Dear Mr. Salesman, welcome to the 21st century

Dinks.

No matter how you cut it, my wife and I are dinks. (Dual income, no kids.) (At least for the time being. We are working on the kids thing, though. Anyway…)

We also live in a small bedroom town for the St. Louis metropolitan area. Our town only has a population of ~8,000 that is in the midst of the culture clash of the German-descended farmers, whose families have lived here for generations, and the younger, transplanted executives who work in the city.

The “small town” feel can easily lull you into a false sense of security. Last week, that security was not quite shattered as much as heavily bent. The first inkling anything was the matter was during dinner Monday evening when the doorbell rang. It was one of the town’s fine law enforcement officials canvassing the neighborhood. Turns out two houses a block down the street had been broken into and he was asking around if anyone saw anything.

Ok, maybe shattered was the right word. At least concerning Mrs. Counter’s sense of security because we soon entered the market for a security system for the house. The next day, Mrs. Counter had appointments lined up for four different home security firms.

Now, let me give you some background. Mrs. Counter works in the health care industry. She is use to dealing with Doctors with god complexes, unruly patients, touchy co-workers and some people that can only be described as plain nuts. She is also the schmoozer and the people person in our relationship while I am more reserved (shy) and the numbers guru. She is also the master negotiator.

The first salesman we had out was extraordinary. He went over his products well, made suggestions on what to set-up where, took time to talk with both of us and to answer our questions.

Enter Salesman #2. He arrived early. Not a problem but I had to cut short walking DoggieCounter around the backyard for his evening “constitutional”. Traffic congestion also caused Mrs. Counter to be a little late, as she had not arrived home yet. Again, not a problem as I took #2 on a quick tour of the house, pointing out entryways and vulnerable windows. Mrs. Counter soon arrived home and I filled her in on what we had done so far.

Now, mind you, I was bringing my lovely wife up to speed so she could make an informed decision. I was not doing it to make her “feel included” as this decision is as much hers as it is mine. #2 obviously misread the situation, grossly, as he began to pander to me while blowing off my wife’s questions. “Now don’t lie to me, aren’t you scared to be alone when Mr. Counter is traveling on business?” And so we continued to talk awhile as he tried to “make personal connections” and deride the competition instead of trying to sell his product on its’ merits.

I love my wife. We complement each other well and often know what the other is thinking without have to say a word. As we talked to #2, I could tell my wife was silently screaming, “What a fucking idiot!” all the while maintaining a natural, calm façade. What a woman.

Finally we showed #2 to the door. As I closed the door, I held up my hand to fend off the silent scream that was quickly escaping the Misses. “Honey, let’s not be rude. Let’s at least wait until he’s out of hearing range before we mock him openly.” Mrs. Counter burst out in incredulous laughter. “He never looked me in the eye once! And his breath stunk!"

The moral of this story is clear. If you are trying to sell something, be nice to everyone, because the power to make the final decision might not rest with who you think it does.

Finally, with the visit done, DoggieCounter and I finished our walk so he could finish his #2.

Does this story have a point?

I think you should have let the misses go ahead and mock him. :smiley: What a condescending idiot.

Reminds me of one of our forays into an auto showroom. I’m the money manager in our family, and I’m quite stingy with our dollars. My husband yields to me when I say we can’t afford something - this as background.

We were shopping for a new vehicle, and the salesman pretty much deflected all my questions with comments about the color of the car and the mirrors in the sunvisors. You know - the girly things. We took our business elsewhere.

When the husband and I go to buy a car, he’s the one concerned the interior upholstery matches the exterior and I’m the one saying pop the hood, I want to see the engine. (Actually, he wonders about the engine, too, but if the salesperson can’t handle the “role reversal” we don’t do business with him/her)

I’ve found the worst offenders are real estate folks - even the women. My husband even told one guy to his face “Hey, my wife makes the money these days, you better start talking directly to her and answering her questions or we’re going to walk out of here”. You know, he stil get it and yes, we walked.

What can I say? Some folks are just plain stupid.

I don’t know how many of those security people I would let into my house, a lot of thieves work in the security industry. I would be more inclined to base my decision on data gathered without a “home inspection” and be very careful who I had in to install the system.

FairyChatMom, I had a car salesman do the same thing to me. As I was leaving, he offered me a special deal if I bought the car that day. The man didn’t stand a chance!

CJ

yes it does. the point is to stop being an ass.

Yeah, when I was car shopping one Sunday the dealer chatted with my husband for a few minutes about the various football games that day then turned to me and said “what did you do today – go shopping?”

Yeah, for a CAR you dumbass shithead!

I thought that the point was to waste precious irreplaceable moments of crazy grady’s rapidly fleeting finite lifespan. After all, if every single thread (and indeed spending time on line) were something that he could choose to not do, he might be out there curing cancer or inventing cold fusion.

