I was at Costco tonight and this sales guy thought I might be easy to sucker into buying a $1000 barbecue grill.
Sales Dude: “Hey, brother, let me show you these wood chips.”
Me: “Thanks, but I'm not interested.”
Sales Dude: “C'mon, walk with me and let me give you a 20-second demo.”
Me: “No.”
Sales Dude: “C'mon, 20 seconds.”
Me: “No.”
Sales Dude: “C'mon, brother, you don't have 20 seconds?”
Me: “I already gave you 20 seconds. And I'm not your brother. Peace.”
True story. My wife shook her head as I pushed my shopping cart away, and the sales guy was shaking his head, too.
“You ought to be more sympathetic,” my wife said.
Here's my thing with sales people. We've all got to make our living however we can, and there's nothing wrong with that.
But you don't win sales by twisting people's arms or by guilting them into buying something. That is the worst kind of sales. It takes a foolish person to sell in that scenario, and a weak person to succumb to it. I'm pretty stubborn and strong-willed, so when people try to get me to do something I don't want to do, I usually become very, very rude. By even participating in an exchange like that, I'm inviting bad energy into my zone.
I take “living your best life and choosing life on your terms” so seriously that every cell in my body repulses these kinds of people.
If you're a writer, and you're trying to “twist” readers' arms by getting them to buy your book, then you're probably doing it wrong. You're probably yelling at them when you should be talking to them and figuring out what they actually need. And sometimes, the best thing for a customer is for them NOT to buy a product. Good salespeople know this.
Take a look at your ad copy and your sales pages, and your marketing tactics. Readers will likely have the same repulsive reaction toward crappy marketing tactics as I did to the guy at Costco. The time that guy wasted on me was time he could have spent connecting with any of the dozens of people who passed us in the 20 seconds we talked.
Meet people where they are. That's the lesson today. 🙂
