The_Salesman, Part 5

Yes, another company now into this “business” is Home Depot. Be warned.

What kind of deranged human being will agree to work from nine in the morning to eleven at night six or more days a week? Why would he do it?

Because these “people” are a different breed. They usually know all about sports teams and race tracks. Many are alcoholics or reformed alcoholics. Some became alcoholics drinking themselves to sleep at night from the guilt of what they had done during the day. These “people” are not motivated by just money. It is the control they have over you that really feeds their psyche.

There are occasions where the salesman will cut the price more and more just to get the sale, just to come out “on top.” They will almost walk away poorer than when they started just to “get” you.

The salesman will usually be told he will get about 12% of the money from whatever he sells you. No matter what he says, he will try to make that 12%. In many companies things are a bit more “lax."

In many companies the salesman is given a secret “PAR” price for the product and a public “LIST” price for the product. In his calculations of the price of the product, the price that he will show you, he “may” add extra dollars. This adding of dollars just for a dollars sake is called “packing the sale."

Some people have been arrested for using a yard stick with 34 instead of 36 inches on it. That’s a lot of work to cut down that yard stick. Today, most salesman who want to pack a sale just add dollars.

He may add dollars by over estimating the size of the job. He may add dollars by adding services that are not needed or even those which are never performed. He may add dollars by simply adding dollars!

Periodically a salesman will fall upon a completely deranged prospect. This prospect will sign anything while maintaining a coherent conversation with all of the other six people in his head. There are laws on the books to keep the salesman in check. He cannot pack the sale by too much over the list price and not risk serious jail time for his manager and himself. The company has no qualms about taking the money. The problem is how it will look in court and doing anything to this kind of customer can have a contractor’s license pulled. The salesman might screw this customer to a post but when the real employee of the company comes out to do the official remeasure, the