You must be guided by your best judgment. If you have reason to think the customer has confidence in you, show first the particular chair that you honestly believe is best for her purpose, introducing it with a brief, pointed, and purely impersonal comment on its beauty, style, and peculiar fitness for her own purpose. Don't use superlatives. She may not like this piece well enough to buy it immediately, in which case you will be seriously handicapped in trying to interest her in another one. If, on the contrary, you do not feel assured of her complete confidence, probably it will be wiser to show your second or third best piece first, holding the best in reserve.
As soon as you detect signs of real interest in a chair, build up a little group based on the principles of harmony which are stated and illustrated in unit VII, page [142]. In some cases a small table will be enough; but usually it will be better to use a larger table, a lamp, and often a small rug and a length or two of drapery fabrics, if you stock them. The purpose of this procedure is to help the customer see your chair as an integral part of her own room and to emphasize its desirability as a means of making that room more attractive. If she already has the pieces necessary to form a complete group when the chair is added, select pieces as nearly like her own as possible. If not, select pieces that harmonize perfectly with the chair. Don't tell her that she ought to have these pieces. Merely show them without comment, and defer any attempt to sell anything more than an easy chair until after the chair has been sold.
THREE GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS FOR CLOSING SALES
BE PREPARED TO CLOSE A SALE AT ANY POINT
Some salesmen make the serious and costly mistake of assuming that every customer will be exacting and hard to sell, and that a large percentage of them enter the store with no real intention of buying. The really able salesman knows that this is not true. Under present conditions the woman who enters a furniture store or department may be presumed to have an active interest in furniture. When you have found her real needs and offered her something that satisfies them, there in an excellent chance that she will be ready to buy. If so, take the order at once. Don't make the tactical blunder of showing additional merchandise, or of completing all the steps necessary to close a difficult sale. Many salesmen talk themselves out of a sale by suggesting unnecessary alternatives. In other words, prepare carefully and intelligently for the order, expect it, and take it at the first opportunity.
PROCEED WITH CAUTION UNTIL YOU KNOW THE CUSTOMER'S BUYING MOTIVES
At the start of a sale it is safe to assume that the buyer is thinking in terms of her own interests. Don't tell her that a given chair is in the latest or most popular style until you know that she is interested in the latest rather than the best style for her particular room. Don't tell her that it is your best-selling number; or that Mrs. Jones just bought a piece like it; or that you think, or the buyer thinks, or the head of the house thinks it "wonderful."
DON'T QUOTE A PRICE—UNLESS YOU ARE ASKED FOR IT
As a general, but by no means invariable, rule, don't quote a price—unless you are asked for it—until you see definite signs of interest in the piece under consideration; and even then not until you have prepared for it by a brief but convincing statement as to quality or desirability. However, when you are asked the price of an article, give it immediately and without apology or comment.