The Great “Top Sales Techniques” Hunt: What tricks are used to sell to us?

sonofsmallface

Oh one thing though - and this is a biggie. If the salesman is emphatically nodding his head whatever you do make sure you DO NOT nod, stop yourself. It's a killer trick they taught us at a crappy sales company. A 'yes-yes' question and a nod, it works wonders, it's like the force, it makes people go from 'Stop, let me see your I.D.' to 'These aren't the droids we're looking for'
How? Stop him in his tracks by asking him why he's nodding so much, it'll backfoot him so bad he probably won't recover.

caliston

The Technique in a Nutshell: Exploiting the customer's lack of market awareness.

How much is a gas boiler? Would you have any idea? British Gas have offers like 'one third off boiler installations'. But how much should the price be to start with? I think most people wouldn't even be able to say to the nearest thousand how much a boiler replacement would be. British Gas quoted £4000, with a 'discount offer' to £3000. Several local installers quoted £2000. BG were offering such a big discount by plucking a figure out of the air and then discounting it - and most people wouldn't notice that it was double the expected price.

Imagine if the salesman of a hatchback started at £20K while the list price was £10K. You'd run a mile because most people know roughly how much a hatchback should be - but not so with boilers.

MINCER_2

sonofsmallface wrote: »

I myself do door to door sales for a very good utility company. There seems to be a lot of negativity towards sales people on here which I feel is sometimes a bit unfounded.......
...At the same time however, I am aware that there are a lot of sharks knocking doors, who would happily stitch you up and forget about you as they close your gate on the way out....

I apparently signed up to Scottish Power with a door to door salesman a couple of years ago - the fact I was on holiday 400 miles away at the time seemed to suggest he was less than honest.
Other than a tight lipped apology and cancelling the switch S P couldn't have cared less that it was fraud.


To those salespeople who are moaning about this negative view of them. If you can point us towards your professional body and the code of ethics/conduct they subscribe to (estate agents and financial advisors excluding - we know they are regulated to a degree). We can then decide for ourselves if car, double glazing, energy company, telesales, shop salespeople and for that matter Jehovah's Witnesses are to be trusted.

ishouldbeinlectures

I work for phones 4 u and I'm pretty sure most people on here have had some experience of one of their dreadful blue and red shop. I do it because it pays the bills. I like customers who haggle. I'd rather every customer didn't but I feel satisfied that if a customer haggles with me then they have a good enough intelligence not to make the mistakes that people who don't haggle make.

Anyway, the one we use in phones 4u and one which we are trained to say is 'Hi, How are you?' Then we say 'So your thinking of changing your phone' Basically the rest of our sales process (a massive script telling us what to say) is just assumptive questions leading to the point where I ask the customer whether they want to buy.

Tahiti

As with any trade, there are the good guys and the bad guys. Not all sales people are bad, but in a non-regulated commission focussed industry, it's fair to assume that there will more often than not be bias towards forcing a sale, or selling the biggest commission generating product possible.

I work in Financial Services (not on the front line), and the group I work with are very customer focussed (and NOT con men). However, I do know of some less scrupulous competitors even though we are a regulated industry.

paulfelce

I am currently looking to buy a sofa but it's so hard to know the 'true' value as the prices seem to vary wildly and they are always in a sale!
For some reason I seem compelled to not to pay the ticket price but as I have no idea what a sofa is worth let alone what kind of mark up the store is making I haven't a clue what I should be pitching for.

Extra thought: If the sales staff are making more commission on insurance or leather care products, would it be sensible to get them to say knock £200 of the price where they might lose out on 10% (£20) and offer to take out insurance costing £120 where they get more commission?

videograham

A number of years ago, a local window company where I used to live sent young reps round our street to see if we wanted new windows. Being very young, having just had our first baby and moved into a flat which needed upgrading, we thought "Why not?". We were told it'd only take half an hour or so.

A few days later whilst we were doing our gardening, the salesman turned up. To be fair, he came at the time he said he would. Logically you would think that within the "half hour" he would measure our windows and show us a range of products and prices. Easy.

No, obviously not. He started off telling us about the history of the company (like we care!) and spent an hour and a half on this and talking about other customers he'd been to etc. etc. etc. My wife had the dinner cooking, the baby was up and about and making a noise / mess and still the guy didn't get on with it. He even asked to "use our phone" and 'phoned' his company after blatantly not typing in any phone number and complained that the customers were getting impatient / wanting to finish things up and that we still hadn't seen any products yet (well, show us then!). I did a re-dial and the number that came up was my mum's. Not a windows company.

Basically, sales people take note. Get to the point, don't bore your customers, we might buy your product if you don't waffle on about pointless nonsense that we're not interested in. If you promise a quote, give us a quote.

Some advice to those normal people out there...Never let any sales person into your house. Getting rid of them is like trying to get rid of a bad smell, sorry.

Christianio

Happy_Camper wrote: »

The Technique in a Nutshell: Inaccurate benchmarking

What you were selling: Houses/flats

More Details: Someone comes in and says they want to buy/rent a place, and you establish how much they want to spend. You then show them two places. The first one is absolutely awful, making the customer panic inside "Is this all I can afford?". Then you show them the second property, which is MUCH nicer and ever-so-slightly more expensive. The customer thinks it's a deal because they are basing value on the first property. Lots of the time, the first property belongs to the estate agency, who use it for this purpose only - it is never sold or let out.

