All great points. And thanks!

And a key point with this is that you really can’t be blowing sunshine up the interviewer’s butt; they’ll see right through it. That interviewer had to be hiring you to sell good quality products for this to work – if you were interviewing for a job selling cheap junk, your potential boss would know it too.

A good salesman only does the right thing for both parties, and that includes getting hired in the first place.

The best product for a customer isn’t always the most expensive one. I’ll literally take product out of a customer’s hand, say, “No, I’m not going to let you buy that”, and then call a competitor who has something better suited to the customer’s needs. The result? I lose the sale that day, but my employer and I gain a customer for life: he will always come to me first.

Since a good salesman only does the right thing for his customers, he wouldn’t be interviewing for a crappy or unethical company in the first place.

When I worked at Home Depot in University, one of my favorite no-pressure techniques was just wandering around the store putting away returns – buy more pieces than you need and bring back what you don’t need, because nothing is worse than having to make several trips when the power or water is off at your house. I’d walk past a customer, make eye contact, and say “I’ll be around if you need anything, okay?” Since the customer often feels like the Sales Associates are on commission or quota and going to stuff things down their throats, they’ll look at the merchandise for another minute or two and then find me an aisle or two over.

Also, no one likes to be sold anything. So, weirdly enough, I’ve found that being open about it works really, really well. “The faucet I’m trying to sell you has spring-loaded rubber seats instead of washers; this design tends to work better on well water where there might be silt. For your water, I’d avoid ceramic cartridges.”

Do the right thing.

I’ve had your webpage open in one of my browser sessions for a few days now. I forget how I stumbled upon your page, but I’ve been enjoying it.

Lawrence Wade
Ottawa, Canada