Tip 55: Watch out for high pressure sales pitches
Any time you are on the receiving end of a salespitch, there is a risk that you will buy something you don't really need. I just discussed the risks of going on a test drive with a car salesman. Salesmen that sell other products are also skilled at making the sale- whether you need the product or not. An easy way to avoid this is to avoid salesmen!
I recently received a sales pitch in my house from a vacuum cleaner salesman. You would think in your own home that you would have an advantage over the visiting salesmen, but they have lots of tricks. A salesman may try to wear you down with a very long sales pitch and keep repeating key sales points over and over. This can be surprisingly effective, even if you weren’t thinking of buying that sort of product before the sales pitch. Some sales pitches involve a lot of pressure to buy right then- my vacuum cleaner salesman even said that the offer is good only while she was there.
Salesmen will try to remove all of your objections to buying something until you have no excuses left. First of all, they will have lots of great information and selling points about the product. You will not be able to make a good argument that there is anything wrong with the product. The salesman will probably even have some slick product demonstrations to show how great it is.
Next objection- it costs too much. The salesman will show how his product is a great value compared with other similar products. The salesman may also roll out a financing package so you can buy the product for a low monthly payment. So price is not really a problem since anyone can afford a few dollars a month. My vacuum salesman even offered to give me the vacuum for free if I signed up to sell vacuums. I think I would have trouble selling expensive vacuums to people who couldn’t really afford one.
Once your objections to buying the product are removed, the pressure to buy now is applied. There may even be a call back to the boss or the home office to get you a special deal that is only good if you buy right now.
If you are aware of some of the tactics that effective salesmen use, you can avoid purchasing something under duress that you didn’t really want to buy.
Note: I used the term “salesmen” above and in the tip about test drives, but there are also plenty of “saleswomen” who use the same tactics. I could have used the term “salesperson”, but I thought “salesman” is easier to read.
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