There are many methods by which salespeople can sell the products which provide revenue for their businesses, their clients, their employers and a myriad other entities dependent on their talents.
Firstly they will need to somehow draw attention to the fact they have a product to sell.
This part of the operation should be pretty straightforward and simple. For example, they can place an advertisement in a newspaper, magazine, radio, tv, signboards, car trunks, the sides of big and small trucks, on the sides of cargo ships, even on the internet. Everywhere we look , wherever we are , we will see advertising.
The fact that advertising is everywhere can be a problem in itself for salespeople looking for new ways to advertise. If advertising is everywhere, the people we wish to target could be so accustomed to seeing it, they no longer take any notice of it. This is where the clever advertiser makes a new opportunity. He knows he needs something to attract the attention of those of us who are bored with the usual advertising techniques. For want of a better word, he needs, bait! Bait advertising is where a salesperson recognizes an item is either , rare, hard to find, expensive or otherwise highly sought after. He doesn’t need a large number of these items. One or two will be enough. He advertises the item at what he claims is a ridiculously low price, knowing that he will sell them quickly to the first couple of customers. If he priced them to produce a profit, that’s all good. Of course, since he now has none of that product left, he will see that as a perfect opportunity to hike the price of the next lower grade item and make a killing, selling stuff he didn’t even advertise to the customers who came for the bait. Of course, the fact the product is a dud isn’t the salesman’s fault. The product advertised ran out of stock.
Another slick selling method is “product bundling” . Selling low quality, hard to move or overpriced items by coupling them with one or more other products to make them appear more attractive . Of course, there are many variations of this practice and just as many side benefits , such as upselling more expensive substitutes for items which are “out of stock.”
The advent of the internet has opened an exciting world of new advertising techniques. What better way to sell a product than by , “Word of Mouth” ? One way of getting the opinions of former customers is the “Product Review”, or “forced recommendation”. It’s not uncommon these days, for a sales team to offer a new customer this wonderful way of telling the world he thinks the product he just bought is wonderful, the sales staff who sold it to him are terrific and the customer support guy who sorted out the mess made by the warehouse staff , is absolutely to die for. They even, usually, give that opportunity before the delivery is on it’s way to the customer.( But what’s a few days between friends?)
It appears the attitude of many sales staff towards customers today is that he/she is fair game and should be lied to, manipulated ,cajoled, pestered, cheated wherever possible and should never be told the truth. Why tell the truth when a good lie will sell the product and make everyone, ( except that pain in the ass customer), happy.