Rant

[moon_custafer]

Dammitdammit some guy came into the show room while everyone else was in a meeting or on lunch and he started the sort of “I’m from the new neighbourhood beauty salon” spiel I had to fend off last week, and I cut him short so then he got all huffy and offended. I apologized and asked if he had any pamphlets to drop off and explained I was nervous because last time it was somebody trying to sell us gift certificates but we had to buy them NOW and he kept on being huffy and offended – basically pulling the business version of the “but I’m a nice guy” routine. Eventually he left but after wards I yelled at myself and hit myself in the head, feeling stupid and unprofessional.

ETA -- Feeling slightly better now that I’ve managed to politely (though dishonestly – I agreed to take one of their business cards and pass it on to my boss, which I likely won’t do) extract myself from a conversation with the people trying to get their hands on a copy of our customer list so they can call them up and try to rent them showroom space.

Comments

[donald hutton (from livejournal.com)]

I don't really see what you ended up doing wrong there. A few points lost for style for trying to explain why you were nervous instead of just asking if this was a time limited offer and then, if it was, pointing out that that was too bad because you don't have purchasing authority and he's dropping in at lunch hour.

There's probably no situation where trying to cut short a cold-call sales pitch is a bad thing: even for the salesman. If you cut him short with a question, as above, then he gets the opportunity to incorporate the answer into his initial spiel as this is the sort of thing people are worried about. If he has no chance, or at least no chance with you, telling him right off avoids him wasting his time: which is a big deal for sales types as your hit rate is going to be low enough on cold-calls as it is. If he seems huffy it's either feigned, so who cares, or genuine, in which case he won't last a week in the sales game so best he find out now.

And trying to get a copy of your customer list is industrial espionage so there's even less to worry about with spies.

Re: Head banging - To paraphrase the Emperor Ming "Are you sure you're on the right pills?" As you know I'm a devotee of the Great Pumpkin and find that pumpkin seeds (aka Pepitas) help enormously with this. I really should put up a "Days without…" sign as my numbers are very good these days.