I am amazed how often this happens.

During a break at a seminar the other day, I went outside for some fresh air and wandered, as I do, into a golf shop that was next door (some would say I still would have found it if it was three blocks away).

This was most fortunate as they had a great sale on a named brand of golf trousers– for those non-golfers, they were tailored specifically to the game of golf with an expandable waist, an outside tee pocket for tees (thereby saving the wear and disfiguration on traditional pockets), protruding and accessible pockets for scorecards and golf glove as well as other attractive features.

I digress slightly as the real point is they were cheap for their high quality. I thought this was as good as Christmas.

I therefore bought three pairs – and without my asking, he reduced the price further (therein lies a story for another day).

But an easy opportunity was lost.

I wasn’t asked if I would like to buy a belt or belts with those (nor indeed anything else for that matter). Golf shops sell belts. How easy would it have been to suggest buying a matching belt (particularity given one pair of trousers was a different colour from my existing golf trousers and shorts). Asking the question wasn’t going to stop me from buying the trousers which I had already decided to buy anyway. The question would have taken 5 seconds. The question would not have offended or annoyed me. Perhaps they had some belt with special features – waterproof whatever – that I may have happily bought.

For the sake of spending 5 seconds asking a question and perhaps making a recommendation, the chance to sell something else, at a normal margin mind you, was lost.

So who is at fault here?

I would suggest the store manager as they should better train their staff.  McDonalds worked this out long ago as the simple question do you want fries with that adds MILLIONS to their collective bottom line.   I would like to think our clients wouldn’t fall for the same mistake as we have software we use with your clients that shows the gain from increasing the number of transactions by each customer and increasing the average transaction value of those transactions. There is also the true cost of giving discounts – but as I said above, that is a story for another day…