Читать книгу Selling Home Furnishings: A Training Program - Walter F. Shaw - Страница 32

The third possible course of action is based upon a study of the customer's needs. The salesman will seek to discover the customer's purpose in looking at easy chairs and then to show her the particular pieces in stock which are best adapted to serve that purpose. He will need information about the size, style, and coloring of the chair required, and the amount that the buyer is able or willing to pay for it. Do not, at the outset, ask for this information.

In selling home furnishings avoid questions which will force the buyer to make definite commitments in advance as to her tastes or the amount of money she is prepared to spend. In the first place, it is probable that if she had fixed ideas on these subjects she would have told you exactly what she wanted at once. If you force her by direct questions to make a statement, she may feel impelled to abide by it later; you thereby have placed yourself and your stock under an unnecessary handicap.

In the second place you run the risk of annoying her, since few women welcome a direct question at the beginning of a sales interview as to how much they are prepared to spend. Finally, such questions may be so clumsy and amateurish in technique as to under-mine a customer's confidence in your ability. Your questions at the outset should be directed toward determining her needs. If such questions are skillfully put, she will welcome them as evidence that you are trying to help her buy economically and intelligently.