I am not a strong believer in evolution and I have three reasons for this stance, one is that I have a feeling that Charles Darwin may have been adopted; two is that if evolution exists then surely Gazelles would have developed pictures of chairs on their hind quarters by now…because everyone knows that Lions are petrified of chairs. See what I mean? And the third logical reason of mine that goes against evolution in a big way is that if it were a fact, 99.9% of husbands, despite the centuries old tradition of marriage, would not find themselves in trouble because they cannot figure out the answer to the question ‘do you want to be happy or right?’
If on the other hand I am wrong and evolution is a fact, and I have been wrong before so this doesn’t worry me (I was wrong some years ago when I thought I had made a mistake about something and it turned out I hadn’t), then I think that future generations of human beings will be even more hopeless than our society is now when it comes to ‘selling’. And we are hopeless, aren’t we? Look at the evidence of sorrowful selling in our modern society…
? Retail stores. If you are lucky to be noticed at all in most outlets, the usual ‘greeting’ in retail stores is ‘can I help you?’ (the response is almost always ‘no thanks, just looking’ followed by a hasty departure), or just ‘hello’ (this significant greeting is returned in kind and then the customer, sorry, visitor, leaves the store) or ‘Hi, nice day today isn’t it?’ (visitor confirms the weather conditions and then leaves the store, perhaps to check on the weather). This is as far as retail has gone in developing a selling approach
? Junk mail. What a boon this inane activity has been for the printing industry! In this case inane equals insane because all of us experience the same level of disappointment and irritation when we discover this form of printed drivel, and yet it continues to grow in great volume; or at least it appears to if my post box is anything to go by. I know that ‘some’ people must respond to junk mail but what kind of sub humans are they? I put it to you that they never receive regular business post and so the junk mail probably means to them what inflatable dolls mean to losers (I am not against inflatable dolls, in fact I have got one and I must confess she takes my breath away)
? Telemarketing calls. Who is writing the scripts for these calls and who is accepting the scripts? And as a result of the use of these scripts, can you imagine how depressing this work is for those making the calls? I received a call from a lady the other day representing one of the major credit card companies, and she said ‘Hello Mr Lees, how are you today?’ (this is the first mistake, making out that you are a close friend of the person being called!), and then she said ‘we are introducing a new business credit card, are you interested in this?’ I said ‘no’ and she said ‘OK, thank you’ and that was that! I know that at least some of these calls are being monitored, but by whom…deaf managers? Another call I received recently was from a company selling office appliances. To get the caller off my back I asked him could he send me an email, which to my horror he agreed to do. The email featured 7 paragraphs and it wasn’t until the 6th that a vague reference was made to a potential business benefit to my company! The other paragraphs dealt with the company’s history, its products, its success story, its typical customers and the testimonies of customers. Voluble but not valuable!
? Advertising. If you talk to people in the advertising industry most will stress the importance of ‘reach and frequency’, and this is because the standard of messages created by that industry is so weak that your only hope of sales success is to ‘get to’ potential buyers as often as possible…which incidentally means spending more money on media. The main advertising platform is built on ‘the numbers game’ (as is Telemarketing), which suggests that the more hits you make the more success you will enjoy. The flaw in this argument is that the numbers game does not work if you use an inferior message. Imagine if you will that news programmes tomorrow reported the end of the world in 3 days; how many ads would this need to ‘reach’ and scare the hell out of people? One ad perhaps, and the point I am making is that leaving aside sensationalism, if your message is strong and the ad is well produced, then far fewer ads will be necessary. Consider that we have several minutes of advertising in every hour of television, then there are ads on the radio, also in newspapers and magazines, plus we have ads on buses, taxies, at the cinema, on billboards and even airsickness bags. The point is that this form of ‘selling’ is driving us crazy, plus it is reminding people that selling is indeed an irritation
? The other irritating peddlers. To add salt to the wound we still have the occasional door to door sales person and religious reps calling at all hours (I had an ‘atheist witness’ call at 7am one morning; I said ‘what is it?’ and he said ‘nothing’). Then there are those hygiene-impaired people at the traffic lights that sell to us; I had one beg me for $5 the other day and when I asked why he said ‘I’m saving for a squeegee and a bucket.’ And even the homeless people get in on the act with their efforts at dynamic selling. I was on the Harbour Bridge recently when a bedraggled man asked me ‘to help his wife and children’. I thought his request was reasonable so I threw him off the Bridge. If all this is not enough we still occasionally see ‘ladies of the night’ plying their trade, which is interesting…because they have a product, they sell it and they’ve still got it!
When you add up the irritating effects of retail excursions, junk mail, Telemarketing, advertising, and all the other forms of intrusion that stand for ‘selling’, no wonder we have built up a strong resistance to be involved in any pursuit that relates to the so-called sales function.
John Lees is a speaker, consultant, trainer and the author of 10 books...specialising in marketing & sales.
Website: www.johnLees.com.au; email: info@johnlees.com.au
When It Comes To SellingWe Are All Born Losers - To learn more about this author, visit John Lees's Website.
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John Lees
(Visit John's Website)
Former director of marketing & sales for
Schwarzkopf in Australia and NZ, achieving
market leadership (against the giants
'L'Oreal and Wella) and best operations
internationally for the organisation. Then
worked as a consultant to the German
company in the US, Canada, the UK, South
Africa and leading Western European
markets. These days operates as a speaker,
trainer and consultant...specialising in
sales & marketing. Author of 10 books on
business development and a member of the
Institiute of management consultants.
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