How to Handle 'I’m Just Looking' in Retail Sales

Nobody trained you for those four words.

'I’m just looking.'

You hear it several times a day. Most salespeople hear it, file the person under not a buyer, and go find somebody else to talk to. And every one of those customers walks out of the store carrying money that somebody else is going to get.

Bruce Huddleston has said those four words in a jewelry store while carrying a five-figure bonus. He said them in a big box electronics store with two thousand dollars and a model number in his pocket. He said them to a woman who spent forty minutes not answering questions about a ten thousand dollar diamond ring, and then he spent the money on a vacation instead.

Not one of those times was it true.

This book takes the phrase apart. Not with scripts to memorize, but with what is actually happening in the customer’s head when they say it.

What you will learn:

• The seven reasons people actually say it - and why only one of the seven means they are not buying anything
• What the customer’s body is doing while their mouth says something else - the touch, the pronoun shift, the return, and the change of pace
• Why they often decided about you before you opened your mouth - and the small number of things you can actually control in those seconds
• How the same four words mean four completely different things on a furniture floor, a jewelry counter, an electronics aisle, and a car lot
• The question to replace 'would you like to try it on' with - and the one condition that has to be met before it works
• What to say when you do not know the answer - and what it costs you when you fake it instead
• How to tell a brush-off from feedback - there is a timing tell, and once you know it you cannot unsee it

It also covers the part nobody wants to hear: a fair number of the brush-offs you get every week are ones you caused. Not by being rude. Nobody in these stories was rude. By something smaller and far more common than that.

Written for anyone who works a retail floor and got a name tag instead of training. New salespeople surviving their first month. Experienced ones who were never actually taught. And managers looking for something to put in a new hire’s hands.

About the author

Bruce Huddleston spent 35 years in sales, working every job from green salesperson to general manager. He hired, trained, and developed more salespeople than he can put a number on, and he has written 25 books on selling read across the United States, Australia, Germany, and the United Kingdom.

He also spent 50 years on the other side of the counter, paying close attention every time.

Some of what is in this book he learned standing on a sales floor. The rest he learned standing in front of one, with his wallet in his pocket, saying four words that were not true.

Part of the Retail Sales Survival Series, under the Professional Skills Training Series.