Furniture World Articles by
Peter A. Marino
Published: 12/28/2016
These two sales skills help to demonstrate that the salesperson has respect for the shopper’s thoughts and feelings.
Published: 9/30/2016
A list of 25 traits, attitudes and poor practices RSAs practice that will contribute to failure on the retail sales floor.
Published: 5/30/2011
Although some furniture salespeople insist on going sequentially through the five steps of the sales process mechanically, the most effective salespeople know when to retreat to an earlier stage in the process.
Published: 11/24/2010
The founder of the famous Statler Hotel Chain E. M. Statler once said: “The [salesperson] who thinks that his first duty is selling, is absolutely wrong. Selling is only one of the two important things a [salesperson] is supposed to do – and it is not the more important of the two. The [salesperson’s] first duty is to make friends for his house.”
Published: 3/30/2010
Part 3- Chapters 6-7: Peter Marino presents an updated sales skill manual for retail salespeople and managers in retail furniture stores.
Published: 3/8/2010
Part 2- Chapters 2-5: Peter Marino presents an updated sales skill manual for retail salespeople and managers in retail furniture stores.
Published: 3/1/2010
Part 1: Peter Marino presents an updated sales skill manual for retail salespeople and managers in retail furniture stores.
Published: 12/28/2009
Peter Marino explains why selling with integrity goes further than selling with honesty alone.
Published: 8/4/2009
A manual for retail managers, presented in weekly installments by retail sales educator Peter A. Marino, Ph. D..
Published: 7/28/2009
A manual for retail managers, presented in weekly installments by retail sales educator Peter A. Marino, Ph. D..
Published: 11/17/2008
Original poem for retail sales associates by contributing editor Peter A. Marino.
Published: 7/14/2008
Peter A. Marino, Ron Wolinski and Cathy Finney provide helpful information for sales professionals on qualifying and probing.
Published: 5/9/2008
Sixteen ways you can boost bedding sales... from developing rapport (#1) To handling customer objections by treating them as implied needs.
Published: 12/11/2006
Apply the principle that every customer objection is an implied need. It’s a principle every professional salesperson should buy into because customers respond positively to it.
Published: 10/2/2006
Dr. Peter Marino looks at research that shows a huge gap between what retail owners and managers think is most important to employees, and what employees say is most important to them.
Published: 8/8/2006
Believing that all customers are looking for the same things is to assume that all customers have the same needs. This is an assumption that can cost you both sales and customers.
Published: 6/8/2006
What can salespeople do and say during the selling sequence to maintain the trust of their customers?
Published: 4/17/2006
A purchase that lasts a long time, but fails to meet your customer’s other needs can become a lasting headache.
Published: 2/14/2006
Is there anything you can do when your customer says, “let me think about it” and asks for your card?
Published: 10/5/2005
Peter Marino looks at the benefits of shopping competitive stores and discusses shopping techniques, ethics and courtesy.
Published: 8/11/2005
What happens if you don’t know as much about your competitors’ pricing, quality and service, as do your customers? Peter Marino looks at the benefits of shopping competitive stores as well as technique, ethics and courtesy.
Published: 4/7/2005
A detailed guide by Peter Marino to the art of keeping customers on the line, calm, receptive and ready to listen to what customer service and sales associates have to say.
Published: 10/5/2004
The cheapest mattress for any customer is always the used one they already own. Dr. Peter Marino looks at ways to approach customers who mistakenly believe that your cheapest mattress is also the best for them.
Published: 6/26/2004
This article will focus on the skill of setting up an effective strategy for selling mattresses. It is a strategy that helps customers perceive which one of your mattresses best fulfills their needs.
Published: 6/25/2004
Continued from the June issue of FURNITURE WORLD, is Peter A. Marino's final article in his series on Keeping Good Salespeople. This month Dr. Marino looks at incentive plans and why Spiffs and incentives often undermine the process they are designed to enhance.
Published: 6/25/2004
Continued from the May issue of FURNITURE WORLD, is Peter A. Marino's series on Keeping Good Salespeople.
Published: 6/25/2004
Continued from the April issue of FURNITURE WORLD, is Peter A. Marino's series on how to keep those successful salespeople upbeat and working for you instead of your competitors.
Published: 6/9/2004
Handling skepticism, misunderstandings, and drawbacks are some of the most challenging tasks facing the retail salesperson. The first step in successfully handling these objections is to consider them as customer concerns... as either expressed or implied needs.
Published: 6/9/2004
The average salesperson's inability to handle customer indifference may be the greatest single factor contributing to our industry's loss of productivity. Accordingly, store owners and managers ought to concentrate more on teaching their salespeople how to handle indifference.
Published: 6/9/2004
Furniture sales floors too often end up, a place where salesperson and customer carry on a casual rather than a focused conversation. Instead it should be a place where both salespeople and customers focus. This series continues with a discussion of the opening, a critical point in any sale.
Published: 6/9/2004
Peter A. Marino again blurs the lines between literature, philosophy and selling skills to get to the heart of what our customers want from salespeople. He asks the question, "do customers want us to spin the very pictures they intend, or of that same old dull hat?"
Published: 6/9/2004
Recently, noted sales educator Peter Marino began to examine some of his own habits on the sales floor. He found that, like so many other good salespeople, he had clung on to habits which needed replacing. The problem for most sales professionals is knowing when to replace that comfortable old sales pitch.
Published: 6/9/2004
Dr. Peter A. Marino discusses Penrose Scull's book, "From Peddlers to Merchant Princes, a History of Selling in America," which traces the development of selling from Colonial times to the present. Selling has changed, to be sure, but what still matters is not so much how the products of salespeople are conducted, but how salespeople conduct themselves.
