HOW DO YOU SELL FURNITURE TO THE "WALK IN" BUYER IN THE 21ST CENTURY?

HOW DO YOU SELL FURNITURE TO "THE WALK" IN BUYER IN THE 21ST CENTURY?

James R. Fisher, Jr., Ph.D.
© February 4, 2010

REFERENCE:

Someone asked me yesterday if I had any books on “closing” for selling furniture. I wrote an excellent book on this subject nearly twenty years ago, CONFIDENT SELLING FOR THE 90s (1992), which was ahead of its time. The book received a nomination for a Pulitzer Prize in Nonfiction for 1992.

"Closing" is a twentieth century anachronism. Closing is not a phase. Closing is an agreement between buyer and seller, an evolving contract between buyer and seller from the opening moments of contact.

Moreover, this is covered in detail in THE FISHER PARADIGM©™ which indicates conflict is a necessary precursor to consensus, as contention precedes cooperation given suspicion is as natural to enterprise as bickering.

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THE WALK IN

Print and electronic media including television bring buyers to the store. One hundred percent (100%) of these walk ins are potential buyers, true, but in reality only about twenty percent (20%) have a specific need to satisfy, while eighty percent (80%) have no specific need but many unsatisfied wants.

We normally categorize the latter group as “lookers,” allowing them to survey the store buying nothing and leaving with brochures and the seller’s business card. This group is critical to a store’s and a seller’s success. The other group, the twenty percent, is a niche shopper with a specific need, agenda and budget. They require a sales consultant, not a seller, as they are essentially the buyer-seller in actual chemistry and geography. In other words, they are not in any sense typical “walk ins.”

THE WALK IN AS BUYER

Not to make this too fine a point, but there is a danger in misreading and miss serving the buyer as walk in.

Specifically, the buyer is led to the furniture store on the wings of “want” when a need exists but there is no budget to fulfill want.

A seller is doing the walk in a grave disservice if the seller is successful in selling want, which is beyond the budget of need.

The main function of the seller is to persuade the buyer to want what the buyer needs. It is unethical and counterproductive to successfully persuade the buyer to need what the buyer wants.

THE WALK IN BUYER’S GEOGRAPHY

We carry our geography with us. We boldly display this geography by the way we dress, the way we walk and talk, the conversation that we elicit, the way we treat our partner in the walk in, the manner in which we approach and relate to the seller, even our accent, diction and grammar are representative of our cultural inculcation, which in turn is an expression of our values.

THE WALK IN BUYER’S DEMOGRAPHICS

We are sensitive to the idea of ethnic profiling, but we all do it and there is nothing wrong with it if it helps the seller identify the buyer in terms of gender, age, education, language, health, wealth, race, religion, appearance, and social, psychological, emotional and political persuasion. It is, of course, all packaged together in our initial impression, which is our appearance.

The discriminating seller discerns these statistical indicators to match the buyer with what the buyer needs. Sometimes the buyer cannot express in words or identify in product terms what the buyer is looking for. The seller is trained to read these indicators and make the interpretation for the buyer.

This is not an invasion of privacy. It is recognizing the house the buyer is carrying in his person and matching the furniture to fit that house and not the house to fit the seller's furniture.

THE WALK IN BUYER’S PERSONALITY

A buyer’s geography and demographics are part of the buyer’s essence. They are what the buyer was essentially born with or into by the circumstance of his birth and culture. We can call this the “real self” because it is as much a part of the buyer as of the buyer's genetics, which neither seller nor buyer can change.

Personality is a whole different matter. Personality is our acquired self. It is the part of us that is constantly changing. It is the reason we have identity crises, mid-life crises and are so easily influenced with the latest fads.

It is also the reason some buyers have great sales resistance and others have practically none.

Again, the 80-20 rule applies, that is, eighty percent (80%) of walk in buyers are “just looking” and show an inclination to say “no,” or that they have nothing specific in mind, that “they’re just interested in the latest styles.”

Then there are the twenty percent (20%) that are anxious for the seller to persuade them to need what they want with reckless abandon. They are pleasers and they want to “please” the seller by buying “something,” even if they don’t need it. “They” know how tough times are and they are doing the seller a favor. They are the seller's nemesis.

Stated another way, the twenty person “yes” buyers are an anathema to the seller because they are often apt to become delinquent in honoring their commitment, and subject to repossession, which is quite costly to the seller's firm.

The seller's "real customers" are the hard-to-get eighty percent that resists efforts to sell them anything. Yet, they stay in the store, keep looking and if the seller has an accurate roadmap of this buyer’s traffic, he will see that the buyer keeps returning to the same items in the store again and again.

