[AT] Selling a what??? (short ramble)

[Robinson]

	There was a lady on a nearby radio call in to sell
stuff program yesterday that was selling a "1950
Massey Harris TO-30". I have to wonder where she got
that, I'm sure she didn't read it off of the tractor
or in the manual.   :-)
	Years ago we used to sell a lot of those motel/hotel
"Oreck" lightweight upright vacuum cleaners. People
called those poor things everything you could imagine
when they came back in to buy bags for them. The most
common was "Orbeck" One very sharp former cop and
fellow businessman always called his an "Orajeck". Not
sure where he found that "J".   :-)
	Interestingly (or not)  :-)   in spite of the over
$300 suggested retail we sold a flock of them at
$54.88 and made about $10 each after shipping...   :-)
Very decent little cleaner at $54.88... Piece of $#!t
at over $300...  We used to sell a lot of cleaners
that were normally only sold door to door for 4 to 6
times more than what we sold them for. Those door to
door guys really loved people that bought into that
silly old saw "you get what you pay for"... They
laughed all the way to the bank.
	My creed is buy the best quality you can afford, just
don't decide the level of quality based on the fact
that the price is higher. Know what constitutes
quality.
	We used to sell new Filter Queen vacs for $500
complete with attachments and power head. We had a
hard time selling them though because a lot of people
couldn't understand why the door to door guy had
quoted them over $1500 more than we did. They just
didn't get it that when they bought from him they were
paying 3 levels of "very" good sales commission.
Sometime just for fun sit down and read the "sales"
help wanted ads. I once saw an ad placed by the Kirby
Company advertising for salesmen that referred to an
$800+ commission on each sale.
	We were once in the same building as a hearing aid
dealer. Through some fluke he could not hear voices
from our side just some of the machinery but their
voices carried into our office like normal
conversation. Talk about a blue ribbon shyster... His
"really low priced" hearing aids were over $300 but he
admitted to his secretary that he was paying $13 each
for them. He sold a lot of very high priced ones too.
His real money maker was selling "special" batteries
at a "giant" markup. Told people that those cheap drug
store batteries would destroy their aids. He bought
his by the thousands. His secretary who used to be a
book-keeper used to fuss at him for not keeping any
records and putting the money in his pocket. He
retired a lot earlier than I did...   ;-)



"farmer"

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Francis Robinson
Central Indiana, USA
robinson at svs.net