Hit Me!

Guy, did you even read my post before getting super butthurt?

The salesman was told we were just looking initially, and we reminded him when we came to price it out.

What kind of fucking moron strolls into a dealership on a whim and buys a car without research, pricing it out, test driving it, and checking out other dealerships?

You might as well say why would I walk into a furniture store and not buy anything? Or a grocery store? Maybe I want to see what's available before jumping the gun and dropping 25k on something that could cost thousands less elsewhere.

The salesperson got all butt hurt and defensive as well, much like you just did, which is why we never even returned there. Why would he flip out if he fucking knew we were just looking!? Yes, we wasted his time, but if he hadn't randomly assumed we were going to buy after spending 45 minutes with him, he wouldn't have wasted either of our time.

On a related note, that dealership had 2 stars on yelp. Guess I should have done more research.

 

I experienced high-pressure sales literally five minutes ago. I signed up for this board, and then I got a buzz on the intercom, and it's the CFO, saying "There's someone out front here who wants to talk to the owner of the Civic."

So, thinking my car's just been smashed up, I step outside, and there's this little squat bulldog of a man who points out that I have a dent in my left fender (someone hit me in the parking lot last year) and telling me he'd like to fix it for $325, whereas a body shop would charge me $5,000 or some similar ridiculous figure worth more than the car.

So I tell him I don't have any money right now, and he immediately drops his price to $185. I tell him I'm not trying to hard-negotiate and I literally don't have any money now, and he drops his price to $120. I tell him I couldn't hire him even if the price were $20, because then I would not be able to eat come Friday, and he gives me his business card and leaves.

Perhaps the most unpleasant thing about this conversation was that he was literally spraying spit every time he pronounced a hard consonant, and by the time he was done with his sales pitch, my forearms were getting pretty... moist.

 

I did! I strode into Honda an hour before closing time and said "Okay, just got a job, and I need to have a car for it, and I need one within an hour." I think I was upside-down in that car before the ink was dry on my application.

The upside was, everyone at the dealership was very pleasant to me.

 

I work in sales and have done for the past 5 years.

My job is a little different to a normal sales position as the people I pitch to never ever spend a cent with me, all the business goes through builders, contractors and wholesalers but it is the engineers, architects or end users that put my products on the specification.

The job can be really rewarding, when I am on a hot streak and everything is running smoothly I feel like superman on top of the world. There is pretty much nothing I cannot do and the world seems like it is just waiting for me to come and work my magic again. On the flip side when things are bad, they are really bad and often through no fault of my own (obviously sometimes it’s me). When I can’t get on paper or I’m not making sales I tend to take it personally and it can be pretty depressing. Getting told no over and over again or watching a job you have worked hard on for a year get off spec’d by a competitor can be extremely difficult to take with a smile and it’s hard to pull yourself out of bed in the morning to go and face another certain defeat when you know it’s coming. It’s can also get pretty difficult to sit and listen to a client that has an attitude problem, talks down to me and thinks they know better when if it wasn’t for me saving their ass on multiple occasions probably wouldn’t be in the position they are and would certainly have absolutely ruined a few major projects. All of this has to be done with a smile while acting as if you love taking it otherwise you don’t get the next sale.

All said and done I like my job. There are more good times then bad, most of the clients are pretty good, I get to meet new people all the time and I make a pretty good living. Couldn't ask for much more really.

 

my first attempt to buy a car led to me getting scammed out of $500 due to my financing being rejected, and them lying to me and my credit card company. It was not a fun time. Incidentally, avoid Erin Mills Mazda. They will try shit with you and openly lie to you.

My second attempt, I walked in and said "I need a TDI, it needs to be ready by the end of the month, it needs to be not silver, and it needs to be around MSRP"
Took about an hour, they threw in floor mats, and there was no PST on anything in the lot. I really appreciate them not screwing around with me (even if I didn't bother trying to play hardball on snow tires + wheels, I probably could have gotten some cash off those)

 

The job that I recently quit was heavily sales based. I hate everything about sales, and am not a good fit for it in the slightest. I realize that at times life requires some level of deception, and I'm capable of doing it when necessary, but spending the majority of my time awake assuming a completely false personality is something I can't deal with. I hate kissing ass. I don't want to smile if you're being a shithead. I don't want to talk on the phone with a voice a couple octaves above normal. I can't stand going to a sales conferences and watching morons clap and yell when the owner takes the stage in flashing lights and AC/DC music. I despise that huge boobs and blond hair trump my honest effort. And, most of all, I hate trying to manipulate somebody into something that I know isn't in their best interest just so I can make a living.

