“Sell Me This Pen”: How I Sold the Pen in an Interview

During an interview several years ago, I was asked a question that has probably been asked in thousands of interviews:

“Sell me this pen.”

The expected answer is usually some kind of clever sales technique. Ask the interviewer to write something, create urgency, identify a hidden need, present the pen as the solution, and then close the sale.

But that was not my instinct.

My first question was simply:

“Do you use a pen?”

The interviewer said, "No, usually I use my tablet and do not require a pen."

I replied:

“At the moment, you may not need a pen. But if you ever need a good one, I am selling this pen. Here is what makes it valuable, and here is my card. You can contact me whenever you need it.”

That was my honest answer. It was not something I had prepared for an interview. It was simply how I understood business.

I Do Not Believe Everyone Is My Customer

My basic belief is that if a product has real value, then a genuine market for that product must exist.

My job is not to pressure every person I meet into buying it. My job is to identify the people who actually need it and make sure they know that I am selling it.

I need to communicate clearly:

• what the product is;
• what problem it solves;
• why it is valuable;
• and why the price is reasonable.

After that, the right customer can make the decision.

I have always been uncomfortable with the idea that good selling means convincing a person to buy something they did not originally want. To me, that may produce a transaction, but it does not necessarily produce a customer.

There is a major difference between the two.

Five Dollars Is Not Always Good Business

Suppose I somehow pressure a person into buying the pen for five dollars.

Technically, I made a sale. I received five dollars, and the person received the pen.

But what did I actually achieve?

If the buyer did not genuinely need the pen, they may feel that I took money from their pocket and gave them something that added very little value to their life.

They may never buy from me again.

They may never recommend my company.

They may even remember the interaction negatively.

So yes, I earned five dollars, but I did not build a customer, improve my reputation, or expand my market.

That five-dollar transaction may look like success when viewed in isolation, but it may contribute almost nothing to the long-term success of the business.

A company cannot build a sustainable market by repeatedly persuading reluctant people to make purchases they later consider losses.

You may sell one unit, ten units, or even a thousand units in this way. But if the product does not provide enough value, or if the customers do not feel satisfied after buying it, the strategy will eventually fail.

I Must Believe in the Product First

I have always believed that I should not sell a product unless I believe it has real value.

If I do not believe in the product myself, I should not expect another person to spend money on it.

But when I genuinely believe in the product, I also believe that a market for it exists.

That means my main challenge is not to manufacture a need in random people. My challenge is to find the people who already have the relevant need and clearly communicate that my product can satisfy it.

For example, if someone regularly signs documents, attends meetings, writes notes, or needs a reliable writing instrument, that person may be part of the market for my pen.

I should approach that market.

I should make the pen visible.

I should explain its quality, reliability, price, and other advantages.

But I should not approach someone who has no interest in pens and treat their lack of interest as an objection that must be defeated.

What If I Want to Expand the Market?

During the discussion, another part of my strategy came up.

What would I do if I wanted people outside the existing market to know about my company?

My answer was that I might give them a free pen.

This does not mean that I would give free pens to people who were already likely to buy one. If someone genuinely needed the pen and understood its value, that person was already a potential customer.

I would give the free pen to someone who was unlikely ever to purchase it.

I would not give it to them with the expectation that they would become a paying customer later. That would not be the purpose.

The purpose would be to allow them to experience the product and develop a genuine positive opinion about it.

Even if the pen helped them only a little, they would likely see it as a gain because they had not been pressured to pay for it.

They might use it, appreciate its quality, remember the company, or speak positively about it to someone else.

That person may never become my customer, but they may become someone who has something good to say about the company.

And their positive opinion may eventually reach someone who genuinely needs the product.

That is much more valuable to me than forcing the same person to pay five dollars for something they did not particularly want.

The best marketing is often a satisfied person who can speak honestly about their experience.

The Interviewer Challenged My Answer

The interviewer did not immediately accept what I was saying.

The discussion became longer than the usual “sell me this pen” exercise. The interviewer challenged different parts of my answer and questioned why I was not following the conventional sales approach.

But I continued explaining my reasoning.

I explained that I was not refusing to sell the pen. I was refusing to treat every person as the correct customer for it.

I explained that I was confident in the product’s value and confident that a market existed for it.

I explained that a forced one-time sale might produce a small amount of money, but it would not necessarily produce customer loyalty, repeat business, goodwill, or positive word of mouth.

I also explained that giving a free pen to a non-customer could sometimes create more long-term marketing value than extracting money from that person through pressure.

Eventually, the interviewer understood what I was trying to say.

More importantly, they appreciated that I was not repeating a memorized sales answer. I had an actual philosophy behind my response, and I was willing to explain and defend it.

The discussion ended positively.

They were impressed by my answer.

And eventually, I was hired.

What That Experience Taught Me

Looking back, I do not think the most important part of the story is that my answer was unconventional.

The important part is that it was genuine.

I did not try to guess the answer the interviewer wanted to hear. I answered according to the way I actually understood products, customers, markets, and business.

I believed then—and I still believe—that sustainable business starts with real value.

A valuable product should solve a real problem.

A real problem creates a genuine market.

The company must find that market, communicate with it clearly, and make the product accessible at a reasonable price.

Marketing should help the correct people discover and understand the product.

It should not depend entirely on pressuring the wrong people into becoming reluctant buyers.

Of course, a business must still advertise, demonstrate, explain, and establish trust. A valuable product will not sell if nobody knows it exists.

But there is a difference between communicating value and forcing a transaction.

My goal would never be to sell one pen to every person I meet.

My goal would be to ensure that every person who genuinely needs a good pen knows that I am selling one.

That is the kind of business I understand.

And that is still how I would answer:

“Sell me this pen.”