June 23, 2019
“Selling stuff is a beast”
From an early age, I knew I was not meant to be a
salesman. Mom told me that as a child I didn’t cry all that much. She didn’t
know at the time, but that it was because I hated to bother her.
And
that, my friend, is at the very root of my lack of salesmanship. As expected, I
stepped into adulthood with no selling experience, but, oddly enough, I have
become as sharp as a cheese grater at discerning sales’ techniques.
Just
yesterday, a polite young man from Suddenlink came to the door, urging us to
drop our current cable network. While there was absolutely no urging required,
it was still obvious to me that the kid was as good a salesman as you’re going
to find. He was calm, soft-spoken, and sharp as a—I’ve already used that one.
Let’s just say he was smart. While he’d be lousy at making commercials for used
car sales, he was perfect for selling cable TV.
When
that guy left, I knew where he was from, where he went to college, how many
kids he had, where he went to church, his job history… He left knowing pretty much nothing about me.
He knows something about Kay, because, during the small talk, she volunteered
info. The kid never asked me anything about myself, because he was more
concerned about establishing his bona-fides. (“O’ Brother, Where Art Thou?” is
one of my favorite movies.”)
The
toughest part of selling cable TV has to do with the fact that the price of
service will increase each year in equal proportion to the national debt. Since
the salesman took care of that issue by not addressing it, I brought it up. He
said that the price would probably escalate by about $30 a month after the
first year. That was because I was getting such a good deal for signing up. I
have no idea how much it goes up the third year, nor did I ask. I hate
harassing salesmen, because I know what tough jobs they have.
Our
salesman immediately shifted the conversation to the part where he is the
person who will take care of any trouble we may have down the line. He’s not going to climb into my attic or
anything. He’s the guy who calls the guy who climbs into my attic.
His
final push was to get us to buy an insurance policy on our technical devices –
TVs, cell phones, digital telescope, computer… (I made up the digital telescope
part.) For $20 a month, all of our technologically oriented devices would be
covered. That’s almost $240 a year. If my cell phone or computer broke or got
lost, it was covered. If either of our TVs went out or got lost, not a problem.
I might buy a deal like that for five dollars a month.
Truth
be told, I’m pretty much insured out. I’ve got policies on my car, house, health,
life, as well as a place to live when I forget Kay’s name and she deposits me
on the steps of an old folk’s home. It might be wise for me to add up my
insurance costs for one year. I refuse to do that, because I don’t think I
could find all my insurance policies and guarantees… which pretty much negates
their value.
I’ve been paying on my life insurance policy
for decades. It’s a “term” policy, which means the only way I will get any of
my money back is to die. I’d better get a move on, because the policy is automatically
cancelled when I turn 72. -- Note to self: Don’t mention this to Kay.
Speaking
of Kay, sends me back to the Suddenlink guy. Kay told him that we needed to
think about any IT insurance and get back to him later. – All in all, I
considered it a pleasant customer/salesman experience.
One
thing that’s become an unpleasant sales experience occurs any time I go on the
Internet. I ordered three water filters for our refrigerator on-line last week.
One filter is good for six months, so that gives me a year and a half before
I’ll need another. Since then I’ve been getting ads for refrigerator water
filters at five-minute intervals. They share screen time with weed trimmers,
ceiling fans, and cheese graters. They know me from my internet searches.
The
only good thing that’s come from all of these ads is the one that informed me
that I had just won a prize for being the seventh person of the morning to log
onto the Courier Website. Since the $100 gift certificate had already been taken,
I opted for the flashlight that is so tough you can run over it with a tank and
it will still work. It has to be a tank, though. Not a Yaris hatchback. I only
had to pay shipping cost which was $4.70. They ended up sending me two
flashlights at double the shipping costs.
By
the way, the newspaper has absolutely nothing to do with the contest. It’s all
coming from my web server. Word has apparently gotten out that I’m an easy
sell. One can only imagine what faces me after the Suddenlink salesman releases
his report. – I keep coming back to that term life policy.
end
You can contact Mark at hayter.mark@gmail.com
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