The story I like to tell to illustrate open probes is one told me by an uncle from Sicily. There ,whenever a member of the family passed away, it was customary to wine and dine family members and friends for three successive days. On one occasion, the family member in charge of preparing the food and drink for the three day feast knew that one guest in particular was capable of devouring all the food by himself, but he also knew that this glutton was long-winded. The long-winded glutton took the bait and ran on for hours with every little detail while the rest of the guests finished off every bit of food and drink. The second anecdote has a second lesson in it for us.
Customers can and do answer our probes as they see fit.
Corporate trainer, educator and speaker Dr. Peter A. Marino has written extensively on sales training techniques and their furniture retailing applications. See the Shopper Section in this issue for books and tapes by Mr. Marino.