Tip o’ the hat to Robert A. Heinlein’s Number of the Beast for today’s subject line.
This afternoon the doorbell rang, sending the dogs into a frenzy. I stepped outside, after getting the dogs out of the way, to find a young lady standing on the porch. She introduced herself and started on her spiel offering pesticide services for our residence.
At the first opportunity I could get I thanked her for the offer and told her we didn’t need pesticide services.
She said she understood and launched into the second part of her spiel. Her service would sweep away all cobwewbs and wasps nests from the property. Again, at the first opportunity I thanked her for her offer and said we didn’t need pesticide services.
She again said she understood and launched into her third spiel, how her service was better than other Big Name Services and showed me a page on her tablet that showed her company as the highest rated. Nice but I’ve never heard of her company and webpages can be easily faked. Again I thanked her and told her we didn’t need her service.
When I was in retail sales, the popular wisdom was you gave the customer three chances to say ‘No’. If they told you ‘No’ three times, you took it as a firm denial, you disengaged and let the sale go.
This young lady was made of sterner stuff. She went four more rounds before finally accepting the fact that I wasn’t going to take her offer. The last two rounds she got sneaky. After telling me all about the additional benefits of her service she said she could email me the information and what was my email address? I get too much junk email as it is. No thanks!
On her final attempt she said she could have her superior call me to schedule an appointment for them to come out and what was my phone number? I once again thanked her for her offer and told her we didn’t need the service.
She finally left after that. I can appreciate her persistence and drive to get the sale, but stick to the Old Ways. If someone tells you know ‘No’ three times, take the hint and vamoose!
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