Top-Down Selling Pushes Your Best Brands

Andrew Guenther, president of Advanced Audio Design, has found a way to score big in the cutthroat, commoditized world of flat-panel video sales.

Guenther operates a specialty/custom electronics company with locations in Sarasota, Tampa, Naples and Orlando, Fla. that targets local builders, best-in-class consumers, architects and interior designers.

Using a strategy often under-utilized by many specialty and custom businesses, Guenther says his company employs a "top-down" selling approach that differs from the standard "good, better, best" tactics typically used by many businesses.

Advanced Audio Video's approach emphasizes the performance-video brand Runco International as the LCD television of choice, and it's predicated on demonstrating the differences between Runco units and the other competition available from big-box stores.

Sold as a Luxury Product

Guenther says Runco's products are presented so that Advanced Audio's clients can make a comparison in the same way they would evaluate other world-class products.

"We explain [the Runco LCD TV] is a luxury product," he says.

"It's a better engineered, higher-performance product, like an S Class Mercedes. We use analogies like that to point out that they are paying for a quality design."

Guenther says that unless a client specifically states a restriction on the budget or some other type of criteria, the top-down selling method is part of the company's standard practices.

"We position Runco as our best and that's what we push," he says. "We have Sharp and LG as step-down products."

Guenther says that demo process is the best way to accomplish his company's sales goals, and his showrooms are set up for that.

"In a lot of cases, we only have Runco products [in the showroom]. We don't even demo our middle or bottom products," he says.

Guenther argues that if the auto industry can sell fully loaded cars to consumers on a regular basis, then electronics dealers can use similar techniques.

He says that usually the retail business works the other way around with "good, better, best" practices, but that selling the best products is made easier when using a "top-down selling" approach.