Influencers from Around the World - How NOT to Sell a Dishwasher

This week you’ll read a funny story about how not to sell. It comes to us all the way from Italy and is based on the real life experience of Marco Germani. Marco has written guest posts for me for about three years now. I think you’ll see humor in his situation and the value a good salesperson can bring to customers. Along the way you’ll also get several tips on how to be a better salesperson.

Brian, CMCT® 
influencepeople 
Helping You Learn to Hear “Yes”.

How NOT to Sell a Dishwasher

A few weeks ago I went to a large household appliance shop in Rome with the intention of buying a new dishwasher. I have almost zero knowledge about this kind of machine but didn’t have time to perform an accurate search on the Internet. Because I didn’t understand which would be the best buy for me (among the dozens of models exhibited), I decided to rely on the advice of the store clerk.

I approached the clerk with this question, “In your opinion, which is the machine with the best quality/price ratio?” From this point forward the guy presented himself in one of the worst sales performances I have ever seen in my life. It was so bad I decided to write an article for this blog about it. Let’s sum up the main mistakes he made:

1. MISTAKE: He asked no questions.

In reply to this question the clerk started to list all the brands and models the store had in stock. He should have asked me a few questions instead in order to better understand my specific needs in terms of a dishwasher.

“Why are you buying a new machine today?”

“Did the old one failed and if so, why?”

“How often do you wash your dishes and how many people in the household?”

There were some basic questions I expected him to ask but he didn’t. It’s like going to the doctor and the doctor just starts listing all the drugs available without first investigating your symptoms, Not good!

2. MISTAKE: He was completely unprepared on the products.

The machines available in the store ranged in price from 300 to 1,500 Euro. While it was quite easy, even for the untrained eye, to spot a difference between the most expensive machine and the cheapest one, it was surely more tricky to understand the difference between a machine of the same size, priced at 500 Euro vs. one priced at 650 Euro. At one point I asked him about the difference between two machines, which happened to be the same brand, that had an 85 Euro price difference. This should not be a difficult question for somebody who makes a living out of selling these types of appliances! His answer was, “I guess the more expensive one has more washing programs.” I thought to myself, “You’re paid to guess rather than to provide information.” Trying to go a bit deeper into the question I soon realized his knowledge of the products was close to mine, which made him almost completely useless.

3. MISTAKE: He presented the prices in the wrong order.

Not knowing how to move forward, I tried a different question, “Which one would you buy for your family?” He told me he would have probably bought a Bosch machine priced 659 Euro or an Ariston machine priced 779 Euro, or why not the Candy machine priced at 809 Euro. Had he knew the basics about how to present a price, he would have started the list with the most expensive one and he could have answered in the following way, “ I would surely buy the Candy, at 810 Euro. It definitely has the best quality/price ratio and in 20 years it will work as smoothly as it does today. I do understand, however, it is a bit on the expensive side so an alternative might be the Ariston at 779 Euro because it’s a very good machine indeed. It’s close in performances and consumption to the first one.” With this kind of presentation, the 779 Euro of the Ariston would have appeared to be a good deal had I not opted for the more expensive machine.

4. MISTAKE: He did not close the sale.

At this stage, I was seriously thinking about leaving the store and going somewhere else so I told him I just wanted to think about it. The guy said okay and left me there so he could “assist” another customer. As he left he told me to call him if I needed him. Very bad! That’s absolutely the best way to lose the sale. He should have asked something like, “Exactly, what do you want to think about? Is it the price or something else?” He could have asked, “Is there any way I can help you think about it? Do you need some additional information?” In other words, you never want to leave your customer, who already gave you buying signals, on his own before you even tried to close the sale.

I really needed the machine (the old one failed and washing dishes by the hand is not in the list of my favorite leisure activities and my wife claims to be allergic to dish soap) so I ended up buying a mid-priced machine and left feeling unsure as to whether or not I’d done the right thing. With a more skilled clerk I probably would have spent more and felt better about it. I wonder how much money that shop is losing every day because of an incompetent salesman? Poor salesmen like the guy I encountered is good news for those who study sales and the principles of persuasion. Studying those two disciplines will help salespeople bring more value than a regular store clerk who’s never spent time studying either subject and the end result will be significantly better sales.

Marco Germani

mgermani@email.it