Somebody teach me how to sell things.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

I'm going to go a step farther than that.  Freeky does not have the personality type to be self-employed.  That's not a slam on her, it's not like the self-employed personality type isn't better or anything.  I myself am not cut out to be self-employed.  Very few people are...And that's actually a good thing, as most wealth is generated by cooperative effort among large groups. 

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Noted.


Stella, what is a speculator, and what do they do?

Remember all those people that bought homes during the housing bubble, looking to sell them at a fantastic profit when property values would supposedly keep climbing?  Remember what happened to them (hell, remember the landlord?)?

That's what speculators are.

[Freeky]

Noted.


Stella, what is a speculator, and what do they do?

Remember all those people that bought homes during the housing bubble, looking to sell them at a fantastic profit when property values would supposedly keep climbing?  Remember what happened to them (hell, remember the landlord?)?

That's what speculators are.

Ohhhhh.

Noted.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Noted.


Stella, what is a speculator, and what do they do?

Remember all those people that bought homes during the housing bubble, looking to sell them at a fantastic profit when property values would supposedly keep climbing?  Remember what happened to them (hell, remember the landlord?)?

That's what speculators are.

Ohhhhh.

Noted.

A speculator is a form of animal that is preyed upon by smarter animals, commonly called "large investors". 

Example 2:  When the gold tards start hollering to buy gold, it means the real money is getting OUT of gold, and at a very tidy price.

Example 3:  All those idiots that got burned speculating on oil this last summer, AFTER the oil production numbers were announced. 

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Oh, hell, how could I forget:

Example 4:  A million idiots hording "Beanie Babies" 15 years back, as if they had something other than fad value.  Lose house, live in shitty apartment, look at 10,000 beanie babies that are laughing at you with their beady little eyes.

[Freeky]

Speculating seems like you would need a really good financial instinct and a whole lot of luck on somewhere like eBay.

Regarding Beanie babies, I actually made fifty bucks at bookmans taking mine and selling them there. They took pretty much all of them because they were so old.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Speculating seems like you would need a really good financial instinct and a whole lot of luck on somewhere like eBay.

Regarding Beanie babies, I actually made fifty bucks at bookmans taking mine and selling them there. They took pretty much all of them because they were so old.

"There are two times a man should not speculate.  When he can't afford it...And when he can."
- Samuel Clemmens.

[Freeky]

I still remember that the royal blue elephant was a pricey specimen, too. It's sad. At least I wanted them because I was, you know, ten.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Your best bet, in terms of sustainable business practice, is not speculating per se, it's running a business in which you may occasionally run into treasure. I've done it more than once... I'm still sitting on the last of some specific purple frit that no one knew was going to be worth anything, but happens to be in the same formula family as a different purple frit that is currently the most expensive glass in the world (I still have some of that, but I'm not selling it).

I am currently happily selling it off a bit at a time for $6/oz. But, my success or failure is not dependent on that one speculation, and I would still be making money without any speculative investments at all. Like selling books online; Most of the time you go to a garage sale, and you find books for a quarter that you can sell online for a dollar. Every once in a while, you go to a garage sale, and you find books for a quarter that you sell for $25. Either way, you stay in business, but the occasional $25 finds really gives you a boost.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Oh, and one thing to commit to memory; the only people who get rich quick are people who are already rich. You have to have money to gamble with in the first place, and you have to be willing to lose it.

There's no such thing as an easy buck. Not really.

[Roly Poly Oly-Garch]

A few ideas - Sales is now a service industry.  It's more about being able to suggest and converse over a product, it's quality, and the value it is going to bring the consumer, than to deliver a "hard sell"  as others mentioned before.  Never push, offer.  Contacts, contacts, contacts, you live and die by who you know, who knows you are selling, and who you know needs product. 

Have a service you can provide post-sale, and use it to build rapport.  All the sales jackasses I know are closers who vanish once the deal is closed.  Be their contact, their advocate, their buddy, and their In-guy with the company.  Even if it's a one-off lifetime product like Cutco, make sure they go to you if a knife breaks.  You get them a replacement from you stock, and REAM the supplier on their behalf.  Even if they obviously took a knife to a rock, advocate for them.   

