I am at work and the phone rings, another customer – great!

The man on the phone explains that he is looking to buy a banner for the front of his church, he asks if we do them and how much it would cost. I let him know that we can supply & install them no problem and that to provide an estimate I would require a rough size from him.

This is where the difficulties began. Usually just a rough 10′ x 3′ would suffice, even if the banner turns out to be 8′ or 12′ long. The rough estimate gives the customer a chance to assess their budget or compare prices to other companies.

The response I received this time was “I’m looking for an average sized banner” – I had to pause to let it sink in.

I don’t know about any other companies, but we don’t stock “average sized” banners, I don’t even know what an average size would be. We sell them completely custom sized every time to suit the needs of the customer and the location it is being hung.

I explained that providing a price for “average size” would be so broad that it would be pointless so I tried a different approach: I asked “What sized area do you have to put it on?” and I should have known what would come next.

The reply: “It’s an average sized church”

So there we have it, the customer would like “an average sized banner for an average sized church”

We finally managed to arrange a time and day that we could come down and measure up the church and discuss the job with him. This also took some doing, he seemed apprehensive to meet us, maybe he thought it would commit him to buying, who knows.

We got the job and successfully produced a banner for his church – A happy ending!

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