Seeing through the Salesmen

While in my week long quest to find the best oven-range, I have met my fair share of salesmen. The ones who get through to me, of course, are the ones who are honest.

So, how do you know which are honest and which are not?

Well, it’s really kind of simple. You ask them one question.

What is the best range you have?

If they answer you back, “All of them are good. We only carry the best ranges.” Run for the hills! Clearly in every grouping, there is a range of bad to good to better to best. In this situation, the salesman offers nothing worthy of trust. He’ll talk you into anything he can get you to buy — or worse, he is just hoping to get lucky and sell any model — which is NOT good for you. If the guys wants commission, he better earn it. Look for the next guy.



An honest salesman will point you to one or two models and he will clearly explain why he believes those models are superior. While this doesn’t indicate an honest salesman, with good investigation, you can sniff him out even further.

You see, just because a guy makes one or two recommendations — you still can’t tell if he is being honest because he might just simply be steering you to the model he makes the most commission from. So, question the salesmen again. Ask him to compare two more different models: a higher priced one and a lower-priced model a couple of times. See if he always chooses the higher model. If so, beware.

While this isn’t foolproof, it doesn’t help you narrow down who you can trust. When you find a salesmen who often recommends a much less expensive model over a costly one — you know with pretty good certainty, he is honest — especially when the dollar variable is sizeable.

So, I have weeded out the poor salesman, found an honest salesman and yet I still can’t decide on what I want. So, with all of that — just why can’t I decide? Well, these darn men who design these models just don’t make the model I want!