I have all the respect in the world for salespeople.
My late parents both pounded the pavement for years, and despite some highfalutin titles I've enjoyed over a storied career, I know that deep down, my most notable achievements were merely selling others on things, concepts, events and people that I passionately believed in.
This is why, instead of shooing them away with disdain, I watched with admiration two people try to sell us a new photocopier at Airborne last week.
Gotta give this pair a lot of credit (I didn't get their names, as I observed them interact with our receptionist Julie Arsenault from my office). In a still-tough economy, they were hustling door-to-door with an intriguing pitch. The opening line was pure Pow! "Rear View Mirror" tactical brilliance:
"Hello. I would like to know if I could BUY your photocopier."
The follow-up to an astonished Julie was a little more typical, but in a cash-for-clunkers scenario, the pair were willing to pay us to take away our current machine...as long as we replaced it with one of theirs.
We didn't bite for a couple of reasons, main being that we are quite happy with our relatively-new Pitney-Bowes machine.
But I gotta tell you...we listened. And we talked about it after. How many people do that to YOUR sales pitch?
A different time, a different scenario, perhaps this would've paid off for the pair monetarily.
For now...well, at least there's a laudatory blog post.