I have a little story to tell, which gives an insight into the best kind of salesmanship (in my opinion).

Many years ago I worked in the office of an electronic manufacturers representative organization, in Minneapolis. Those of you who know something about the manufacturers rep business will be astonished to hear me say that we had eighteen salesmen, where usually mfrs reps are lone eagles, or at most two or three reps in an office.   But our eighteen covered Minnesota, Wisconsin, North and South Dakota, Iowa, and for some lines, Kansas. Usually mfrs reps push just one to maybe three lines of products; we sold seventy-five!

Some of the guys, "the Industrials", sold to OEM electronic manufacturers, things like custom made face plates, various electronic switches, custom wiring harnesses, and on and on. By and large these guys did not call on the next class of customer I'll mention. One of them did straddle that line, mainly because of the characteristics of his territory.

   Some of our reps (I'll call them "Retails") sold to retailers, such as hi-fi stores. They'd sell hi-fi records, tape recorders, FM tuners, record turntables, loudspeakers, large hi-fi combinations, all the way down to recording-head demagnetizers, record cleaning kits, record pickups and needles, etc.   

   One, or maybe two, sold wire and cable lines to manufacturers. Our office, at the request of the client company we sold for, maintained a local stock of wire and cable products at a Minneapolis warehouse. That stock didn't belong to us but to our client; we merely contracted in the name of our client for the warehouse to store the stuff and ship it to the customer on our order, and the customer would directly pay our client, who also paid the warehouse for their service.

    Now, I'm finally getting to my little (really not so little, I guess) story.

    I answered the phone in the office one day in 1958, and found it was the owner of a small hi-fi store in South Dakota, who said he wanted to buy a certain tape-recorder based hi-fi console from one of our clients, a top-name maker of tape recorders. Eureka! I knew this was great news, because the price we and our client (I'll call it Acme Hi-Fi Recorders) would charge that hi-fi store was something like $5,000 to $7,000, and of course the price would be substantially marked up from that price to the user/customer. Remember, I said this was 1958; $5,000 was a lot of money.

    Luckily, Jim, the Retail sales rep who serviced South Dakota and that store, was in the office rather than on the road that day, so I excitedly passed the phone call to him, expecting to hear great jubilation and effusive thanks to the caller from Jim, at his desk next to mine.   

   I wasn't particularly intending to listen to Jim's end of the conversation, but my attention was demanded when I heard Jim loudly say, "Why, you damn fool, Charlie! I won't sell that to you!"
    Well, I was aghast, frankly.
    Presumably the caller asked why.

    "You're there in (whereversville) South Dakota, and there aren't two potential buyers of that unit within a hundred miles of you in any direction! We've talked about your cash flow situation, and you and I both know that lovely Acme console would sit on your show-floor for years without selling, taking up space, tying up your capital. I'd be inviting you into bankruptcy by selling that unit to you."
    (pause)   
    "Now, if you want some eye-catching quality merchandise that will MOVE, we could sell you" A, B, C, or D, "but I'd be your worst enemy to sell you that Acme console, Charlie!"

    And Jim ended up selling Charlie about $3,000 worth of A, B, C, or D. Yes, that was a step down from $5,000 to $7,000, and taking a sale out of the mouth of our client Acme and giving it to a different client (call them ABCD Co.), which might sound unethical, but read on.

Several things were accomplished in that surprising conversation:
1. Acme, though they didn't get a proposed smashing sale, also didn't end up potentially losing a customer and losing that fancy price when Charlie went bankrupt. Not to mention that their premium product sitting unsold on Charlie's floor would be bad for Acme's reputation.
2 The ABCD manufacturer had gained a sale which Charlie would probably be able to pay for and grow his business.
3. Charlie was saved from making a costly mistake which would make him trouble and might possibly ruin his business.
4. Jim made himself a hero to Charlie by showing both his understanding of Charlie's business and his concern for Charlie's welfare.
5. Jim gained, admittedly, a smaller commission on the ABCD transaction than the fat Acme sale would produce on its face, but the ABCD was a commission that would probably actually come through, whereas the Acme console (if Jim was correct) might never be paid for, so our rep office would lose and get charged back that fat commission. And it's likely Acme would cancel our representative contract because of the loss and the black eye.

   Now, that was when I learned about GOOD salesmanship. Jim (and our office) was not Charlie's adversary. Jim was Charlie's friendly colleague in the profitable marketing of quality hi-fi merchandise.
Acme won by avoiding an unsupportable sale; Charlie won by buying merchandise he could profit from; ABCD won by gaining a supportable and profitable sale; Jim won by helping the finances of his customer, and gaining Charlie's respect and trust for future dealings; Jim also won by securing a commission that wouldn't go south on him; and the office and all of the Retail reps therein gained by not potentially having the Acme representation contract canceled.   
    WIN WIN WIN WIN WIN! I represent to you, kiddies, that's salesmanship!

   Dave Oesterreich