ENGAGING THE WALK IN

The first twenty seconds of contact between the seller and buyer are critical. That is why it is important for the seller not only to put his best foot forward but his entire anatomy and psychology.

The seller should take full advantage of his assets whatever they may be, again, they relate to what has been said above, and to use them with care and patience.

“Welcome to our store,” the seller says as he hands the buyer the seller’s card, and depending on how the seller reads the buyer, initially, adding, “what is your interest?” or “I see you are carrying our ad. What would you like to be shown?”

When and if the buyer indicates a specific preference, the seller takes the buyer in toll and directs the buyer to such products, then retreats to allow the buyer to explore, but close enough to be available to answer questions. Meanwhile, the seller observes the chemistry going on between the buying partners.

The old selling literature is right: never ask a question that can be answered “yes” or “no.”

The seller should listen to the buyer with what I call in CONFIDENT SELLING FOR THE 90s with a third ear, the buyer’s thinking level.

SELLING THE WALK IN

The seller does not sell the walk in, the buyer does. The seller facilitates the process and becomes a partner with the buyer in that process by matching the buyer's requirements (needs) with what the buyer wants and can afford.

As soon as the buyer says, “I couldn’t find a price tag on this,” the buyer is interested in that item.

Once the price has been determined, say it is too expensive, the seller now knows the item needed and it is the seller’s responsibility to find that item in the buyer’s price range quickly, efficiently, and in a style that indicates to the buyer that the seller has the buyer’s best interest at heart.

To do this, the seller must listen between the lines, or what the buyer doesn’t say but implies. This, too, is covered in my book.

SELLING THE DIFFICULT WALK IN

Given the geography, demographics and personality of the buyer, the buyer is often still adrift to the point of being considered by the seller as "difficult."

What is amazing about this characterization is that a seller can be in a furniture store for six months and that seller will have encountered virtually every type of buyer and buyer resistance there is. There aren’t any more.

I have reduced this to nine difficult types, which are covered in CONFIDENT SELLING FOR THE 90s.

THE WALK IN AND THIS BUSINESS OF CLOSING

Closing is a misnomer, and even if it were relevant it is not a phase in the selling situation but an evolving condition as the area of agreement between the buyer’s needs and the seller's ability to satisfy those needs reaches fruition.

In mounting frustration, the seller is apt to say, “Do you want me to write this up and see what we’ve got?”

That generates a “yes” or a “no” answer and represents a closed end question. A seller should never go there, ever! As long as open-ended questions are asked, question, which require the buyer to provide some information, the selling situation is alive.

Better for the seller to write up what has been discussed as the area of agreement develops, and then to present this to the buyer. “Here is what we (notice “we”) have been discussing." The seller hands it to the buyer, and wait for a reaction, yes, waits, patiently and attentively.

It may be the most agonizing minute in the seller’s life but it is necessary. The buyer is unlikely to reject it out of pocket but is more likely to say, “Honey, what do you think? I didn’t think it would be this much.” The seller waits for the buyer's partner to react. If that buyer reacts negatively, the seller can then ask, “What item or items are we talking about?”

This can go back and forth, letting the consensus develop naturally or be encouraged by the seller providing options to improve the possibility of a sale showing convenient payment plans, many in these days not charging interest for several months.

It is a credit to the seller who makes it clear up front what the total costs to the purchases will be so that the buyer can appropriately budget for the purchases. Meanwhile, the seller waits again while this is considered.

The seller, if he is alert to the thinking level in his listening, knows what item or items are considered a need “right now,” and so he has a back up strategy, showing the buyer what a payment schedule would be for these specific items and not stubbornly holding his ground to sell the whole enchilada.

THE WALK IN AND DELAYED GRATIFICATION

We don’t usually fall in love on the first date, but if an impression is made, we usually cannot get that impression out of our minds.

Buyers remember how thoughtful, thorough, considerate and helpful the seller was, and regret the timing was all wrong to make the purchase on that first date.

Instead of pulling a face in exasperation of failing to make the sale after working so hard, the seller again hands the buyer the seller’s business card, with a smile, and says, “I enjoyed working with you. I look forward to working with you in the future. Give me a call or drop by when you are ready to work with me."

It is no accident that such sellers have repeat customers and develop a clientele where they become the face of the store. They become a marquis of personal excellence, professional courtesy, and trusting competence.

A FINAL WORD

None of us are what we seem on the surface. All of us wear armor. It is called “survival.”

Penetrate this armor and we are all vulnerable. Show respect for this fact and trust is established. There is no advantage in life or livelihood without trust. Like everything of value it must be earned. This is an outline of one approach in that effort.

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