Know Thy Enemy: Understand the Salesperson’s Tools

“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not your enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.” – From translation of Sun Tzu’s Art of War

In this article, I’m going to try to identify a salesperson’s tools, why they work, and hopefully what you can do to defend against them whenever you’re going to make a purchase. These aren’t tricks or scams, these are just solid sales techniques that have been proven to work. I won’t go over things that are outright scams, like baiting and switching or “the one you want is out of stock, how about this one” or “whoops I added this up wrong and it’s way too high, lemme see how you react,” just the ones that are generally honest and just good tactics.

Throughout reading all this, remember one truism: Salespeople need to eat. They will try their hardest to sell you something and they will persist if you give them any reason to believe a sale can be made. Being polite is one thing, but being honest and forthright is better because it allows a salesperson to work on a customer willing to buy. If you’ve made a decision not to buy, make it very very clear and the salesperson should understand. If they don’t, they won’t be in sales for long! If they do, they’ll be thankful to be able to get a good excuse and move onto someone who will turn into a commission check.

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