Ohhh, Cutco.  How could I ever forget about you?

These have all been a great help for in-person sales.  Thanks, everyone.

Does anyone have tips for telemarketing sales?

Inbound, there are some opportunites. Outbound is nearly dead. One of the only exceptions is if it's a situation where you're calling outbound to people who already have an existing relationship with the company you're working for, and you manage your own contact list then pretty much just apply retail rules. That's a relationship game. If it's outbound cold, good luck. Take the hourly if they give you one and GTFO as soon as you can.

Inbound, is totally doable. People are calling because they want a thing (or they're thinking about wanting a thing). There are few ways to approach inbound, that I've had success with.

You can play the numbers. There are 100 calls in the queue and a given percentage of them are softball sales.  Playing volume alone can easily make for an acceptable paycheck--this is the approach I would take whenever I was feeling off and just needed to hit numbers without much in the way of actual sales tools. You'll want to watch this though, cause your managers know how to read a stats sheets, and they were undoubtedly on the phones themselves at some point. They can tell when you're cherrypicking, and they don't tend appreciate it.

I'd also say it was always helpful for me to not try to hide the fact that I was trying to sell them something. There's a whole lot of reasons not to directly pander the commission, but there's nothing wrong with "I'm a salesperson, this is what I do." This gives you all kinds of leeway when it comes to asking for the sale, pushing the close, etc.

Telesales doesn't give you the opportunity to build rapport and relationships the way other situations do, so if you don't close on that call because you were concerned with being "pushy" or "aggressive", the caller may still call back and do business with your company because of the impression that you left them with, but then again, who gives a fuck? The next agent who got that commission does, the gigantic faceless corporation who's crummy shit your peddling does, but not you (unless you actually care about CellPhoneCo, inc's bottom line as much as you do your own paycheck, in which case, get a life).

But, by letting it be known that you're a schmo sitting in some silly call center, doing some silly shit, and yes, you are trying to sell somebody something, you become instantly relateable. That's important, especially over the phone where a given percentage of the callers are going to dial your number expecting that whoever they speak with is going to be some anonymous jerk off. Then when you answer an objection, use assumptive closes, aggressively pursue the sale, it's not some dick move being made by Johnny McAssballs, it's the same thing they may be doing were they in your position. And if you approach it like it's a game (as the most successful people I've seen in telesales do), worst case scenario the customer laughs while they tell you no and best case scenario they say "oh I'm gonna buy a cell phone anyways, may as well be from this silly shit".

[Roly Poly Oly-Garch]

Oh, and one thing to commit to memory; the only people who get rich quick are people who are already rich. You have to have money to gamble with in the first place, and you have to be willing to lose it.

There's no such thing as an easy buck. Not really.

Yup. It's not just being able to turn a hefty 10% profit, it's having 10 million dollars that'll make you a million.

[Freeky]

Oh, and one thing to commit to memory; the only people who get rich quick are people who are already rich. You have to have money to gamble with in the first place, and you have to be willing to lose it.

There's no such thing as an easy buck. Not really.

Oh yeah, this one I already know.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Oh, and one thing to commit to memory; the only people who get rich quick are people who are already rich. You have to have money to gamble with in the first place, and you have to be willing to lose it.

There's no such thing as an easy buck. Not really.

Yup. It's not just being able to turn a hefty 10% profit, it's having 10 million dollars that'll make you a million.

Yep.  Otherwise, you have $10, and you spend a day making $1.

[Freeky]

Oh, and one thing to commit to memory; the only people who get rich quick are people who are already rich. You have to have money to gamble with in the first place, and you have to be willing to lose it.

There's no such thing as an easy buck. Not really.

Yup. It's not just being able to turn a hefty 10% profit, it's having 10 million dollars that'll make you a million.

Yep.  Otherwise, you have $10, and you spend a day making $1.

Or you have a dollar and you spend a day making ten cents.

If I had ten dollars I wouldn't be spending it on a get rich quick scheme, but I might do if I had a dollar with a" guarantee"d %150 profit.