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Really it wasn’t. The translator, says, he wants to get several so he can send them to his family. So I start helping him pick out various bracelets. All three of them liked my King Mummy Double Skull key chain. I had two that I displayed more prominently on the table today since they weren’t getting any attention the previous two days. They asked if I had some more. Darn…I wish I did. The translator guy bought one of these key chains and the other guy that was talking to my daughter bought the other. Right then I regretted I didn’t have another 10 or 20 of them. Lesson learned. At a biker type of event, have more of these types of items ready.
Well I help the guy that I’m talking to pick out a total of 6 bracelets. My daughter helps the third guy pick out 5 items. WOW. This caught us off guard. We had to make one bracelet for guy #3. Another lesson learned. Don’t be surprised by what people may say. In hindsight, if we hadn’t been caught so flat footed, we might have been able to sell many more. Another lesson that I learned…get over being shocked pretty quickly. After everything was over and they came back and got the bracelet we had to make for guy #3, we may have been able to sell more if we simply asked the question. They were obviously primed to make some purchases and we could have brought in some more sales.
Many lessons were learned with this particular event. Goes down in the book of notes to discuss in the after action report with the family.
Constant Reader. I’ll see you next time with more. Take care.
Sounds like the perfect thing to hear when your selling something. I thought it was a joke and I was waiting for he punchline.
Let me back up and tell you what happened. We had a nice lady come by and inquire about a patriotic colored bracelet with a white ribbon. She wanted her friend to see it and said she may buy two if her friend likes it. She said she would leave her husband at our stand. As collateral I guess, while she took the bracelet to her friend.I thought this was funny, but he went along with it so who am I to talk.
A few minutes later, she returned with not only her friend but also a couple other people. She wanted one for her friend and herself and the two guys wanted one as well. With this order we needed to make 3 identical bracelets.to go along with the one we had already. Around the middle of taking this order, I spot three guys, peeking around the other folks, looking at our table. Not really surprising, as it happened several times throughout the event. Then the people would either buy something or keep going. Well these guys waited until the previous four left. They approached the table and I could tell immediately only one of them spoke fairly good english. The other two spoke very broken english and they were all fluent in Arabic as far as I could tell. As they were looking around, Alyssia and I got to starting the other bracelets we needed to make. Well I’m looking down at the bracelet that I’m making and I glanced up and saw the guy closest to me making a circular motion, sort of over the whole table. The guy, or translator, in this case says out loud, “He wants one of everything.” I almost started laughing, because I think its a joke. Then I look at their faces and could tell right away, they weren’t joking. So now I’m not joking either, right. I stand up and ask, for the translator to tell me what he has in mind.
Tune in next time, Constant Reader, to see what happened from here.
After we got everything set up on day three, it was pretty slow for some time. The motor officers, were busy on their bikes, getting in their last practice preparing for their skills competition that would be later in the morning. Many of the other vendors, were slowly putting their stalls together. One thing I saw that I guess I could have done if I wanted was to leave the setup as it was and covered up everything with a tarp and lowered the canopy. I didn’t think to do that, but I will keep it in mind for the future. It wasn’t too difficult to set up since we had done it the previous two days.
While we were waiting in the morning, the Mayor of Flint, Dayne Walling walked by our booth. I think he recognizes me from our union negotiations with the city, but I’m never sure. Either way, he stopped by and chatted for a few moments and we chatted about the event. We even joked that between the two of our families, their isn’t one tattoo, motorcycle, leather vest or anything. We both came to conclusion that we are pretty square compared to most of the people and bikers that were at the Bikes on the Bricks.
The first customers we had were a couple ladies from a local Biker church. Personally I had never heard of such a thing, but I was intrigued by the thought of people being in church with sunglasses and chaps. We chatted with these ladies the previous day and they both said they wanted a particular bracelet but didn’t have any money on them. Well I had heard that before so I didn’t get overly excited. Well, they came back on day three and said they were ready to buy a couple Breast Cancer Awareness Bracelets. Of course we took care of them and they even invited us to be one of the vendors at a Breast Cancer Awareness Ride that is to be based out of their church in early October. I told them I would put some thought to it.
Tune in for a new chapter next time, Constant Reader. See you then.
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