Why not to try shady sales techniques on me

Saturday, April 7th, 2007 | Life

Ok so the other day I decided I needed to stop into The Room Store. I had never been there and quite honestly I could really use a frame for my bed, so why not stop in and see what prices are running at.

Well as I would expect when I walked through the door I was jumped by a salesman who just wanted to try to be helpful. Fine, whatever, if I buy something I will come look for you, no problem. Well as he was walking me to the area we needed to go he decided to start qualifying me. That day I was in shorts, a t-shirt and a hat that says “I’m a Smart One” with a donkey on it (thanks ng66). So naturally he assumed me to be broke. The first question he asked me was “do you own your own home?” Seemed kind of rude to be the first question, so I told him yes. Then he said “oh that’s good, so what do you do for a living”. A little annoyed at this point I told him I was the owner of a chain of computer stores.

salesman: Wow, well you do look like a smart one
me: (wow, you subconsciously noticed my hat, but didn’t get the smartass out of it just the phrase). Yeah, it’s a living, I am considering franchising out to other countries so I can have an excuse to travel more often.
salesman: Ok so in that case this is the section for you, I’ll let you look around yourself but just find me if you want a quote.
me: will do Steve.

Ok, so I looked around for awhile, decided that one of the frames was nice, but that I could find it cheaper online, and then I went back to my salesman and started asking him unnecessary questions.

I started with “can I get this frame stained a different color?”. Nope
I followed up with a good ol’ “so you make a decent living doing this?” To my surprise he actually started talking real numbers about what he makes selling furniture…
I then, knowing full well I wasn’t going to buy anything had him write me up quotes on a couple different items, and said I would consider coming back then. I spent a couple more minutes feeding him some bullshit and told him he should buy his own furniture store since it’s much easier to make other people do the work. I then got his full schedule so that I was sure not to miss him when I came back, and took a stack of business cards.

Then I left, never to return again.

Look people, this isn’t sales. You don’t try to qualify people. That is just shooting yourself in the foot. That’s why I felt compelled to ham it up and give the guy hope. If I had wanted to buy something from there I would of come back on his day off.

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2 Comments to Why not to try shady sales techniques on me

BadKarma
April 7, 2007

He probably wasn’t really shady, just not very good. The first rule of thumb for any salesperson is to show the coolest stuff in the store and be sure to show the price tag. You shouldn’t do this with any expectations of actually selling it. You do this to gauge your customers reactions. If you judge a book by the cover, a good salesperson knows that you will be wrong often. If you show everybody who comes in the same awesome showcase of fun or super-nice stuff, you will be able to educate people why things cost as much as they do. When they get the sticker shock of the coolest stuff explained away a little, it is much easier to take a lesser but not bottom of the line product. You’ve just shown them what they could have if they had the money, but more importantly some of the cool features that they might be willing to pay for now that they know what to look for.

Homeboy was just trying to get his family fed. He just wasn’t very good at selling. Don’t make ‘em cry.