I spent some time in retail sales myself, working for Apple in a Best Buy, and learned a few valuable lessons. There are two ways to sell to people: logic and trust.
My approach was logic. I would spend as much time as was necessary very methodically detailing all the reasons why Macs were superior to PCs, and I did it in a way that made it obvious I was a fan and not just a salesman. It took a long time to make these sales, but I was good at it and converted literally hundreds of people to $1000+ Macs, most of which came in to buy a $500 PC. A lot of people do respond positively to technical facts and information.
However, there was another salesman who didn't give a rats ass about which solution was best, and based what he sold entirely on the spiffs he would get for selling them, most of which were based off how many accessories and service plans he sold with the computer. He consistently beat me in sales every day and could barely tell you the difference between firewire and usb (insert nerd chortle). He didn't need the technical knowhow. He would talk to them about completely unrelated things - the weather, their kids, the local sports team, etc. I'd look over at his customers and they'd be laughing and smiling, and then look at mine and see skeptical frowns. But his customers would have an entire cart full of crap they didn't need and the whole process was complete within about 15 minutes.
Most people just want to feel comfortable when they shop. They want a friend to tell them what to buy, not a salesman, so the quicker you can establish yourself as "one of the good guys" the better.
My only consolation was that my return rates were far lower than his.
I have a friend who has always had slightly skewed social graces. On the other hand, he has been roleplaying since he was 14 and can tell you the odds on any 3d6 combination off the top of his head.
When he became a salesman, we were all rather surprised and chortled amongst ourselves at how, with his underwhelming social skills, he would surely flounder.
He then proceeded to be the best salesman at his company, by wide margin.
How? He minimaxed their system. It was as simple as that. He sat down with the product list and the comp rules and calculated the best possible combinations of items and only sold those combinations. He would sell other items too, but when customers bought them, he would not ring up the sale himself -- he would send them to the front counter and ask that they not mention his name.
My own path to salesmanship was to study the psychology side. Influence by Robert Cialdini was my bible and it propelled me into the top of my own company's ranks by applying some modest mental judo. I made it a rule to never lie or fabricate, but I still sold up a storm in a completely different way from my friend.
When you look at selling as a game, geeks with a roleplaying background are going to dominate because they will experiment, minimax, tweak and study their way to maximising returns.
Sometimes selling certain items + other items had a rule leading to a higher percentage. For example, an external HDD could be included with a PC at a discount, but the salesman gets a commission based on the ordinary RRP. Because of the arcane ways some commissions are calculated, this would raise his margin on the deal overall, leading to a higher commission on the PC as well. Not the intention of the retail company he worked for -- but that wasn't his problem.
Lots of little rules and promotions are constantly coming and going in retail, and my friend was quite single-minded about optimising for them.
I once sold ice cream. We were graded by how many additional items we got customers to add to the ice cream (those cost extra).
Over time, I learned to positively associate certain combinations (graham cracker crust goes well with fruit, for example) and negatively associate others. So, even if I didn't like that particular kind, I could just suggest whatever things people frequently ordered and get a lot of sales.
I was #1 so consistently that my manager took me out of one of the contests to give the other people a shot.
My approach was logic. I would spend as much time as was necessary very methodically detailing all the reasons why Macs were superior to PCs, and I did it in a way that made it obvious I was a fan and not just a salesman. It took a long time to make these sales, but I was good at it and converted literally hundreds of people to $1000+ Macs, most of which came in to buy a $500 PC. A lot of people do respond positively to technical facts and information.
However, there was another salesman who didn't give a rats ass about which solution was best, and based what he sold entirely on the spiffs he would get for selling them, most of which were based off how many accessories and service plans he sold with the computer. He consistently beat me in sales every day and could barely tell you the difference between firewire and usb (insert nerd chortle). He didn't need the technical knowhow. He would talk to them about completely unrelated things - the weather, their kids, the local sports team, etc. I'd look over at his customers and they'd be laughing and smiling, and then look at mine and see skeptical frowns. But his customers would have an entire cart full of crap they didn't need and the whole process was complete within about 15 minutes.
Most people just want to feel comfortable when they shop. They want a friend to tell them what to buy, not a salesman, so the quicker you can establish yourself as "one of the good guys" the better.
My only consolation was that my return rates were far lower than his.