How To Sell The Cervélo S5 with Gokiso wheels
During my time selling Cervélo bikes at the shop, I sold quite a few of the S5 with the very fantastic Gokiso wheels.
Naturally, there is bound to be some caution experienced by the customer in spending that kind of money.
One reason is that they aren’t yet familiar with Gokiso wheels, another is that they think it costs more than $10,000 for a pair.
This is mainly due to a few articles on the Gokiso Super Climber, which is their top end wheelset. It has hubs precision-machined out of a titanium block, hand-polished by Kondo-san himself, and comes fitted with P6 grade ceramic bearings.
One of the reasons why I managed to sell quite a few combinations of the Cervelo S5 and Gokiso (approx $12k total with Ultegra spec) was because…
I helped them to choose.
Once you’ve done the hard thinking for them, and made the decision-making as easy and as painless as possible for them, the sale will also come to you with much less difficulty.
The second reason is having good product knowledge to explain why and how it is better. Having (owned,) tried and used the product helps a lot with product knowledge. There are some things which specs or brochures don’t or can’t tell.
Of course, you’ll also have to know about other products that what you’re selling will be compared to.
The third and most important reason is to always have the best interest of the customer at heart.
In my case, if a customer was looking at the Cervélo S5 with DuraAce (DA) spec, I’d advise him to go for the better value-for-money setup of Cervélo S5 Ultegra and Gokiso Road Racing wheels.
It costs maybe $1,000 more than the DA spec, but the customer will end up with a much superior bike setup. A pair of good wheels will give much more performance gains than a better groupset.
But like I said, always have the customer’s best interests at heart. You’ll sell better and more that way.
