Ignorance is bliss

While I was at work today, three salespeople came in to the office to try and sell me on using their office supply company. (Note: I used to be a sales person, and was pretty good, so I do like to mess with bad sales people. Also they should not have been in the building soliciting business!)

They really tried to push me on to switching from the place we order from now (it's my job to order all supplies etc). The three of them surrounded my desk in reception and several of my colleagues were quite concerned about what was going on! I later let them know I can handle myself pretty well!

I was willing to order a few things I knew we needed and our other place did not have in stock. Went through the whole process and put up with the annoyingly pushy and aggressive sales pitch because it would save us some money.

Not so strange you might think, but it was what happened as they were leaving that impacted me. Had this happened earlier in the encounter it would have gone a lot differently.

The one woman who had decided to stand behind me at my desk to "help" me look at their website (hate being patronized!) saw these pictures I have of the kids on my wall, not visible to guests in reception.


These are my favorite pictures of the kids and I think capture their adorability well.

However, the lady who at first said "Are those your kids? They are so cute!" (Smart thing to say) followed it with "Did you tell them to make those funny faces?"

Now, she clearly referred to both kids, so I can not be sure what she was implying, if anything. I don't think either of them look very "funny"! However, had she not already been walking out the door, my response would have been different from "no." and they would not have had any shot at new business!!

Regardless of who the children are, what a dumb thing to say, especially if you are trying to sell something!