I had just finished paying for some magazines at Hartford’s Bradley International Airport before heading back to San Diego when the cashier asked me:
“Do you want some gum with that?”
“No,” I told her.”
“Some water?”
“No.”
“A newspaper? “
“No!”
“How about a candy bar?”
“No!! Just the magazines.”
I went to my doctor due to a stomach problem. After the exam the doctor asked me:
“Do you want a prostate exam with that?”
“No.”
“How about that exam where I grab you where the government does and say, ‘Now cough’?”
“No. I just wanted the physical.”
“A face lift?”
“NO!”
It’s called suggestive selling.. Sales mavens absolutely insist that that this so-called “add-on selling” is the easiest and cheapest way to increase sales and customer satisfaction. And here I always thought it was just pushy, obnoxious, aggressive, pain-in-the-posterior selling. But they insist it works. Books, CDs, tapes, costly workshops, detailed employee training programs – all focus on suggestive selling which “gives customers options.” It’s a nice way of saying pestering someone until they break down and they agree to buy something else.
And these days EVERYONE is doing it.
For instance, right after President Barack Obama decided to tilt on the side of the Arab League on Libya and make the U.S. part of the no fly zone coalition, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton turned to him:
“Mr. President. How about we do a little more than the no fly zone?”
“No.”
“A teeny weenie bit more?”
“Well…”
“Gaddafi’s lying to us and still butchering his people. How about we lob a few missiles his way?”
“Hmmm.”
“How about we lob more than a few missiles? How about we send out 100 missiles at a total cost of $100 million in a single day? That’ll make a dent!”
“Yes!”
“Do you want some gum with that?”
”No.”
“How about some cigarettes?”
”YES! But don’t tell Michelle.”
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Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.