3 Imagine that you were the salesperson. How would you have conducted the sales interview? Jim Appleton, managing director of Industrial Cleaning Services, had decided that a personal computer could help solve his cash flow problems. What he wanted was a machine which would store his receipts and outgoings so that at a touch of a button he could see the cash flow at any point in time. A year ago he got into serious cash flow difficulties simply because he did not realise that, for various reasons, his short-term outflow greatly exceeded his receipts.

He decided to visit a newly opened personal computer outlet in town on Saturday afternoon. His wife, Mary, was with him. They approached a salesperson seated behind a desk.