Bad Sales Pitches

Since becoming a stay-at-home-mom, I’ve heard a lot of sales pitches. I’ve probably heard more sales pitches in the past couple years than the first 25 years of my life. On Facebook, at my front door, when I’m walking the dog, when I’m out shopping, it’s constantly like…

“Excuse me, miss, would you like to browse through our magazine subscriptions?” No.
“Hey, would you like to buy any Mary Kay/Avon/Lia Sophia/Pampered Chef/drugs?” No.
“Would you like to open a card and save 1000000% on your order today?” No.
“Hello! Can I talk to you about our lord and savior, Jesus Christ?” No.

Stay-at-home-moms seem to be an easy target for salespeople. I get it. The stereotypical SAHM likes to shop and is passive, so perfect customer. I’m a pretty tough sell though.

Today I was browsing Sam’s Club and I suspect the sales rep saw me– a woman with a baby on her back, wearing yoga pants, shopping in the middle of the day– as a potential easy sell. First she approached me and asked for my membership card. I passed it over nervously, like an underage girl about to be bounced out of a nightclub. Then came the sales pitch, “Have you heard about our Plus membership? For you, it would be only an $18 upgrade.”

I groaned, looked past her to the blueberries I was inspecting before she approached, glanced around for an easy escape.

“Yes, I’ve heard of the Plus membership.”
“Well, there have been a lot of changes to the plan…” She points out some perks on a clipboard– easy shopping hours, pharmacy discount and other things I don’t care about.
“No, I’m sorry. I’m not interested.”
“Well, another change is that you can earn cash back on what you buy. It looks like you could earn a lot. I just signed someone up and he got $150 back right away.”

Ok, interest piqued. Tell me more, kind Sam’s Club lady.

“Yup, Sam’s Club is paying you to shop now. It’s a great deal!”
“How?”
She points to her clipboard again and I see that you earn $10 for every $500 you spend.
“I used to not even like talking about the membership upgrade, but now it’s great. That guy who got $150? He wanted to keep saving it, but another guy got $50, I asked him if he wanted to use it and he was like, ‘heck yeah!'”
“That’s great, but I really don’t spend a ton of money here.”
“Well, about how much do you spend?”
“Eh, it varies. But maybe $150 a month on average.”
“Yeah! You could get $500 back!”
“Riiight, but I’d have to start spending a lot more money to get that.”
“No, it’s just like free money! I had one guy spend about $100 and he got $100 back! So it was like it was all free!”
“Yeah, but he spent what, almost $5,000 before then to get that, right? I don’t spend that much.”
“No, you could get $500 back!”
“No, I couldn’t. Do you have a brochure or something?”
“Nah, I wish I did! I even got a Plus membership! Sam’s Club is paying you to shop now.”
“I mean, they’re really not though. That would be a horrible business model. You’re trying to get me to give you money. You’re not really giving me $500.”
“No, you can get up to $500! It’s free money!”

“It’s not free money, I’d have to spend a lot more to earn that much.”

“No! You could earn that much right away.”
“That doesn’t make any sense.”

“I know! It’s a great program!”

I declined the sales pitch. But check out my new card! I love how you can see both my toddler reaching down to steal things and an angry line of people. It really captures the typical Sam’s Club experience for me.