Had an interesting occurrence yesterday at the gun show. Did a pitch, starting with only one kid but others wandered by and eventually there were 6 kids right down in front, with parents in the background. The aisle was really blocked, which made others either stop or go around. Near closing.

Sold 5 decks IMMEDIATELY—no questions, basically just, “Gimme the deck!” One kid didn’t buy. He was maybe 10, stood there looking around. The others left, he’s still there.

“Hey, 7 American Dollars, no pesos” is my usual close at that point. “This is the place where I make $7 disappear. Give it to me, I’ll show you. You’ll never see it again.”

“I’m looking for my parents.”

“We don’t take trade-ins. You gotta keep your parents.”

“No, they’re the ones with the money.”

“Blah blah blah—I’m closing so go find ‘em….”

I’m packing up, with my back to the table, when I hear the vendor next to me say, “Hey, you DID go get your parent’s, didn’t you?”

I look up and there’s a family unit, 2 sisters, the parents and the kid. I point my finger at the kid and say, “I see you brought your parents. Did I tell you, NO trade-ins?” Everybody laughs and I say, “OK, I’m gonna do one more trick.” I do the Larceny bit. “Wow, how’d you do that…that’s neat…blah blah blah.”

“How much are these decks?” the father asks.

The kid says, “I told you there were $7.”

The father says, “How about $5?”

“Nope, sorry, but I’ll tell you what I WILL do. You buy 3, the 4th one is free. (my usual ‘deal’)

“What if I get 6?” Of course, the answer would have been “2 free” but I always raise it 1 more. But this time I thot, ‘What the heck, let’s see what happens.’

“Well, you get 2 free but if you buy EIGHT, I’ll give you 3 free.” That’ll be the day, I thot.

“I’ll take it. So $56 and I get 3 free?”

I hadn’t figured that fast but I said, “Sounds like a deal to me. And I have a big virgin vinyl custom carrying case right here to put ‘em in (The bag!)

I’m putting them in the bag and the father says, “What’s this thing here?” picking up a stripper.

I launch into my stripper pitch and figure, what the heck, “$20 each set but if you buy 3, you get the 4th set free.”

“So that’s $56 for the cards and $60 for the strippers--$116 plus I get 1 set free?”

“Sounds like a deal to me.” I put the strippers into a bag.

He pulls out a hundred dollar bill and some other change, hands it to me. I’m so amazed at this point, my hands were starting to shake like a wet cat in a hurricane. I hand the bags to the kids and say my ‘thank you’s’ and they leave.

As they walked away, the father said, “Now wasn’t that easy? We have all our Christmas shopping done”

I’m sure THAT situation will never happen again! I’ll let you know.

Jon

Hahahaha what a great story Jon.The "pitching gods" were surely looking down on you.

This is whats so nice about this bussiness...you never know.

Later,Don

Thanks JON for this amazing story! It just goes to show you NEVER know what will happen out there., every spot is a new adventure.

Keep up the great job Jon!

ROD

Don, you are EGG-zacly right! As I said, I was packing up and really was just goofing off with the kid. My day was over. But you just REALLY never know.

Rod, "Adventure" is the word for it. I think that's why I like doing it so much--that and the MONEY!

After re-reading the above story, I felt it sounded a little like I was bragging. But I must tell you, I was as amazed as anyone reading it. I'm hoping as Christmas gets closer, things'll get even better. (But I'm not holding my breath!)

Jon