget. She welcomed us in, asked the children what their names were and straightaway sent one of her staff to bring us cold refreshing drinks.
This was the first really smart thing that they were doing here. By providing us with free drinks and going out of their way to welcome us, they were starting to put into play what I call ‘The Law of Reciprocity’.
This is a universal law, which says that if you do something nice for me then I feel obliged to do something nice for you.
In 99.9% of cases it’s a law that’s very effective and works very well. In short, the second we walked in the door she was teeing us up to spend money!
Once we had finished our drinks, she gave the children a demonstration of how papyrus was made (it was really quite interesting) and they were able to lay a few pieces of papyrus down themselves. She then got them special ink pens and showed them how to write their names in Hieroglyphics on papyrus- which is pretty cool when you’re 7, or even 13!
What was happening here was more “Law of Reciprocity”. She was providing free childcare, education and fun for my children – who all warmed to her whilst Sue and I were able to browse around the beautiful papyrus pictures on the wall! You can see exactly what was happening, can’t you?
Once she’d got the children happily inking away on papyrus, she came across to join Sue and I and explained that the very big pictures cost 2,000 Egyptian pounds, the medium sized ones were 1,200 Egyptian pounds and the smaller ones were only 800 Egyptian pounds. However, because we were friends of Robbie (!!!) she would be able to reduce these prices for us; that there was real value to be had if we bought more than one papyrus picture and that they made great gifts for family back home.
She explained in detail how her bundling worked (basically, the more I bought the less each one cost) and I couldn’t help but be impressed on the master class we were being given on effective selling.
She’d kicked off with the Law of Reciprocity and now she was following it through with an exemplary performance of how to package and bundle your products up. Her piece de resistance was the introduction of a deadline when Sue suggested that we might want to think about the pictures whilst we viewed the Pyramids. The lady explained that we would be going back to the airport via a different route and therefore if we wanted to take advantage of these amazing opportunities that she’d given us today, we would have to make the decision now whilst we were in the shop. It was very low-key high pressure, if you get what I mean.
Never at any point did we feel pressured but she was fully in control of the situation. Our entire time in that shop was controlled by her, and was to her agenda, BUT IT DIDN’T FEEL LIKE THAT TO US, because she did it so well.
There are more lessons to come: She then spoke to the children and asked them which pictures they liked best. This is a really cunning sales technique, because of course what happened then was that the children, having done some Hieroglyphics of their own on papyrus were very keen to each have a papyrus picture for their bedrooms. A pincer movement was now occurring as all four
of my children were whizzing round the International Papyrus Centre deciding which picture they wanted on their bedroom walls. She had very subtly and cleverly instigated this.
And so it was that we ended up buying three papyrus pictures that we didn’t need, didn’t want and had no intention of buying when we set out that day.
She cut me a bundle which was a hugely reduced price – but I still spent almost £200, so she did quite well. What was interesting is that two of the children chose pictures that had the scope to be personalized and here’s where the upsells came in. Having done the deal on the pictures, she explained that if we wanted the two pictures to be personalized with our children’s names then her artist would be able to do that straightaway for us but we’d have to pay the artist separately and that her price was the equivalent of £10 per picture – so she took another 10% off me with that.
And then when she asked me how I wanted to pay and I proffered my Barclaycard, she said “Oh, what a shame you haven’t got cash, we’ll have to charge an extra 3% for the credit card charges.” Now, at this point, the pictures were all unwrapped, the personalization was underway – I had nowhere to go, she took the additional 3% as well.
Reading this back it would be easy to get the perception that we were pressured into buying this papyrus. That is not true. The reason I’m writing about this and sharing the story with you is because the whole 35 to 45 minutes that this took was a lovely, pleasant experience, for all of us. We never felt in any way pressured at all.
We didn’t feel bad about spending the money – I didn’t even have any buyer’s remorse to be honest (after all it was only £200), but the way she steered us from complete non-buyers when we entered that establishment, to spending £200 with her less than half an hour later was genuinely superb.
I told her so as well- and offered her a job if she ever came to England. I’d definitely employ someone with that amount of skill and craft in their sales techniques.
Later on in the day, I wandered into another papyrus shop and the experience was completely different. No one spoke to me, I asked the prices, I was given them and, obviously, I didn’t buy.
You know, selling is an honourable profession. Nothing happens in business until somebody buys something. One of the reasons so many businesses experienced a downturn in the recession is because, for many years, we were able to be complacent and lazy and not have to worry about selling. People were buying lots of stuff, fuelled by debt. In 2005 and 2006 you didn’t have to be an expert at selling to make lots of sales. But you do now.
The world has changed and that lady in the International Papyrus Centre could teach many, many good British businesses the tools and techniques that they need to know, learn and implement if they’re going to flourish in the months and years ahead.
Please don’t neglect your sales skills and especially putting them into practice. It really was a salutary lesson for me and very worthy of inclusion as our Marketing Lesson of the Month.
