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The Container Store Selling Philosophy

“We don’t immediately try to sell something to a customer; we can’t, because we don’t know enough about her yet.” — Kip Tindell

We continue our series sharing summaries of principles The Container Store follows to achieve its long-lasting success. These principles are detailed in the book, UNCONTAINABLE, written by Kip Tindell (co-founder, ceo and chairman, The Container Store).


The Container Store Selling Philosophy

At The Container Store, we don’t immediately try to sell something to a customer; we can’t, because we don’t know enough about her yet. We simply start a conversation first, to open the door a bit, and earn her trust so we can begin exploring how to help her.” – Kip Tindell, The Container Store

uncontainable_150The selling philosophy at The Container Store is known inside the company as “Man in the Desert Selling.” This sales approach involves uncovering customer needs and they use an analogy of a man in the desert to explain it.

A “Man in the Desert” obviously needs water. But that’s not all he needs. Most retailers stop with solving the obvious customer need. Just like a Man in the Desert needs things beyond water like, shade, shoes, sunglasses, clothing, etc., customers have other needs than their obvious need. The Container Store trains its employees to uncover unmet and unknown customer needs.

The Container Store employees are trained to (a) make an Approach, (b) establish a Connection and (c) close the Sale.

As the earlier quote from Kip Tindell says, employees at The Container Store open the door to a potential sale by initiating a conversation with a customer. Instead of using throwaway lines like, “Can I help you?” employees are taught to use an Approach that is more conversational. Such as, “That’s a nice coat you have on.” Or, employees will see a customer holding a product and react by saying, “Let’s take this out of the box and I’ll show you how it works.”

After the Approach, employees make a Connection by asking helpful questions, such as: What space needs organizing in your house? How big is the space? Who in the family uses the space?

According to Kip Tindell, “… the Sale comes when we devise a solution that makes the customer excited about conquering a problem in a way she probably never would have imagined on her own (after all, she’s not the storage and organization expert—we are).”


The Container Store posting series:

  • Hiring (Oct. 13)
  • Training (Oct. 14)
  • Selling (Oct. 15)
  • Leadership (Oct. 20)
  • Vendor Relations (Oct. 21)
  • Retailing (Oct. 22)
  • Manifesto (Oct. 23)