 

I've worked in sales in several places, mostly in flooring where your style is lax and there's no pressuring the customer- if they want to buy, they'll buy...and find them the best deal.

However, years ago I once worked for Chem Lawn (Green Lawn) selling fertilizer packages door-to-door, and I was not cut out for that shit. Aside from the fact selling shit door-to-door is Rock Bottom, they basically told you be a stubborn dog with a bone: Never back down, keep making offers, do not leave without either a sale or being escorted from the property. I just cannot pressure somebody like that, especially a service that I don't really have faith in. They would get cancellations-a-plenty because many people would sign up just to shut the salesman the fuck up and get him off their porch. You had a weekly quota and only received bonus if you sold a ridiculous amount of this overpriced, underskilled service.

 

Must be different around here, I've never seen that happen.

But I will tell you how you can get a good price on these sorts of things: go to trade fairs. There's nothing like being stuck in the room with the competition to encourage pricing to be squeezed. The caveat to that is to know what the everyday price is anyway. There's a lot of capacity for the "mark up to mark down" treatment, especially if it's an offer you have to sign up for on the day.

A couple of years back I managed to get a 30% reduction on security screening for my house. Realistically, it was more of a 15-17% reduction on the regular prices but the salesman was making a big deal out of how good a deal I was getting, so I let him keep going with it.

The difference is the door knocker is generally working for a commission, so whatever you pay has to include paying them. At trade shows you generally get the owner/franchisee around somewhere. Not only do you get to speak to the person who can make the decision, there's more fat to cut off the price.

 

This would absolutely suck and not sure I could work like that either. I have 100% confidence in my products in the correct applications. The biggest issue I have is when a client won't listen, tries to go the cheapo route which I tell them up front will not work and will cause problems, then the problems happen and they cry to me and want hand-outs. Not happening.

 

"Ohh, Ol' Gil needs the sale! C'mon! You gotta buy from me! Ohh, you almost had that one, Gil! My wife is gonna leave me..."



Focus My wife and I, right after she started working, went out and bought her a new car. We researched a lot online before hand, found the kind of car we liked and was in our price range (Chevy Malibu). We researched which dealership would have the lowest price. I walked in and told the salesman who approached exactly what we wanted and how much we expected to pay. Test drove it and loved it, and walked out with that car, that day. No bullshit on our part, no bullshit on his. We got the price we wanted on the car we wanted, and he got a sale.

Quite frankly, with salesmen and customers, it goes both ways. If you walk in with full intent of haggling and trying to dick over the salesmen, it turns into a game of "I can out-bullshit you." The result is, naturally, bullshit. When you walk in and show the salesman that you have no intention of bullshitting him, and he still tries to jack up the price or give you some silly shit, fuck him. Walk out.

My dad is the kind of guy who will literally walk out of a business deal over a matter as small as a dollar. He went to buy a motorcycle, and I went with him. He did his research, test drove a few, found one he really liked and agreed with the salesman on a price. The salesman said that they'd get the bike (apparently, they didn't have one on that lot, but it was a chain dealership, so it was on a different lot) and he could come back and settle up in two days. I went with my dad two days later, and the guy gave my dad the invoice, and stated that the price was $10 more than they'd agreed upon. My dad said, very simply, "this isn't the price we agreed on," and got up to leave. The salesman said it was a tax thing that came out to an extra ten bucks, but my dad flat out wouldn't budge. Finally, the salesman said "fine," and whipped out a ten dollar bill and said "I'll take care of it."

Now, mind you, my dad REALLY wanted this motorcycle. I mean, he had wanted one since he was a teenager, and he was in his 40s now. It was the first thing he had bought for himself in almost 20 years (up til then he saved like a madman and spent his money on his kids), and he was ready to walk away over a matter of ten dollars (less than 1% of the sales price). He told me later that it was just a matter of principle. They agreed on a price, and that was the price he was getting, and he wasn't going to pay one cent more.

 

This sounds suspiciously like my dating life at this point.

Focus:

Timeshares are the fucking devil. I did not intend on purchasing the time share, but they conned my ex into it, so I was sort of coerced into it by her (read I'm an idiot). A year and a half later I'm paying 200 bucks a month for something I don't even fucking use and can't get rid of for another 3.5 years until its paid for.

 

Everyone, repeat after me: There is no such thing as a free holiday.