How successful was it: It worked on me when I was renting my first place.

How should MoneySavers counter it: Take each place on its own merits. See lots of properties, even if you are in a rush. If you suspect the estate agent of doing this to you, assume the first place doesn't count, and that the real 'first place' is the second one you are shown.

Note: I recommend you read a book called Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion. It is what this thread is intended to be. It is a manual for salesmen and also a guide to protect yourself from their tactics.

Bwahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!! I'm literally crying with laughter!!

Are you *seriously* implying that estate agents own property which they simply use as overpriced bait to sell their clients' property? Genius! I've worked in Estate Agency since 2000 and have never come across this tactic. Despite the fact that the average house price in the town I work is about £250000, my average fee is about £3,500, I only have to sell 72 houses to make this excellent sales tactic break even. What a shame it will only work on sales of similarly priced houses. Maybe I should buy 10 or so properties across different price ranges to be more effective?

I think I will cancel my £800 per page newspaper advertising and my £250 subscription to Rightmove now - I've seen the light.

If you want to think badly of me feel free - I used to work in car sales, import furniture sales, double glazing telesales and have even sold windscreen washes at a busy set of traffic lights in Oxford on rent day during my hazy student years! The first documented sales I made occured when I was 10 years old at the primary school disco. I noticed sales of 'blackjacks' doing remarkably well so, when there was a hundred left, I used my pound allowance to buy the box (this was when penny sweets actually cost a penny) and sold them off at 2/3p each (2p friends, 3p most other people, some people simply weren't allowed any!). I truly am a sales man and proud

webbywebsta

Womaniser wrote: »

One thing to ALWAYS remember is that the salesperson ALWAYS only has his/her interests at heart, ie the sale/commission. They may appear friendly towards you, but they really couldn't care less if you died after doing the deal. A good salesperson will always be honest and have your interests at heart, but when their income is based on a sale, honesty and decency is often put to one side.

Treat them with the contempt they deserve and don't let them take control.

TREAT THEM WITH THE CONTEMPT THEY DESERVE???????!!!!!!
I am a kind, honest, considerate, hard working family man. Oh, and I also happen to be a salesman!!!!

How dare you advise people to treat me with the contempt I deserve! I most certainly do not have "only my own interests at heart"! Yes I rely heavily on commission and yes it's my job to sell but I will only ever sell a product to someone if they either want or need it. I take great care of my customers and treat everyone as I would expect to be treated myself.

Has it not occurred to you that this site's very own Martin Lewis is a salesman? He got you to sign up for this website,didn't he? Has he not successfully persuaded you to recommend your friends to this site? Have you not used his recommendations and advice to your advantage? Hmmmm! Think about it! Does he deserve to be treated with contempt???!!!

Believe it or not there are lots of honest sales people out there who DO HAVE THE CUSTOMER'S BEST INTEREST AT HEART! Sales, like any other trade, has it's share of cowboys but don't tar us all with the same brush!

BEING A SALESMAN IS A TOUGH, THANKLESS JOB, BUT FOR SOME OF US IT'S ALL WE HAVE! THE LAST THING WE NEED IS IDIOTS LIKE YOU ENCOURAGING PEOPLE TO "TREAT US WITH CONTEMPT"!!!

Thanks!

abjem21

webbywebsta wrote: »

TREAT THEM WITH THE CONTEMPT THEY DESERVE???????!!!!!!
I am a kind, honest, considerate, hard working family man. Oh, and I also happen to be a salesman!!!!

How dare you advise people to treat me with the contempt I deserve! I most certainly do not have "only my own interests at heart"! Yes I rely heavily on commission and yes it's my job to sell but I will only ever sell a product to someone if they either want or need it. I take great care of my customers and treat everyone as I would expect to be treated myself.

Has it not occurred to you that this site's very own Martin Lewis is a salesman? He got you to sign up for this website,didn't he? Has he not successfully persuaded you to recommend your friends to this site? Have you not used his recommendations and advice to your advantage? Hmmmm! Think about it! Does he deserve to be treated with contempt???!!!

Believe it or not there are lots of honest sales people out there who DO HAVE THE CUSTOMER'S BEST INTEREST AT HEART! Sales, like any other trade, has it's share of cowboys but don't tar us all with the same brush!

BEING A SALESMAN IS A TOUGH, THANKLESS JOB, BUT FOR SOME OF US IT'S ALL WE HAVE! THE LAST THING WE NEED IS IDIOTS LIKE YOU ENCOURAGING PEOPLE TO "TREAT US WITH CONTEMPT"!!!

Thanks!

Remember nothing happens, until someone sells something, even if it is only an idea. If there was no one to sell anything, what would you eat, what would you drink. Where would you live, what would you wear ?

I really dont think you would last very long if you had to find your own drinking water, forage for your own food (I am certain you dont have the conviction or common sense to hunt for anything, original poster) or the abilty make your own garments out of the things you find.

If you think sales people only deserve your contempt I truly hope you reap what you sow.