Ask For What You Want

I have learned a lot working as an “Event Specialist” at my local Sam’s club. We were the people handing out free food and letting others try samples of products before they bought them. The main goal of our job was not to give out a free lunch, but to get the product name out there and sell as much of it as we could.

The higher ups made it pretty clear that the actual “handing out food” part of the job was secondary to making sure people who liked the product left the store with it. If nobody bought the products we were selling, then it made us look bad and it made the advertisers look bad for spending money with us.

When I first started out I figured that people would try the product, I could tell them a little bit about it, and if they liked it they would simply go pick it up and leave the store. Well, I came to learn that it wasn’t that easy.

It turns out that the people who get free samples at Sam’s are split into 2 basic categories. The first are the people who are just there to get a free lunch and have no intention of buying anything. The second are people who are actually shopping and might be interested in discovering something new and possibly buying the new things that they liked.

At first I would hand out the free sample, tell people about the different advantages of the product, and about the great deal that it was. Then I would direct them to the place they could find the product and answer whatever questions that they had about it.

The problem was, it wasn’t working. The first group of people who came to the store to get free food, just ignored me and walked away saying, “hehehe, I got a free snack for nothing.”

The second group of people didn’t fare much better. Although some of them where interested in it, me telling them where they could find the product just wasn’t enough of a “call to action.”

In both cases I really wasn’t communicating what I wanted from them, which was to consider buying the product. In their minds I was just being generous and I wasn’t asking anything in return for my efforts. As a result, they walked all over me.

This happened so much that one day my boss told me I needed to start selling the products otherwise they were going to have to let me go. At the time this was a pretty scary situation to be in. I didn’t want to get fired; I worked hard and wanted a steady paycheck.

What could I do? I decided that I had to start selling the product otherwise; I wasn’t going to have a job very much longer. Even worse than that, if I could not sell products, it was looking like my dream of owning my own business was going to have some major troubles in it.

The good news was that there were other people I could learn from. Around the same time a coworker told me a secret.

He said that a lot of people will carry the product close to their carts, this way they can easily hand the product to the customers and the customers don’t have to walk anywhere to get it.

At first I thought this would have made me seem pushy and annoying. I figured that it would have made me look more like a “sales person” than a “nice guy” and people hate sells people right? Fighting my natural tendency to not be pushy I decided to try it anyway. And you know what, it worked!

When I handed customers the free samples I also handed them a bag of the product if I could. Not everyone took the bag, and some of the people who I handed the bag to handed it back to me, but that was alright, because I was communicating what I wanted.

For the people who liked the product I made it as easy as possible for them to get it. On the other hand by handing the product to the people who were just there to get a free lunch I was able to change some of their mindsets from “hehehe I’m getting a free snack” to “hmm, is this something I might want to have around the house”

I started communicating what I wanted from them and they started to take action. My sales went up tenfold all because I took some time to ask for what I wanted.

This story is actually pretty relevant to life, especially if you believe in things like “The Golden Rule” and “Karma,” which says the things you do come back to you.

In business (especially with internet businesses) and in life we are conditioned to give, give, give, and hope that it comes back to us somehow. Giving is a powerful thing and I wrote a whole article on why you should donate your time and money.

The problem is, if you are always giving and are never expecting anything back then that is how people will see you. They will see you as someone who loves to give so they will take. They notice that you do not ask for anything in return, so they won’t offer anything. The world begins to walk all over you because that is the kind of vibe you are putting out.

Think about it like this. If all your energy is spent on helping others succeed then they will. You are attracting success for others and you are helping them reach their goals, which is a nice thing to be doing. But what about you?

Chances are if your energy is completely focused on other people you’re going to be neglecting yourself. Your hopes and dreams go down the drain because you never have the time to focus on them. Instead you focus on being a good person, helping others, and looking good in front of others.

The number one regret people have when they are close to death is not living the life they truly wanted when they were alive and instead focusing on what other people want too often.

Now, you’ll probably hear about innovative businesses that give things away for free and become rich because of it. And that is true, they did give and it did work out. But they still ask for what they want.

Google is always coming up with free networks and tools that people can use. But they still ask for what they want by putting ads on the side and in front of their search results.

Wal-Mart may make things more affordable and put the customer first, but they still try out new ways to up-sell their customers and to keep them in the store longer.

Yes they gave away something, but they also asked for what they wanted. That is why they succeeded, and that is why they are still around.

It is ok to give to others and to make the world a better place. But don’t forget about yourself in the process. Don’t be afraid to ask for what you want out of life.

You already know what happens when you give everything away for free and don’t expect anything in return. Why not take a chance by asking the universe for something that you want and by looking for ways to not only help others, but to help yourself in the process.

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