Posted by tabitha on February 28, 2004, at 12:28:12
In reply to vacuum-cleaner salesmen, posted by Medusa on February 28, 2004, at 8:45:29
I actually got sucked into (whoo boy, unintentional vacuum pun there!) doing sales pitches for one of those outfits one summer during college. Their recruiting techniques were as deceptive as their salespitch. It took about 3 days of training seminar before they revealed what the job really was. They inflated the sales statistics to make us think we'd be raking in big bucks on commissions. The sales force spent about 8 hours a day distributing leaflets (no pay for that) promising free stuff, then the call center told them all they had to do was 'evaluate' a new 'home cleaning device'. So we'd arrive to folks homes who didn't even actually realize they were about to see a salespitch, and had no idea it was a vacuum cleaner. Man, I could go on and on. I learned a lot about deceptive practices. It was one tiny exaggeration or omission at a time, leading you along, til you'd forgotten whatever you originally thought about anything.
I sold about 10 of the things in 3 months. Unfortunately (I'm still ashamed to this day), part of their recruitment was making you do sales pitches to your friends and relatives. So 2 of those sales were to relatives.
poster:tabitha
thread:318473
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20040219/msgs/318510.html