Four invaluable sales lessons I learned in this Indian deli.

I came for a cup of coffee and ended up $22.69 lighter. Besides a full belly and a 5kg bag of rice, I got four invaluable sales lessons and a great story.

I wanted a cup of coffee and a place to sit to type a story. I had a coffee, a cup of honey tea with walnuts, a slice of marmor cake, a slice of citron cake, and a soft drink I never had before—or since—and left with a 5kg bag of rice and the promise to be back next week.

I also left with four invaluable sales lessons and a new story type down.

Lesson #1: Treat your vis-à-vis like an old friend.

When I walked over the doorstep of the deli, the owner greeted me like a childhood friend he hadn’t seen in 20 years. He was enthusiastic and seemed genuinely happy to see me. He never spoke with that B2C voice that sounds annoyingly close to a baby voice.

While I was enjoying his honey tea, he yelled through the whole deli, “You know what’s good with honey tea? This citron cake! I made it myself, you gotta try!” And I yelled back to bring me a piece.

It wasn’t like being in a commercial space. It was like being in the owner’s living room. Everyone who entered the deli was instantly a close friend.

Lesson #2: Listen more than you talk.

That was the first lesson I learned when I became a banker. The more you listen, the more you learn about the person in front of you. You learn about their struggles and about their pleasures. You learn how you can help them.

Active listening is a skill. You don’t want to be rehearsing your answer in your head while the other person is still speaking. Your focus should be entirely on what the other person says—and how they say it. Besides what they say, body language and tonality matter a lot. If you’re mindful of it, you become good at reading between the lines.

Lesson #3: Ask a lot of questions.

The deli owner asked my name (and used it several times), took my order, and continued the conversation. He asked what I’ve been up to before coming here and what I’ll do after. Naturally for a deli owner, we talked about food, and he asked me what I like to eat.

He figured that most of my favorite dishes had rice in them. He suggested I get a 5kg bag instead of small packages. It won’t go bad, and I need it anyway, and it’s cheaper, and his rice tastes better than the one from the grocery store. I got the 5kg bag of rice.

Asking a lot of questions ties in with listening more than you talk. The more questions you ask, the more you’ll find out about the other person.

Try asking mostly open-ended questions. The answers to those give you a lot of material for follow-up questions.

Lesson #4: Know your products.

In his deli, he was selling everything from warm food and beverages to car accessories. For every problem I had, he seemed to have a solution. He knew what product of his would alleviate a pain of mine and how.

Knowing what you offer in detail helps you make more connections to your customers’ pain and pleasure points. It’s all a matter of positioning your product or service the right way.

“Pat, that’s old school advice.”

Those lessons are as old as selling is. But sometimes we forget what always has and always will work. We try to reinvent the wheel or follow a new fad.

Sometimes we need a refresher. I got mine from the owner of a local Indian deli. You got yours from me.

What do you think, where I am sitting right now, typing this story?

—Pat