
Best Answer to “Sell Me This Pen” I Have Ever Seen (2017) - quickthrower2
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/best-answer-sell-me-pen-i-have-ever-seen-girish-amanapu/
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JohnJamesRambo
This long manipulative answer just reminds me why I hate salesmen.

All I need to know is whether a product is either cheaper or better in some
way. And I need to know it quickly because I’ve got a lot of stuff to do at
work.

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ken
It's definitely a white collar answer. Try to sell someone a hammer this way
and I imagine you'll be laughed out of the workshop.

~~~
kstenerud
Which is why you wouldn't sell a hammer this way.

Instead, you'd listen to what they have to say about the hammers they do use.
Maybe they don't like the grip, or the balance, or maybe it's too heavy or
light for the job. Maybe they don't like the claw digging into them from their
tool belt while they crawl around tight spaces. Maybe the quality is crap.
Maybe it's damaging the thing they're working on.

The point is, you find out what they need, you make it, and then you sell it
by using their own language to explain your product and how they'll benefit
from it.

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camjohnson26
I think the stereotype of salespeople being manipulative is unfortunate
because sales actually serves an important function of delivering information
about the product to the customer. Researching that info on your own is time
consuming and the salesperson should be familiar with the product and its
competitors. Unfortunately many unscrupulous salespeople use their position to
lie and try to close a sale which leads to a less effective marketplace for
everyone.

~~~
spaceflunky
I'm not sure why every time there is mention of salespeople being good, there
also has to be a caveat at the end about the tactics bad salespeople use.

For example, I wouldn't say, "Engineers serve a very important function in our
society, designing and building the things we need. Unfortunately there are
many unscrupulous or lazy engineers who have built bridges that collapse or
unsecure code that fails which leads to litigation, high insurance premiums,
and costly preventative measures which are bad for everyone."

There's shitty people in every job. Get over it.

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rixed
Because engineers have little incentive to lie, while salespeople have a very
strong incentive to do so, maybe?

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spaceflunky
>Because engineers have little incentive to lie,

Really? They have just as much incentive. Tight deadlines, bonuses,
promotions, etc. You've never see an engineer push through questionable code
to make a deadline or launch a product so they can get that promotion?

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T3OU-736
The half-post long huff and puff pump up of the importance and the context for
the content which followed was... really distracting. Almost to the point of
diluting the message, which was quite valid.

~~~
anitil
I was half expecting "... and then they all clapped" at the end. The whole
self-aggrandizing thing belongs in /r/thathappened

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paradoxparalax
I was thinking just now about some sentences I would use if I was selling pens
on a corner for making the rent and cigarettes money: If I saw a young couple
coming to take a quick look of curiosity, I would ask to one: Did she/he ever
wrote on your arm that he/she loves you? _ If I saw an old lady taking a quick
look, I would say, in a humorous joking way: Those are lucky pens to write the
lottery black rectangles, you may spend a dime on the pen and get a million in
return, if you dont get the million, you get a cheap but good pen to write
lottery tickets for a good time. I should think of more sentences someday, it
is a fun exercise.

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PhilWright
Typical salesperson, he lies in his presentation. Says he just sold some to
Elon Musk and this is his last one available. Do you want your salesperson
misleading?

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J_cst
The article reminded me that the first time I heard of that was when I saw the
movie "The wolf of wall Street".

[https://youtu.be/90Xx7PAiqY8](https://youtu.be/90Xx7PAiqY8)

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masonic
"Just this week I shipped ten new boxes of these pens to Elon Musk’s
office..."

Unless this was somehow literally true, the use of a lie to name-drop would
have me interrupt the salesperson right there and tell him to leave.

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paradoxparalax
Too long a speech, not really a daily life situation. Try for free for a whole
week is hard to refuse, want to try this box of colorpens free for a week?
Well , Yes.

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otterley
Published in 2017.

