The Most Effective Question

 

 It was the beginning of the 1990s. A friend of mine was an able saleswoman. Her income was via a commission system. She got paid about $20,000 per month. Japan experienced a bubble economy at that time, but her income was extremely high. On the other hand, I had a part-time job and got paid about $300 per month. And I wrote scripts and joined a script competition. The first-prize money was $3,000. But I was rejected every year.

 What she was selling was sets of teaching materials for children. One set was about $3,000. It was almost like fraud. But she sold many teaching materials to housewives who had children. She dropped in for an unannounced sales visit. Why could she sell such expensive things? She taught me the most effective question to ask to sell the teaching materials to housewives.

 In those days, most Japanese people wanted to give children a good education. They were almost insane. But $3,000 for a set of teaching materials was too expensive. Most housewives hesitated to buy and said,

“I need to talk about this with my husband.”

Whenever a housewife said this, if a set of golf clubs were by the entrance of the house, the saleswomen asked this question:

“By the way, your husband has a very nice set of golf clubs here. Did he talk with you before he bought the set of golf clubs?”

This question turned on the housewives’ emotional switch. Many of them bought the teaching materials immediately.

 Both wife and husband should talk to each other before expensive purchases.

Picture by Toranosuke