Horological Meandering

AndrewD
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Book review: The Art and Psychology of Selling Brand Name Watches

Know thine enemy …

The Art and Psychology of Selling Brand Name Watches

[A training handbook for successful salespersons, sales supervisors and instructors.]

By Jurgen Uhle.

Publisher: Scriptar SA, Lausanne, Switzerland, 1982

When I saw the title of this handbook I thought it might be fun. Written by a management and sales consultant to increase the success of watch salespeople, it describes an interesting game of cat and mouse.

The techniques recommended essentially boil down to the following:

Be enthusiastic and pleasant and establish a favorable emotional relationship.

Don’t pre-judge or jump to conclusions based on your prior knowledge of customers.

Ask open-ended questions to pull the customer into the sales conversation.

Be credible and avoid controversies and never directly contradict the customer.

Relate the watches features back to what the customer wants and avoid technical jargon.

Use a tray to show off the watches to their best advantage. Never more than 7 watches, and place the watch in question in the middle of the group. Start with the most expensive and move down. And explain why there are price differences. Put any rejected watches out of site, leaving only 2 or 3 models on the tray for the final decision.

Recommend the model that the customer asked the most about or put on his wrist the most.

Present your reasons to purchase that particular watch from the customers’ perspective.

Don’t bring up the price too early in the conversation because it establishes a price ceiling nominated by the customer.

Never use the word “expensive”. Talk about “exclusive” and “value” instead.

When finally giving the price, say it with assurance – don’t hesitate or be nervous like you are charging too much.

Does any of this seem familiar to you? Have some of the salespeople you have dealt with read this handbook?!

I think back over some of the most pleasant interactions I have had with watch salespeople and now wonder if they were just telling me what I wanted/needed to hear!

But armed with knowledge, who’s going to be the cat and who’s going to be the mouse next time? J

Andrew

“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result …”

Sun Tzu, The Art of War