Wes Phillips

The Art of Sales

Wes Phillips  |  Jan 25, 2006

When I was hired to sell hi-fi almost 20 years ago, I figured I knew my stuff and I knew audiophiles. How hard could selling good gear be? I wondered. Phenomenally hard, it turned out. I began to learn how to sell and the crux of it wasn't trickery or fast-talk, but actually listening to what people wanted (and, granted, sometimes hearing stuff they weren't actually saying).

I offer this website because: 1) It contains a lot of good information and 2) It contains a lot of effective information, some of which you need to be aware of in order to resist scam-ish blandishments.

In the words of Spider Sales-Man, with great power comes great responsibility.

COMMENTS
Buddha's picture
Submitted by Buddha (not verified) on January 25, 2006 - 2:48pm

I'm not sure what it is they're selling, but I bought five!

Wes Phillips's picture
Submitted by Wes Phillips (not verified) on January 25, 2006 - 3:36pm

Sings: Step right up
Step right up
How can we do it?
How can we do it?
Volume, volume, turn up the volume!

Monty's picture
Submitted by Monty (not verified) on January 25, 2006 - 4:27pm

By and large, I think people have become much more intuitive to all the bullshit closing techniques and sales gimmicks. The tried and true method of selling yourself first and taking a genuine interest in the needs and or desires of a prospect will ring your cash register and let you sleep at night better than anyting else. Have you ever noticed that salesmen are just about the easiest people to sell stuff to and will fall for the BS faster than the average Joe?

Wes Phillips's picture
Submitted by Wes Phillips (not verified) on January 25, 2006 - 4:44pm

Yup, I think so. I was talking (virtually) to Stephen Mejias about this yesterday. I told him about an old bromide I learned from a 70-year-old salesman. He said if he couldn't figure out what to do with a customer after he'd been selling for a while, he'd drop whatever he'd been holding in his hand. If the customer picked it up and handed it back to him, he'd close the sale. The customer was his.If the customer just looked at the object on the floor, he said he knew he had some more selling to do. If the customer looked at the dropped tchotchke and then looked back at him and smiled, he knew he was outclassed and it was to to stop trying.I never tried this, since it seemed too fake to me, but the interesting thing about that salesman was that he could sell some of the crapiest used hi-fi we had—and the customer always acted as though he thought he'd pulled a fast one on the salesman. When everybody thinks they've won, that's good salesmanship.

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