How Despicable Can a Sales Company Get?

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Your key to $100,000 a year!

My first experience with a questionable sales tactic was over twenty years ago when I answered a job wanted ad for a Memorial Counselor position at a local cemetery in Southern Oregon.  The receptionist I spoke with confirmed the high amount of money I could make by selling cemetery property.  The interviewer (sales manager) stroked my ego by making it seem unusual to hire me on the spot.  I went home and bragged about how 'they' don't usually hire on the spot.  I later figured it out when I watched the process repeated!

During my tenure there I watched the receptionist answer the phone, read from a 'sales' script, entice new applicants to come in and interview with the sales manager and then, after the interview, watch them go to work!  The training was intensive, memorizing the presentation was a chore and the turnover was continuous.

Why did most of the new Memorial Counselors leave so soon?  Here's the reason. The hiring decoy was a ruse for something else.  Once this became obvious they were gone. Do you know why this sales manager continued to hire new counselors?

Another example of a despicable ploy by a sales company happened during that same year when a Memorial Counselor went to work for a reputable car dealership in town.  He bragged about the opportunity to make big money.  His first assignment:  write down 100 names of people he knew or associated with and guilt them into buying a car.  After selling some cars from these ‘warm' leads, he competed on the sales lot with little training and eventually fired for lack of sales.

What is the purpose of continuously hiring new people?  New people generate new leads and new leads generate sales!

At the cemetery we worked the telephones every evening trying to get appointments for an in-home presentation.  The newbies worked the phones, got appointments, and an experienced salesperson would do the presentation (under the guise of training,) get the sale and most of the commission. 

So I ask, how despicable can a sales company get?

The receptionist later confided that she hated reading that sales-job script.  “It caused so many young people to be used as phone pawns!’

If it sounds too good to be true, then it's probably too good to be true, and that includes a job offer.

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The definition of a chump:

a gullible person, a sucker; someone easily taken advantage of, the target of a scam.

Learn from a former salesperson and trainer how salespeople drive sales. Learn how to keep more money in your pocket where it belongs! There are two ends of every sales stick!  One end cries 'chump.'  The other end boasts 'champ.'  I know which end of the stick I want to be.  How about you?