I learned six million dollar lessons at My first job working hot summers as an 18 year old in a warehouse at a fifth Generation fur coat dealer and this Business made it through two world wars Multiple recessions and these lessons I Have taken with me for Life the first Lesson he ever taught me was how to deal With angry customers This lady comes in and she is piss angry He's like where's Johnny he sold me this Coat and this button came off this is so Ridiculous I spent so much money on this Coach she's just making a scene I didn't Go in the retail store that much because Like I looked like an 18 year old and I Wasn't going to be selling any 25 000 Codes John the owner of the store I'm on The other side of the door so she can't See me and he's walking towards me to Turn out to go deal with her as he's Walking towards me I see him roll his Eyes and then as he turns a corner he Goes right into character Mrs Johnson That is ridiculous I cannot believe that You had a coat that had a button that Was missing Who Sold you that coat I Need to find them right now we'll get Rid of them did anyone see you with the Coat without the button we're going to Get to the bottom of this right now all Of a sudden her whole tone changes she Started backpedaling and she's like I Mean it you know it wasn't that big of a
Deal like it was it was just a button it Probably no we need to get to the bottom Of this this is not acceptable and she All of a sudden became calmness to me She's like you know what I I just I just Want it to be fixed if you could fix the Coat and he's he grabbed it from he's Like we're gonna handle this right now He goes to the back they fix the thing In five minutes he hands it back to her And she's like oh John you're always the Best thank you so much for dealing with This I'm sorry I was a little bit over The top I just you know I've spent so Much in the jacket and he's like as you Should be she walked out the door he Turned him in he was like And he said there could only be one Person in the angry boat so whenever Someone comes in the angry bug what most People try and do is they try and Downplay them and so they say well it's Not that big of a deal and what happens Is the person doesn't feel validated the Person who's upset then increases how Angry they are because they want the Person to validate why they're angry and So what happens they just keep getting Angry and this person keeps trying to Make them less angry and then just Creates more and more of a discrepancy Between the two people now the flip side Is she got in the angry boat and so she Had to get out of the angry boat and so
Whenever you're dealing with an upset Customer you need to validate their Anger and in a real way if something was Messed up and you have very high stands For your business the moment you say It's not a big deal it means you're not Actually taking responsibility even if Their complaint is ridiculous it still Is your responsibility and so you have To take ownership of it because the Alternative is you don't and you never Get better the second lesson he taught Me was about creating a new product they Realized that in the summer they never Had any demand because people aren't Trying to buy fur coats in the summer And they're like huh what can we sell to People during the summer and so it came Up with a genius idea we'll store and Condition the coats for them as they Sold every single customer code they Said hey every year make sure during the Summer when you're not using the code You bring it back here we can repair any Damages we can sew things up we can Condition the fur and we can make it Last two three five times longer so you Can pass it on to the next of kin and Then he would give this a little analogy He's like right if you're going to buy a 50 000 car you'd pay a hundred bucks a Month for insurance it's the same thing Here Sue created this analogy that Compared for codes which people didn't
Understand as well to a car which was Something they did and so what happened Is overnight he created what I would Consider an insurance product Insurance Products don't actually have to be Insurance you can charge people for the Safety that whatever they just bought Will continue to provide value for a Longer period of time and the cost to Deliver on this was so low because we Had one 18 year old two air conditioning Three storage facility and the upsell Was lesson three was getting people to Say yes by saying no when I first Learned no base selling I actually Learned it from this job when I was Saying team storage is the first core Thing which is I just hang your code up And I keep it air conditioned and the Upsell is I'll also brush it and I'll Fix it and I'll do these other things And so when they would call up customers And they'd say hey you know turn in your Code for the summer what they did was Say hey we're going to store and Condition the coat you don't want Anything else do you and they would say No no I don't want anything else and so Implied in that they got them to say yes To storage and yes to conditioning the Code it's pretty slick people want to Just get the default option we're so Trained to say no to any kind of upsells That if you get someone to say no but in
So doing get them to say yes you Actually click into their subconscious Automated response most times when they Say no to salesmen they save money you Flip the script and you align it so that Them saying no actually gets them to say Yes for you end of the purchase so Lesson Four when they wanted to get People to actually take them up on the Upsell that they had they gave them a Little piece of bait and it was what I Call sawdust and so sawdust is anything In a business that is created in excess That you normally throw out so a lot of Famous things were actually made out of Sawdust Ikea pieces of furniture they Just glued together all the sawdust from Lumber Mills whey protein used to get Scraped off the bottom of dairy centers Because it was waste product and now is Is one of the most expensive products Sold from dairy what he did was he took The scraps from all the coats that they Would make in the back they made tiny Little things that were made of fur so Think like little purses little ear Muffs and so he said anybody who would Turn in their coat would get this as a Bonus they gave away something that cost Them nothing that people still perceive Value as bait to get people to come in And actually take the upsell what's even More when people did come to turn the Thing in they would actually say well
You want to store that too right and They would say yes and then they would Charge them for that even though they Got the product for free the storage Didn't come free and if people were Listening to this if you're listening to This and you're a consumer you have to Get around the like someone selling me Something makes them evil capitalism is The only system where both people say Thank you after an exchange it means Both parties are better and if someone Threatens you that's different that's Not that's just a form of robbery but if I say would you like this thing and the Other person says yes and they give me Money and I give them the thing no harm Was done if someone didn't want to store The earmuffs then they didn't have to And they just got it for free which is a Benefit and for the business just the Cost of doing business is to get the Person in the door how he was able to Double the amount of coats people would Buy the first who said no dealers Everyone who's a consumer thinks oh These must be great deals that's why Dealers aren't allowed once they got in There was a sign on the door that said Limit two quotes per customer they're Like oh there's a limit I have to use up The scarce resource on top of that they Would have multiple strike Downs on the Price it said final price all sales are
Final and he purposely let people in on A single file line and a fixed amount of People in the store at the same time it Created this huge perception of demand And you feel like you got to go get Yours by creating this continuity Product where people would come every Year to get their fur coat insured and Fixed you become the dealer for life and So what happens is instead of them Price Shopping you were going all over town What they'll do instead is they go to You first instead of being that one Salesman who sells one car one time you Become the car salesman for the rest of Your life because of what you do between The sales so in your business if you Have a one-time product especially That's a little bit bigger in purchase Having little things that you can do Even if you didn't make money on them And then you know that on average you Get customers to buy two more products From you it more than makes up for the Effort and cost of time that you put Into it and this leads me to my final Lesson this fur coat dealer was able to Withstand all of the pita pressures and All of the you know people being upset About animals even though they wear Leather and they eat meat every day he Was able to weather that for five Generations because he never stopped Doing the boring work what they do has
Not changed fundamentally in years all They did was get better and better and Better at it one of the things that I Found through all the portfolio Companies that we work with where you Own access is not going to portfolio There's 200 million dollars a year the Difference between small business owners And the big business owners is that the Big business owners do the same thing For a very long period of time they do All the things that right now you Probably know you should be doing but Aren't in your business they just do Those they just do all the basics every Time every day and if you're like man But it's going to take me time to set up A Blog it's taking me time to do email Follow-up consistently it's gonna take Me time to create content it's going to Take me time to build a sales team yeah There's all the things that you probably Know you should do and they take time Which is why building a business that's Big takes big time but it also creates Even bigger outcomes
