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  You're sitting at home with your family. You've just enjoyed a home-cooked meal, and are relaxing to a little evening television. Suddenly the door-bell rings and you saunter over to the front door. You open it to find a stranger selling their wares. Oddly enough, you're intensely interested in what they're selling, and find the prices to be more than fair. You purchase on the spot!!
Yeah right!! Unless it is a door-to-door prostitute, this scenario will never happen. In fact, the exact opposite is generally true.
You sigh out loud when you see the salesperson. You try to interrupt their "presentation" before they get rolling. You continually get harassed by their 3rd and 4th attempt after you refuse. At least you can hang up on phone solicitors. The ones that show up at your door are a tougher lot to shoo away.
For years I've never really listened to a single pitch by a salesperson. They don't get much more than 30 seconds at the door before I shoo them away.
But this all changed one summer afternoon.
I was home by myself messing around with something in the garage. A van pulled in front of the house, and a couple younger gentlemen got out carrying a large cardboard box. The advertisement on the side of the van indicated that they were selling meat. Door-to-door meat salesman ... what a concept.
They commenced with some small talk, and I quickly went into "turtle" mode. I crawled into my mental shell, and started rolling out excuses why I wasn't interested.
I then fell prey to one of the oldest tricks in the book. One of the gentleman asked if he could use my bathroom. I felt very uncomfotable with a stranger shaking his genitals in my bathroom, but I am far too nice in situations like this, so I acquiesced. As his partner was using my restroom, the "lead man" started opening up his cardboard box.
 Delectable after delectable cut of frozen meat was placed on my table. They were playing dirty pool. They hit me below the belt ... or under the belt to be more accurate. I am a sucker for a good steak, and my wide eyes betrayed my words that I still wasn't interested.
I let them finish their presentation, and got to the nitty gritty. How much was this going to cost?
After hemming and hawing, I was told the price was $400 dollars, and they would throw in a box of chicken for free.
As much as I like eating dead animals, this price was far too steep, and I said I wasn't interested. Later I realize that they never intended to charge $400 dollars, and by asking a ridiculous amount of money, the "discount" they would give me would look like a steal. So they dropped the price by $200 dollars. They cursed each other out ... said their boss would be upset for selling it so cheaply.
And ... I almost bit.
I grabbed a calculator from the kitchen. I did some 7th grade math (I knew this would come in handy) and found that the average price per pound for the meat was like $13.99. I quickly stated that my local butcher would do most steaks for under 10 dollars a pound, and that they were fresh.
You'd think I just insulted their entire family. They packed their meat (not with each other) and headed to their van. In the end, they insulted me by saying I was the jerk for passing up this good deal that they had offered.
Little did I realize how invaluable this experience would be.
 Since then, I've used this trick with every salesperson that has stopped by. If I get a person selling cleaner products, I'll say that someone from their company was very rude in the past, and I won't do business with them again.
Selling wrapping paper? You'll get the same response. You have makeup to peddle? You won't get much further than hello with my new-found excuse.
Thank you douche-bag meat salesmen for giving me the excuse of a lifetime. |
Matt D
