Death of a Sales Technique
I can’t help but admire the persistence of door to door salespeople. Granted I prefer to admire their persistence from behind a closed door. There are no limits to the products they try to sell or the rebuttals they come up with. Once, when I told a children’s encyclopedia salesman that I didn’t know anybody under 10, he suggested I buy the encyclopedias for myself. You know, for those times that Google doesn’t have the answer.
Often, in order to spare myself from 15 minute conversations about products I don’t want, I find myself being more blunt than usual (those of you who know me are likely wondering if that’s even possible). Nonetheless I’ll admit I was just as surprised as the water filter salesman when I found myself saying “No thank you, I like the taste of dirty water.”
While I’m sure most salespeople are used to tactless customers, I’m not so sure too many customers know how to react to tactless salespeople. I was particularly stunned by a saleslady at a shoe store.
“You used to be fat. You’re not anymore”
“Uhh I don’t think we’ve met before”
“You came in here 6 months ago with a friend. You know, back when you were fat”
I’m not sure what kind of sales training that shoe store provided, but surely it can’t help business to tell somebody who is about to purchase running shoes that they are no longer fat? Or at the very least it wouldn’t hurt to save the comments for until after the customer has paid.
I can’t buy used cows… I just feel like they look at me funny when I try to milk them… like, ‘Hey, you aren’t the regular guy’… also, I really miss that new cow smell.
LOL!! Perhaps they meant it as a compliment?? Oh boy!
One response always works with door-to-door salespeople:
I already have one.
You reminded me of this joke about door salespeople I’ve once heard.
A sales person knocks on a door, and when a man opens it and let’s him on his doorstep, he starts promoting his new superb vacuum cleaner. The man starts saying that he is not interested, but the salesman cuts him off in mid sentence. “Please, just let me show you this vacuum cleaner, and you’ll be so amazed by it you’ll definitely will buy one.’
‘I’m not interested,’ the man tries to decline the offer once more, but is cut off again as the salesperson decides to go for his ‘heavy artillery’, and, dropping a bag with garbage on the man’s carpet, exclaims, ‘See my dear man, now I can show you how great is this vacuum cleaner, and if it fails to clean your carpet, I’ll eat this garbage myself! Where is your electricity socket?’
The man replies, ‘I don’t have electricity, and will you be needing a fork or a spoon?’
So did you buy the shoes or tell her off and leave?
I hate shoe shopping so I wasn’t willing to go through the whole thing again.
I don’t think she meant to be rude.. I’m just not so sure she knew which thoughts were supposed to be inside her head 🙂
lol i hate when that happens
I was once caught in a “I have no idea what to say” loop when a salesman asked if I “wanted” the pair of pants I was trying on. I didn’t “want” them, in that if I were completely free to buy or not buy them, I wouldn’t have bought them, but I did need a pair for an upcoming event, but, this pair didn’t quite fit, but I also wasn’t likely to find a better-fitting pair (because I was in Singapore, and back then I was fat, weighing in at about twelve times the weight of the average Singaporean), so, really, it would have saved me a lot of mental anguish if he’d just asked whether I planned to buy this pair or not. The poor guy probably went home having no idea that I’d still be fretting about my answer nine years later.
OK, this one made me laugh – but inside my nose (yes, it can be done) so as not to disturb hubby’s serious contemplation of Facebook. Did this one get Freshly Pressed? Should’ve!
I wish! I’m not sure how one goes about being discovered.
And how do you laugh inside your nose? It might help me get in less trouble at work
well, I’ve mastered that art lately. You make a kind of snort/sniff/snorkley/whoosh sound. It fools people every time – they think I’m suffering from some sort of allergy.
It surprises me there are still door-to-door sales folks, with all the danger there is nowadays. I was thinking of selling some literature about not opening the door for door-to-door sales folks but when I really think about it, I don’t reckon it’s a good plan.