Published: 6/9/2004
Once customers do not trust the salesperson's product knowledge, they tend to doubt the salesperson's honesty. Why? Because everyone has doubts about the intentions of salespeople who are not qualified to do what they say they'd like to do for us. Here is a close look at how to effectively use specialized product knowledge to get the sale.
Published: 6/9/2004
By asking questions instead of telling, salespeople become more effective at both giving and receiving important sales information. Peter A. Marino explains the proper uses and associated benefits of mastering this skill.
Published: 6/9/2004
The last of a three part series on customer objections looks at two kinds of customer indifference; objective and subjective. As salespeople we can only effectively deal with the subjective variety.
Published: 6/9/2004
One of the significant differences between outside versus retail selling is the normally short amount of time the retail salesperson has to make the sale. Another is the anonymity of the customer at the start of a sale. These factors make it imperative for the salesperson to create an atmosphere of trust within the first several seconds of the sale. Peter Marino discusses several ways salespeople can create this all important atmosphere of trust.
Published: 6/9/2004
"He's a born salesperson" and "He's a natural at it" are the words we hear from time to time. In his "Art of Poetry" the ancient Roman author Horace wrote: "For my point I fail to see the use of training without natural ability or of natural ability without training." Peter A. Marino provides more practical advice on how to implement an effective program to help you 'make' some good salespeople of your own.
Published: 6/9/2004
The purpose of qualifying is to interpret the information obtained by probing in order to set up the best possible selling strategy. Peter A. Marino explains how salespeople should qualify customers and why they need to remain flexible throughout the process.
Published: 6/9/2004
Probing is the skill by which the salesperson gathers information and finds out the customer's level of need (see November Furniture World). Noted sales trainer and educator Peter A. Marino examines when and how to use open and closed probes.
Published: 6/9/2004
Do customers buy because they need or like our products? Peter A. Marino examines why customers buy and how we can match what we sell to what customers are really looking for.
Published: 6/9/2004
Do our customers want to make the 'safe' or the exciting design choice? Do we insult or comfort our customers by telling them that "brass goes with anything," or "don't worry, beige is a neutral... it will look fine." Peter A. Marino explores how the salesperson's choice of words send powerful messages to customers.
Published: 6/9/2004
Which is the most important component in the sales equation... selling skills, product knowledge or good attitude? Noted sales trainer and story teller Peter A. Marino gives insight into this question often asked by furniture sales managers and sales educators.
Published: 6/9/2004
Would you like to have a sales job in which every customer you encountered bought something? You’re probably ready to shout, "Take me to that job!" It’s the sales job at a supermarket checkout counter
Published: 6/8/2004
The fourth in a series by Peter Marino who believes that listening is a learned skill that lies at the heart of successful selling.
Published: 6/8/2004
There are twelve major ways that retailers systematically lose bedding sales. Eight of these are outlined in this important series. Every step of the bedding sales process is examined from handling phone inquiries to creating and following though on a successful bedding sales strategy
Published: 6/8/2004
Using metaphors, especially those having to do with sports and war help convey that every disagreement needs to be hostile. Peter Marino discusses the role metaphors play in disagreeing with someone without being disagreeable.
Published: 6/2/2004
This article, excerpted from Peter Marino’s new book “It’s Buying Silly,” explains why benefit statements must be personal as well as properly delivered and timed.
Published: 6/2/2004
Most of us have heard the saying, "Features are; benefits do." Nevertheless, features and benefits are actually different aspects of the same things. In this excerpt from his wonderful new book, Peter Marino explores the kinds of benefits that leave our customers feeling glad.
Published: 6/2/2004
The fertile imagination of Peter Marino brings FURNITURE WORLD readers the fanciful tale of Don Key Hoaty, failed furniture salesperson. It is very loosely based on Peter’s own life and on Cervantes’ beloved character.
Published: 6/2/2004
Customers tend to be won over only by personalized feature-benefit statements that are relevant to what really turns them on.
Published: 6/2/2004
Part 2 in this series looks at the fear your customers have of making a serious buying mistake and how you can make them feel glad by helping them to become aware of their needs... and then fulfilling them!
Published: 6/2/2004
Chapter 1 in Peter A. Marino’s new manuscript on selling furniture. If you think that you and your salespeople are in the business of selling furniture to your customers... Peter says that you are dead wrong. Why? Because selling furniture is all about getting customers to buy!
Published: 6/2/2004
Having wrestled with sales tips and techniques offered up by sales educators such as Genie Z. Laborde, Zig Ziglar, Brian Tracy and Madelyn Burley-Allen over many years, Peter Marino presents his top seven secrets for selling success.
Published: 6/2/2004
There are twelve major ways that retailers systematically lose bedding sales. The first eight ways were discussed in the April/May issue of FURNITURE WORLD. In this issue Dr. Marino looks at handling customer objections, selling with a strategy, the Valence Factors, the foundation for qualifying customers and the roles of the salesperson. This series is based on the new FURNITURE WORLD video and workbook Stop Losing Those Bedding Sales.
Published: 6/2/2004
The third in a series by Peter Marino who believes that listening is a learned skill that lies at the hear of successful selling.
Published: 6/2/2004
The first article in a series by Peter Marino who believes that listening is a learned skill that lies at the heart of successful selling.
Published: 6/2/2004
Peter Marino's fertile mind created this story of Verax Dotcom, the salesperson who could not lie. It is fun to read and full of great sales skill information. Enjoy!
Published: 5/22/2004
More bedding salespeople need to focus on the importance of selling strategies. Salespeople who use only one strategy will keep using it, even if it is often doomed to fail.