At 11:07 PM -0700 9/30/01, Scott Gomez wrote:
I've met the type. I wonder what it is about sales that attracts (and worse,
often handsomely *rewards*) that kind of person?
It's simple game theory. In many sales jobs, there's one opportunity to
make a sale, and each buyer only comes in once (or at long, irregular
intervals). So if you're square with everyone (and with your co-workers)
you expend effort on no-sale or low-margin customers. If you lie, you
increase sales, and since the people you were lying to wouldn't be coming
back for another purchase anyway, there's no harm done to your profit
margin.
If you're working in a business with a lot of repeat customers, or with
a lot of community information-sharing (or just where customers have learned
to be wary) then square dealing usually pays off, but in most fields there
are enough naive prosepcts coming through to keep the unethical salescritter
profitably occupied. (Another advantage is that the high-pressure salescritter
can sell _anything_, moving from job to job, because they don't waste time
acquiring in-depth knowledge of the product.)
I've bought -- and avoided buying -- OM gear from both kinds.
paul
-----Original Message-----
From: clintonr@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:clintonr@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
Subject: Re: [OM] Temptation Ended or "You've just talked your way out
of a sale."
The "top" salesman at a camera store I worked at many years ago used to
tell
customers that, though the camera maker was "prohibited by law from saying
so",
the camera he was selling was "waterproof to a depth of 12 inches", etc. --
any
lie to make a sale. He'd hover around the SLR counters and pounce on any
customer who walked by -- then, if the customer asked a question about some
low-priced accessory (filters, cases, film, etc.), or how to use a camera,
he'd
excuse himself, say, "you need an expert -- I'll get him/her", then walk
across
the room to one of us who weren't busy and say, "that fellow over there
asked
for you...." and walk away!
And this fellow was held up to us as someone to emulate!
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Paul Wallich pw@xxxxxxxxx
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