Hot take: that one terrible Tuesday actually turned into my best career move

I had this awful Tuesday a few months ago where I was helping a customer find a specific size of PVC pipe and I just could not find it in the back. The guy was getting pretty annoyed, kept checking his watch, and I was about to call my manager to help. But then I took a breath and actually asked him what he was building, and it turned out he was trying to fix a sprinkler line in his backyard. I walked him through using a different fitting and a coupling instead of the exact pipe he wanted. He ended up thanking me twice and even came back the next week to buy more stuff from me. That moment kinda clicked for me that helping people figure out solutions is way more satisfying than just handing them a product off the shelf. Has anyone else had a random bad day at work that ended up teaching you something important about your actual job?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_jake2d ago

The best thing you can do is stop treating customers like they're reading a menu and start figuring out what they actually need. That's the difference between selling stuff and actually doing your job.

-1

olivia_hernandez2d ago

Wait, @the_jake is this seriously a hot take?? I thought that was like... basic sales 101.