> Sell me this pen:

> What? You don’t know how? Okay, instead, sell me this Penzilla - a pen that can erase, write in different colors, play music, dial 911, act as a radio antenna, and even help you cheat on your homework.

Anecdotally, I read somewhere (and agree) that the reasoning behind the "sell me this pen" question is to quickly identify whether someone has the most basic skill necessary to become a decent salesperson: asking questions about need and listening to the answers.

I'm guessing the author of this post does not work in sales (hardly a bad thing) because "selling a pen" by listing all the excellent features of the pen and why it's better than any other pen on the market is exactly, according to the theory, what you should not do.

Do you use pens? What kind of pens do you like? What bothers you about the pen you've got? Well, if this pen doesn't have any of those issues, why not just buy a hundred of them right now and stop wasting mental energy on what pens to buy for the next ten years?