What really differentiates the specialty AV retailer from big box stores is the way that they create a complete experience. Central to that is attachment selling, not just as something sales clerks have been badgered to do, but an integral part of the entire sales experience.

It’s not enough to just sell products. You need to create an experience. More than that, you need to go all the way, so much so that you stop having customers and start having clients.

So how does that happen? It comes from listening, really listening to what clients tell you. You have to look beyond what they’re asking for, and find the wants and needs they’ve got that they probably don’t even realize they have, never mind being able to articulate it to you.

The key to fully integrated attachment selling is raise awareness in your client’s mind of solutions of which they were previously unaware. This is an important part of good salesmanship.

Odds are, most of the people who come into your showroom to talk about building a media room are barely aware that lighting control exists. Yet when you demo for them in your theater room, and your iPad dims the lights and opens the drapes in front of the screen now they’ve got a need that they didn’t know they had five minutes ago. And so on. From a client’s perspective your showroom is an Aladdin’s Cave of treasure just waiting to be discovered.

I’ll warn you though, big box stores are starting to clue in to this. Walk through a Best Buy and see how their room settings are more sophisticated than they were a couple of years ago. If something works, it’s only a matter of time before the big guys take notice and start to adopt it for themselves.

Don’t despair, though. That just means that you have to do it better than they do. Do it with more empathy, better listening skills, better products and a greater degree of professionalism.

By showing your client the extent of your expertise, you open up new windows into enhancing the client’s lifestyle, and your bottom line.

Lee Distad is a rAVe columnist and freelance writer covering topics from CE to global business and finance in both print and online. Reach him at lee@ravepubs.com