Telephone directory ad salesman
Today, a salesman from one of those Yellow-whatever directories showed up to our store to renew our ad in their directories.
When I went to the store front, he was looking at one of our flower buckets. He asked me, “Is this a bamboo?”, pointing at horsetail. OK, most people don’t know what the horsetail is, never mind, I thought…
“Horsetail”
Anyway, I told him that we would be reducing our ads, which are currently run in three local directories, to just one for Huntington. He then made a face of perplexed expression and declared that I was making a huge mistake. Yeah, thank you very much.
And then he said, “I used to be a florist for over 30 years” and showed me a worn-out businesscard. Oh, really? I must admit, that was the first time I met a florist who can’t tell the difference between bamboo and horsetail.
He then proceeded to “suggest” that I should upgrade our ad from a tiny 1/4-page ad to SUV-size one-page full ad. He said, “As a former florist, I know, for the fact, that a bigger ad is a better investment.” So I asked, “Would you pay back my money if the big ad didn’t work?” He said “That would be absurd.” Ok, so we settled on the 1/4 page ad.
That was not the end of it. His final pitch was to pursuade me to put colors in our ad. He said “No one would look at black/white ad.” I just said no thanks. In fact personally, I dislike a color ad; it makes me dizzy.
The bottom line is that it’s not easy to sell something that has no value. Same thing for flowers.
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