Our Best Isn’t Our Most Expensive...

I learned to talk customers out of the expensive option when I was at the beginning of my career, and I did it to make the bill bigger as well as my tips. It took me years to understand what I had actually learned.

The Most Expensive Bottle

Often a young man would sit down with his date, order their food, look up at me and ask the same question: “What’s your best wine?” He usually meant the most expensive, because he wanted to impress the lady across the table.

I was a waiter in the restaurant I eventually became the owner of, and somewhere around the age of twenty, I had a standard answer. “Our best isn’t our most expensive.” Then I would point to a mid-range bottle on list, allowing him to see it cost less, and tell him why it would be perfect with what he had ordered. I also cooked in that kitchen, so I could describe exactly how the dishes were made, and by the time I finished, someone’s mouth was watering and the cost was not the main focus. Often, I tried not to hand over a menu at all, but generally I still did not sell the most expensive items either way.

They loved it and felt they were in fact saving money. Then, because they had not spent everything on one bottle, they ordered a second, or dessert, or coffee with the dessert, and the bill ended up higher than if I had sold them the expensive wine in the first place.

I would like to tell you I did it because I cared about their evening. That would be only partly true. I was a guy trying to make the average bill bigger, increase my tips, and I had stumbled on “a trick that worked.”

Years later, in a very different business, the same sentence cost me fifty thousand euros, possibly more than once.

Five Treadmills Instead Of Ten

In the fitness equipment business, owners opening a new club would often want to buy everything at once. A perfect example would be ten treadmills, at roughly ten thousand euros each, it was not an unusual first order.

I told more than one of them not to. A new club does not open with a full membership sellout, so for the first months half those machines would stand idle in front of the few members who were there. Buy five now, I said, and keep adding as you grow. Your members will see something new arriving every month or two, and a club that keeps improving looks alive in a way that a club which opened complete, and then closes for a big renovation years later, never does.

That advice cut my own deals dramatically at times. Sometimes it cost me more than that, because some of those clubs did not grow the way their owners hoped, and the second five treadmills were never bought at all. Not from a competitor. From nobody. I had talked myself out of a sale I would never get back.

But those owners stayed my customers. It depends how you look at it, and after enough years I know how I look at it.

One Bar, One Drink, On The Counter

The same thing happened with sports nutrition products. A club owner would say... ‘Give me the full display, the fridge, everything you’ve got.” I would often say no. These products have best-before dates, six months, maybe a year. Take one protein bar and one drink flavor. Put them on the counter next to the cash desk, not behind it, where members will see them and ask. Let your staff recommend them, let people taste them, and if it goes well, we will bring you more.

Sometimes that was how I got my foot in the door with a new client. Sometimes it was a client who had already bought equipment from us. Either way, the first order was small enough that a mistake would cost them almost nothing.

The Glass Wall Test

So which was it, care or sales? Honestly, both, and for a long time I did not see the difference clearly. The waiter was running a tactic that happened to make people happy. The man telling a club owner to buy just five treadmills was genuinely trying to help him, and was also building a client for life.

Here is the test I use now…

Imagine a glass wall between you and your customer, through which they can see every reason behind your recommendation, including the ones about your margins and P&L. If they would still thank you, it is care. If it only works as long as they cannot see your reasoning, it is a tactic, however good it makes them feel.

In the spas, when someone new wanted a package of ten treatments, often I suggested three first. See whether you like the treatments, and whether you are comfortable with the therapist. The smaller package cost a little more per treatment. Said out loud, through the glass, that advice still holds, because nobody should commit to ten sessions with a stranger. It passes the test.

The young waiter only half passes. The wine was good and the evening was better, but “so they would not question what I proposed” is not something you can say through glass. I was steering them toward the bigger bill and my tip, not their date.

What Downselling Actually Costs

Most businesses are built to maximize the first sale. Targets, bonuses and scripts all point the same way. “Sell more now.” Downselling looks like losing money only if you measure one transaction.

Measure the relationship, and the person you talked out of spending is usually the one who comes back, because you are often the only supplier who ever told them no.

But I will not pretend it always pays. Sometimes it simply costs you, the five treadmills never come and that is exactly what makes it a real test.

If talking customers down has never once cost you anything, you are not downselling. You are upselling with better manners.

Push your hand into someone's pocket and they may never come back. Earn their trust, and they open the wallet themselves.

The Question

When did you last talk a customer out of spending money with you, and could you explain your reason to them through the glass?

If they could see your reasons, would they still thank you and recommend you to their friends and family?

Relationship. Not Transaction.

Georgios B.