 

I work in the corporate office of a direct sales company doing marketing and sales management. We're unlike others because we aren't big on the pyramid scheme crap and only promote a supplemental income for our salespeople so they don't sell like their lives depended on it. Regarding myself, I've become a good talker and can be effective without being a sleazy bastard. I've also got full marketing control over what projects I'm managing, so I can work on the operation to fit our sales or organizational goals best.

That and I have to be competent in selling if I want to sell anything produced by my little business. If anything, the hardest part is convincing customers that I can hold my ground and am damned good at what I do despite my age. Everyone else in the industry is at least twice my age, so it makes me unique.

 

Warm lead makes everything easier to sell. A lot of the time you don't even have to actually sell anything and you can still turn a profit!



Also, maybe I'm crazy but I just bought a car and I went through a mechanic instead of a dealership. Bonus was that they fixed it up really nicely for me and it's got a brand new rebuilt engine, tires, air conditioning pipes, and door locks at no extra charge. The only extra charge I had to pay was tax.

 

An old roommate and I once opened the door of our apartment to find a guy selling vacuum cleaners. "They've got excellent suction, they'll pick up anything - if I could just have five minutes of your time." Hell, it was a distraction from studying, so we let him in. He set up the unit, vacuumed a little strip and was all proud of himself. But we wanted a better demonstration. So the roommate started creating stains and dirt piles around the house that he'd have to vacuum up to impress us with the power of his machine. After an hour and a half, we thanked him for cleaning our house, and showed him to the door.

I don't tolerate a sales pitch. I know what I want, I know what I want to pay for it, and I know that my time is worth too much to sit around listening to someone try to sell me crap. That said, the Shriners called me a few years ago to ask if I would sponsor a child to go to the circus. When I said that, no, I had made my charitable donations for the year, the guy asked if I hated children or if I was some sort of devil worshipper. Fuck it. I said I had to get off the line because the bound virgin in the backyard was trying to free herself, and hung up the phone.

 

I've have been a door to door salesman. But I sold Watchtower and Awake magazines. I was the worst kind of salesman because I believed in it wholeheartedly. It was a just cause and I was there to help you. I could combat any kind of objection. Not interested? No problem. We had a book called 'Reasoning From the Scriptures' which had pretty much all objections and the counter-argument to them listed. The objective was simple - find a common ground, get you to talk about it, turn it around on you and exploit it. Return, Rinse, Repeat. I felt very much like I was doing God's work so being dissuaded from it was unlikely.

Oddly enough with time and some examination I found holes in my own way of thinking and had to start from the beginning re-examining. Basically taking the themes learned at examining other peoples way of thinking and finding holes in it, it was only a matter of time before some small self awareness made me apply it to myself.

The success rate of door to door knocking with religion was miserably low and I often wondered why we did it. But we were soldiers for a higher cause so questioning was not allowed. I think I was the only one in my entire family to perform what we called a door to water (Taking someone who had a religion, converting them, reforming their belief system and then getting them baptized into our religion). I was 13.

Looking back on it, in the long run it gave me a respect for other people, their beliefs, an ability to have a conversation with anyone on any subject, find common ground and a teflon skin with regard to rejection. But thats about it. It kind of fucked up a lot of other things.

 

First off, your story sounds like a gross exaggeration. I'd be willing to bet it was more like a guy came to your place selling you vacuum cleaners and you said you weren't interested. Then you and your roommate sat around talking about how it would have been hilarious if you had him vacuum your whole place under the guise of it being a demonstration.

More importantly, If your story is true, do you realize that was a really fucking asshole thing to do? I can't imagine how much cognitive dissonance it must take to tell such a story and in the very next paragraph talk about how you know how much your time is worth and don't want to have your time wasted.

 

If you want to experience a new form of hard sell, take a trip to a hard-up village in a third world with no income except from tourism. All of a sudden it's "You wanna hat? One hat, ten pound! Yeah, you wanna hat!" and all the while you're wondering how a middle-aged Egyptian acquires a Brooklyn accent without access to cable TV or Bazooka Joe's bubble gum.

I'm generally pretty lucky about this, though. Whenever I travel with people, especially those of the Caucasian persuasion, they're the ones that get bugged to shit by the peddlers. I suppose it's because they look like they know what they're doing and I don't. Or the other way around.

The only problem I have is with beggar children. They latch onto me with their sad eyes and their grubby hands. I walked up and down one street in Delhi this past summer looking for my hotel. I must have crossed it about four times, and this little nine-year-old girl kept following me grabbing my shirt the whole way. At some point pity gives way to annoyance. For her, at some point persistence gave way to resignation.