The Motivations of Sales
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We've had this discussion many times here at ML. I've also discussed it offline with many people from ML.
@scottalanmiller says "trust" has nothing to do with it, or twists the word to use it against me "you should trust they will oversell you"
I think there is absolutely trust.
An example. I take my car in to the mechanic because the brakes have been squeaking. He looks at the car and says it needs new pads AND rotors. OK, so I have a choice here. Is he overselling me? Does it really not need anything at all? Or maybe just the pads. Or maybe the rotors can be machined. The point is ... how would you know, unless you already knew a lot about brakes?
Same thing with a doctor. If I go to the doctor for something, I am going to trust he is going to help me get better. Not prescribe me something that will kill me just so it gets him a free trip. (Now does that happen? I am sure.)
The point is, through experience and history, I have pre-vetted the "sales" people I use. Whether it's the CDW rep, the local mechanic, or my doctor.
If I have gone to them 19 times before, and they've never done anything sketchy once, why would they pick this one time to screw me over? Have they been just been laying in the weeds, giving me fair prices and services just waiting for the one time they can really stick it to me for another $100? Unlikely.
I think people like myself, who are in the business of recommending only what a client needs (from an extensive history of seeing the same situation over and over again) and ONLY what they need for that particular thing do exist. Just like a mechanic. Is he recommending brand X brakes because he stands to make the most off of them? Or because he's put on 1000 brakes and those are the ones that work the best. Could they possibly fare better by hiring a consultant to spend hours researching things to ultimately recommend the same thing because it's the right recommendation 99% of the time? Sure, but why? Could I take my car from the mechanic, drive it to another place, spend $120 in a diagnosis fee, and waste an entire day? Sure! But why ... just trust that the guy I've been using for 10 years really does believe I need new pads and rotors?
You are overthinking the whole recommendation phase of this. If someone says to me "hey what's a good laptop for my kid" I don't need to spend 10 hours researching it. Is there possibly a better, researched answer a paid consultant would give them? Maybe. But is it worth paying the money when 99% of the time what I tell them is going to be perfect? IMO, no way.
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@Breffni-Potter Cool picture, but what does it have to do with the conversation?
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@DustinB3403 said in The Motivations of Sales:
@Breffni-Potter Cool picture, but what does it have to do with the conversation?
Storm in a tea cup.
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Also known by
"tempest in a teacup"
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@Breffni-Potter said in The Motivations of Sales:
If you are implying this is a lot of hullabaloo over nothing. Shoot the INternet wouldn't exist without hullabaloo over nothing.
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@Breffni-Potter said in The Motivations of Sales:
@DustinB3403 said in The Motivations of Sales:
@Breffni-Potter Cool picture, but what does it have to do with the conversation?
Storm in a tea cup.
While I know that term, what we always hear is "tempest", not storm for this.
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@BRRABill said in The Motivations of Sales:
@scottalanmiller said
But she didn't do what you feel is required of a sales person. She upsild you when you didn't need it. That's like your storage vendor overselling you capacity. Sure that extra 20TB didn't do you any good. It just wasted your money. But it might feel good after the sale anyway.
She did exactly what I like.
So do all sales people. That's what makes it work. She, and they, leverage your emotions to upsell you. They let you think that you wanted to do it. No matter how much a sales person upsells you, obviously you always feel like you liked it in the end, because that's what made you go ahead with the purchase.
You've just described a total 180 from your previous stance. If her upselling you based on playing on your emotions is good, why is it bad when a server salesman does it?
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@BRRABill said in The Motivations of Sales:
Any time anyone will sell me something else for a penny or close to fee, I'll take it. That a great salesperson in my mind.
That's what was described earlier as unethical because it preys on your emotions. Does it save you money? No. It just feels that way.
So to you a salesperson is both great AND unethical if they use your emotional reaction to perceive savings to manipulate you into deciding to buy more than you need.
Which is it... great or unethical?
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@BRRABill said in The Motivations of Sales:
It's like when I was a cashier and used to give customers advice about coupons they may have missed. Going the extra mile to make the customer/client happy and save them money. It's a win win for everyone.
No, it isn't like that at all. One saves you money, the other gets you to feel like you saved money when you actually spent more. One lowers the profits of the company, the other increases them.
Totally different in every conceivable way. Neither is a win/win.
One is a win/lose and the other is a lose/win.
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@BRRABill said in The Motivations of Sales:
The salesperson who screws over the customer loses that customer.
Don't use terms like screws when you define "being great" sometimes as screwing and sometimes lying. Lying will lose you customers. Convincing people, like your fry girl did, to spend more than you needed will do the opposite. It will make you FEEL great about overspending and make you MORE likely to return. Great sales people make more money for their companies not just by getting more of your money once, but getting it again and again.
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@Dashrender said in The Motivations of Sales:
I guess the difference here is that the fry girl isn't saying to me... I think you need this, I think this will solve your problem.
Kind of, to some degree. But she kind of is. He's hungry and/or likes fries, so she is implying a desire to fulfil.
Saying that a SAN will solve your storage problem is exactly the same, it does solve the problem you stated. It's not the best way to do it, you were asking about the wrong problem, etc. but that's now what is said.
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@Dashrender said in The Motivations of Sales:
The key word think instills a feeling in the buyer that seller is working for the buyer. This is the intentional falseness/trick/social engineering that sales employ to throw the super off their game and start acting with emotion instead of logic.
No, there is no trick from the salesperson. ANY trick there happened when the buyer engaged in such a way that a problem was discussed. The social contract of sales means that you can never make this excuse. Buyers have a responsibility for their actions and cannot project this on a sales person. As long as they know that they are a seller, that responsibility remains with the buyer.
What do you expect from sales people otherwise?
