Do Not Forget About The Third Wheel

Recently I listened to a couple of my friends talk about an experience they had when making a purchase. Their experience directly portrays the concept of “The Third Wheel”. Their experience represents how important it is for the salesperson to pay attention to "The Third Wheel". Just as a quick review, The Third Wheel is someone who is with a perspective buyer but is not directly involved in the purchase. This person can be a spouse, friend, or other. Sometimes they just happen to be there out of chance but other times they are there at the request of the perspective buyer to provide advice and/or support.

A friend of mine was looking to buy a new stereo system for his house and had taken along a friend with him to look. He found the exact system he wanted and began to talk to the salesperson about various things including price, delivery, warranties etc. The salesperson was professional, according to my friend, but not overly energetic to help him meet his needs. His friend then began to ask some more specific questions and this apparently annoyed the salesperson. The salesperson answered the first two or three questions but upon the forth one, my friend and his buddy witnessed something that I find alarming and unacceptable. The salesperson said to my friend’s friend, you are not the one making the purchase. Please let us finish our business. Well, the two of them went to another store and were able to find a stereo system that made my friend happy.

A good example of a salesperson dealing with, “The Third Wheel,” is an experience of mine when I was looking to buy some new software for my computer and had my son with me. As we were looking around, we began to talk with a salesperson and it turned into a conversation between the three of us about computers, software, hardware, and so on. In the end, the three of us worked as a team to decide what software was best for my needs.

Obviously, these are two very different and extreme examples of how not to and how too use the third wheel technique but the idea is simple. If a customer cared enough to bring someone with them to make a purchase, then chances are very good that they value their opinion as well. So make sure that, “Third Wheel” is a wheel that is rolling for both the customer and for you.