My small talk just cost Izzi's Gym $25,000. Every morning our sales rep calls with the hot list. This week it was stacked. Cases and cases of cards that would've flown off our shelves. So what did I do? I did my usual 1-2 minutes of small talk. "How's the weekend? How you feeling? By the time I said "yeah we'll take it all" — Another store had already taken it all. Every. Single. Case. Gone. So to every sales rep calling me from here on out: I love you. You're great. How's the family? Wonderful. NOW WHAT'S ON THE HOT LIST. Lesson learned the expensive way. hashtag #SmallBusiness hashtag #LessonsLearned hashtag #RetailLife hashtag #PokemonCards hashtag #TradingCards