Or alpha-female. Don’t kid yourself. When I see how the “leading salespersons” (women) treat the new guys (young men) for instance at my company, I turn f+cking green. And if need be, they even get men degraded or at least transferred due to “sexual harrassement” if they don’t like’m for one reason or the other. - I enjoy my work, but the sales department makes me sick.
So do I. Thankfully, my current employer is nothing like that.
I’ve found that working for a computer store and a webhost and doing sales not as my job but as sort of an adjunct of my job* that the best tack to take with most people is, as above, absolute honesty.
“No, if your daughter is an English major, chances are she isn’t going to need that rig specially designed for 3D animators…”
“If you just want a personal website with pictures of the kids so Grandma and Grandpa can see them, you seriously don’t need a dedicated server…”
I sell people what they need, not what I think is going to make me money. I do get commission on sales now – in a given month it’s less than my pay for a full day of work in a REALLY good month – so it’s worth my time to pitch a new server or a longer contract. But I have never and would never counsel anyone to purchase something they don’t need and don’t want.
- Okay, I was a salesgirl at the computer store, but most of my job was standing behind a register; my current job is billing, which runs more or less alongside sales
There’s a section in the book Freakonomics that discusses the honesty, or at least the willingness to work hard for a client, of real estate agents. I know some parts of that book are considered dicey, in terms of conclusions, but at least the section in question is interesting and quite convincing in its conclusion: real estate agents usually don’t get their clients the best price on home sales, apparently because they have no incentive to do so (i.e., their commission does not increase enough to make the effort worthwhile). So basically they just lie to everyone to get to make the quick sale, and get the quick commission, rather than go the extra mile to get buyers or sellers the best price.
Of course, I still just chalk it up to being pathological, whether the behavior is incentivized or not.
By the way, I’m typing this reply at 7:22 pm, from my desk in the office, because I’m still at work (and will be until around 9 pm, at least) because of boondoggle these idiots have made of our current project. Folks can defend salespeople all they want, but as far as my coworkers go, I still, as a non-religious person, want to believe in the physical reality of Hell, so I can hope that there’s a place where these idiots will roast forever.
Good night, and have a pleasant tomorrow.