September 11, 2012
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Salesmanship
Have you ever seen a sales technique in action?
How does it make you feel?
I’ve been wondering about this lately. I can see very clearly when someone is using a technique aimed to “catch” someone of another generation.
I’ve watched salespeople use the “I’ll give you a discount” technique on Baby Boomers. They’ll quote a price and wait for the Boomer to express dismay, and then they’ll drop the price by 10%. Someone my age will walk into the store and ask for the same thing, and they’ll immediately go to the “discount” price they quoted the Boomer.
(No, seriously. I’ve seen it happen.)
I don’t trust a salesperson that gives me a discount. But I get the feeling that a Boomer wouldn’t trust a salesperson that didn’t give him a discount. To me, it’s a manipulative technique; to someone else, it’s the way one should do business.
To me, it feels like trickery. To someone else, it feels like success.
I also get a little antsy about church services with names. “The Well.” “Celebration.” “Passion.” “The River.”
Someone seems to have convinced churches that catchy names will help them connect with people under the age of thirty. Maybe if I were still under thirty, it would work on me. Maybe I would be moved by it.
But I’m not. When I see a church using that technique, I see it as a technique, and it puts me on my guard.
And then I start to wonder what techniques people use on me that I don’t notice as a technique.
Humor. Intellectually, I know how manipulative humor can be. But I suspect that sometimes I’m being manipulated by humor and don’t notice it.
Self-effacement. Some forms of false modesty I can see through, and they make me snarly. (“Oh, I’m so fat!” [expectant stare]) (“Oh, I’m not very smart!” [expectant stare]) But I think I have an instinctively trusting reaction to those who can poke fun at themselves. I wonder if that’s a technique.
Can you think of others? Can you see techniques that seem to “work” on other people that don’t work on you?
Have you ever been able to see yourself from the outside, as it were, and see what tends to “work” on you? Have you ever watched yourself be manipulated?
Comments (4)
I have a family member who responds exceptionally well to bribery, specifically meat.
Ah! But who’s manipulating whom in this case?
Is A bribing B to do what A wants? Or is B training A to offer meat whenever A wants B to do something?
I am ashamed to say I use manipulative techniques all the time – on my kids. For example, “I really like how well Abby is standing in line.” Every kid instantly stands straighter and shuts up – maybe I will “like” them next.
I am a sucker for pretty packaging and things that look “high end”- not all the time, but in the case of chocolate, coffee, etc. This is why I love Christopher Kimball and America’s Test Kitchen- they are constantly reinforcing the reality that more expensive/ attractively packaged and marketed is not “better.”