Horological Meandering

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 ...  

. . . with watch salespeople, but it was an experience with a high-end audio salesman that comes to mind. "Which other audio pheel salons have you patronized, sir?" Ugh . . .

Chucking softly in a public area.

... American English hasn't changed the spelling to audiofile for clarity. Poor salesman! I hope you were gentle. Andrew

. . . with a hard ' i' Stateside, but this guy was trying to come off as a sophisticate. Failed miserably, I might add . . .

"The Art of War" by Sun Tzu, along with "The Prince" and "The Art of War" by Machiavelli, are universal in sales, strategy, and business environments. The problem with all of these self-help books is that customers always behave distractedly, differently,... 

Not quite the latest sales 'tactics', Patrick. This handbook was published in 1982, but I guess human psychology doesn't change too much. I agree that customers don't always follow their own 'handbooks', and different approaches work better on different c... 

en.m.wikipedia.org ,_Plus_or_Minus_Two This message has been edited by marcelo on 2012-06-04 10:53:21

http://www.musanim.com/miller1956/ The link above is not working.

...and these techniques are quite effective. It's more about how convincing the sales person is using them, and how well he or she bonds with the potential customer during the process. The science behind effective car sales and time shares is even more da... 

I am a guy that has a weakness..I can't say no.

This is my favourite quote from the book, Bernard, but perhaps it cuts a little close to the bone. “Give the customer arguments that he needs to justify his choice to himself ... and to justify his choice to others.”

neither does smooth talk and sweet sales ladies. my top 3 sales persons are all either underweight or overweight unattractive middle age men. since this book was written, there have been three big trends - 1) rise of internet sourced information on the 3P... 

... has definitely changed, Horo. Once the Authorised Dealers were the only source for these pieces. And we were at the mercy of the salesman. And it is also true that we have 'educated' and 'collected' our way out of the typical customer mould. But the p... 

A bit Machiavellian in the sense that the end justifys the means for the salesperson in getting you to buy the watch

... the best salespeople try to understand your needs and tastes and guide you to watches you didn't even consider. That has opened my eyes a couple of times. But it's rare. And what I have appreciated from salesman is a balanced discussion of the watches... 

Here's a link to a video presentation by IWC's CEO, George Kerns, who illustrated the art of selling luxury watches. www.youtube.com Best regards, Jack Freedman

than you about a selected piece? Don't you give them the look? The look that says "save your BS for the next customer thank you". I like to go in informed with very few targets. Having said that, as soon as Brand X manufactures a timepiece that makes me s... 

I thought that was why we bought these things?! Like you I usually visit dealers with a specific agenda and I have done my 'homework', but there are also times that I just want to see what's new and interesting. So I am happy to learn and be 'guided' by t... 

I think we buy because they invoke emotions. Maybe it's just me. Value is a factor but a relatively absurd term for the hobby or luxury goods in general. Today, with so much literature at our disposal on every model conceivable rarely do we learn of somet... 

I think most of that hasn't been applied to me before. (not knowingly anyway) I find the most interesting visits to watch shops usually end up with long conversations about the technology behind manufacturing today. Some of the best conversations have bee...