"Hey says guy, I need a car, will this Kia Sorrento seat four people, that's what I need."
Your Ideal Sales Guy: "I don't know, I'm a sales guy, figure it out."
Real Sales Guy: "Well this seats four, so I think it will meet your needs."See how silly it is to think that telling people that something is thought to solve a problem is some kind of trick?
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@Dashrender said in The Motivations of Sales:
The social contract of people not trying to take advantage of each other is what is broken.
No, the social contract is that both sides are expected to try to take advantage of each other and both are responsible for watching out for their own interest and that neither side can lie.
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@Dashrender said in The Motivations of Sales:
The inherent trust that the average person isn't out to screw their fellow man.
Saying things like "screw" in relation to all sales processes is really ridiculous. One side is out to get a good deal for them, the other is out to do the same. No one wants to screw someone, they each just want the best deal for the side that they represent.
The problem with ethics comes in when one side projects their own responsibilities and motivations inappropriately onto the other party.
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@scottalanmiller said in The Motivations of Sales:
@Dashrender said in The Motivations of Sales:
The key word think instills a feeling in the buyer that seller is working for the buyer. This is the intentional falseness/trick/social engineering that sales employ to throw the super off their game and start acting with emotion instead of logic.
No, there is no trick from the salesperson. ANY trick there happened when the buyer engaged in such a way that a problem was discussed. The social contract of sales means that you can never make this excuse. Buyers have a responsibility for their actions and cannot project this on a sales person. As long as they know that they are a seller, that responsibility remains with the buyer.
What do you expect from sales people otherwise?
"Hey says guy, I need a car, will this Kia Sorrento seat four people, that's what I need."
Your Ideal Sales Guy: "I don't know, I'm a sales guy, figure it out."
Real Sales Guy: "Well this seats four, so I think it will meet your needs."See how silly it is to think that telling people that something is thought to solve a problem is some kind of trick?
"From what you've told me you regularly have 4 people in your vehicle. The Kia would get the job done but we also have this fully loaded SUV available for only $150 more per month. I think it would be much better for you. It will fit 7 people and has extra features added for comfort. Do you think that having a bit more space and flexibility would be a better fit for you?"
So would this upsell be unethical? It's technically more car than they need.
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@Dashrender said in The Motivations of Sales:
@scottalanmiller said in The Motivations of Sales:
@BRRABill said in The Motivations of Sales:
So what if the fry girl says ... oh by the way, instead of paying $3.49 for that fry you can get 2 for $4 which is a much better deal.
In your world, she'd be unethical because she didn't research if you needed more fries, if you like fries, if you have someone to share them with, how the extra $.51 would impact your personal finances, etc.
In my world, she's just a sales girl doing her job in the 100% ethical, social contract way. She didn't lie, she didn't force, she didn't deceive. She did sales.
Also, in this example it's likely that the company is making a bit more money from this sale because the cost of the fries is so low.
Absolutely. The fries cost about $.02 (real numbers I was a fast food manager) and they sell them for $.51 here. It might SEEM like a good deal to you as a buyer and the whole system is engineered to create this false value reaction. It's total manipulation. The single fry is priced way over the top to make the second one sound like a deal, it helps you to forget how much you were about to be overcharged for the first one and make you forget that you never need that many fries.
So suddenly what is a $.02 product with $1.47 of profit on it becomes a $.04 product with $1.96 of profit on it, all in a single transaction with a single cost for order completion and credit card processing. It's a huge value increase to the store and generally zero (and often negative) to the buyer.
It's not just the fry girl upselling you, it's the entire engineering of the pricing structure to create exactly what @BRRABill feels ... he comes away thinking that he got a good deal and that he made the decision and that the fry girl was nice when, in fact, it was an orchestrated manipulation of his emotions from beginning to end. It's the "triple offering trick" in a slightly different way, where you offer a low, high and medium priced option with only the medium one being intended to be sold and the other two designed to be just foolish enough that people will only pick the medium offering - because no one would pick the high anyway and the low doesn't carry the margins that they wanted.
It's really easy to avoid this stuff as long as you remember the social contact. The moment you start to think that the sales person might be your advisor, then being confused and thinking that you are getting a deal when obviously you are not, happens.
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@BRRABill said in The Motivations of Sales:
@Dashrender said in The Motivations of Sales:
@scottalanmiller said in The Motivations of Sales:
@BRRABill said in The Motivations of Sales:
So what if the fry girl says ... oh by the way, instead of paying $3.49 for that fry you can get 2 for $4 which is a much better deal.
In your world, she'd be unethical because she didn't research if you needed more fries, if you like fries, if you have someone to share them with, how the extra $.51 would impact your personal finances, etc.
In my world, she's just a sales girl doing her job in the 100% ethical, social contract way. She didn't lie, she didn't force, she didn't deceive. She did sales.
Also, in this example it's likely that the company is making a bit more money from this sale because the cost of the fries is so low.
Right, but in a real world example....
The Sausage McMuffin with egg right now is $3.59 for one or $4 for two.
Is McD's making a little more money off me? Sure. Could have I saved 40 odd cents and only bought one? Sure. But I can tell you I am much happier buying 2 at $4.
Right, so is happier all it takes? So by that definition, everything you said about sales before you've switch and now it is only about getting you to be happy with the transaction. Like I said.
And since you would only complete a transaction that you deem to make you happy, we can safely say ALL sales (that don't involve lying) make the buyer happy. Therefore you just told me that ALL sales tactics, no matter how much trickery, pressure, manipulation or whatever are exactly what sales is supposed to do - because it's all about making you think you got a good deal.
I agree. You've come around to my point, 100%. There is nothing wrong for giving advice and selling what is not needed, because if the buyer buys it, it means that they were happy and all responsibility for getting what they needed, rather than what makes them happy, is on them.