A barest of hijacks:

Hope the Counters check out the security company carefully, beyond the manners/approach of the salesman.

Make sure that whatever equipment you buy (and all its security codes) is your property, by contract. Check who will be monitoring alarms - local people who know the area law enforcment agency(s) vs. some bored teen two thousand miles away. Does your police department have a penalty for excessive false alarms, and does the security firm have a bad record in that regard?

Our experience was that the salesman seemed knowledgeable and friendly, and the price reasonable. It only later turned out that the installation was flawed and the service personnel unable to get it to work properly. When we wouldn’t complete payment until the problems were fixed, the company remotely altered the access codes, then demanded further payments beyond the contract in order for us to receive the codes (the parent firm that manufactured the equipment was unhelpful).
We eventually got all our money back via small claims court, but it was a very unpleasant experience. The bottom line is that many of these firms sell the security equipment cheaply in order to lock you into long-term monitoring contracts, which may or may not be handled professionally. Could be worth a check with the consumer protection division of your state attorney general’s office.

I think I actually caused a salesman to act the way you are describing, so let me apologise for ruining it for us all in advance.

Anyway, the guy came to the house to give me a quote on window replacement. He was fast-talking, aggressive, pushy and his quote was very, very high. He wanted me to buy right away and I wimped- rather than tell him to go away, I said “I’ll have to talk to my husband before I sign anything.” He got really upset, practically threw his card at me, refused to leave me a written estimate and stormed out of my house. I was shocked at his behaviour before and after I said the dreaded “I’ll have to talk to…etc” .

Later, I called the company to complain about the salesman. They sent another guy who gave me a great price and I wound up buying from them after all. I did learn to not be so wimpy, though. I guess that can be pretty frustrating to a sales guy.

Oh, pish, Ca3799, you’ve done nothing to apologize for. You were confronted by a sales representative who didn’t want to do his job, and got pissy when you declined to be baffled by his bullshit.

Good on you for going back to the company and requesting a sales rep who would be willing to treat you with some respect.

Reminds me once of when I was shopping for my first car (back in '94).

I had a few bucks saved up, and me and Pop Trip [sub]he’ll join the SDMB someday, I swear. . .[/sub] went out and started looking for used pickup trucks. I always wanted one because the simple practicality to me was just . . . awesome (I was in high school. I could haul beer kegs in it undetected!).

In any case, we went down to his hometown in South Jersey, and ended up in a used car dealership. “Howie” detected that “I” was the guy “looking” for the truck. “Howie”, never looked at me, and kept craking jokes and talking about what “J.R.” [sub](I’m a junior)[/sub] wanted or should need. In my mind, I’m saying to myself, “Fuck you, since it seems that I have the check, which will be signed.”

Needless to say, not thirty seconds after “Howie” left us to browse the lot, I said to Pop Trip, “Pop, fuck that guy. He’s a jackass. . .”.

Just at that moment, ‘Howie’ happened to turn around to wave at us when he caught me flipping a bird in his ‘general direction’.

Tripler
I ended up buying my truck from an old fellah down the street. In '97, I bought an '83 with 31k on it. :smiley:

Ok, I will spell it out for you, again, since your reading comprehension seems to be a little on the deficient side:

Remember reading that part, Einstein? Need me to help you with any of the big words? We could review the meaning of the word “nice” but, like the saleperson, I do not think you would get it.

Jackmannii - All of the companies we have appointments with are well known in the area, if not national companies: ADT, Brinks, PASS and Bar-Com. Also, thanks for the extra things to think/ask about! Sorry you had a rough time with your system.

It really surprised me that in this day (and the area we live) where dual-income families are very common, that mind-set still existed – especially in any type of salesperson.

It’s still everywhere, I fear - I used to work for the Staff Development dept. in a school district, and we’d have speakers come in every quarter to talk about various aspects of teaching. Each school had a certain number of teachers they could send each time, and were allowed to choose them however they wanted.

I distinctly remember one where for whatever reason, the majority of the teachers present were women. The (male) speaker proceeded to talk to them about whatever his specialty was, and in a room full of educated, professional women, kept harping on the model of “now, just have Mom come during the school day and do ABC, and then when Dad gets home from work, he can do XYZ…”

He got reamed on the evaluations.

This drives me nuts. If I wander into any store with Mr. Levins that doesn’t sell Tampax, all of the salesmen either just talk to him, or talk down to me, like, “And what does the little lady have to say about all this? Har har har!”

When we were in a computer store once, he went looking for a part and I just wandered the aisles, looking at monitors and keyboards, etc., and this salesguy comes up, smirking, and says, “Do you have any idea what you’re looking for?”

I don’t even remember my reply. I just remember seeing a lot of red.

The funny thing is, they don’t seem to understand that even if we ARE there to make a purchase for Mr. Levins, and Ms. Levins is insulted, Mr. Levins WILL NOT BE MAKING A PURCHASE.

How hard is this to understand?