I visited a local non franchised dealer this morning, just to have a little mooch around a Qashqai that had caught my eye.
As I was having a nosy, I was approached by a drop dead gorgeous woman in a long flowing dress which had a very deep plunging front displaying her very ample assets. She turned out to be the wife of the owner.
To be fair, she knew absolutely nothing about the car, but it certainly put me on the back foot when the 'real' salesperson came over. I couldn't think straight!
|
|
Would you believe that I too am in the market for a Quashqai? Were did you see this particular model, and was the bodywork really that good .. etc, etc.
|
|
The bodywork was very impressive ;-) I would have liked a test drive, but was concerned it wouldn't last that long....
|
|
I went to buy a Rover 416 auto once for my ex-wife. He wanted £650 and wouldnt budge further than £600. I told the wife to undo one button on blouse, smile sweetly, plead a bit and cock her head to one side - she got it for £500. Men are suckers :-)
|
I'm impressed that your wife was prepared to do all that to save your ex some money.
};---)
|
|
I think the only thing wife no.2 would do for wife no.1 is give her a swift slap, she certainly wouldnt mind giving one of my ex's such a slap although not the ex-wife in this case :-)
|
I'm confused.
There is Wife No 1 and wife No 2. I assumed No 1 was the ex. Then you say, "...she certainly wouldnt mind giving one of my ex's such a slap although not the ex-wife in this case."
So, there are other exes?
You also say, "Men are suckers."
I'm struggling a bit here. :-))
|
>>There is Wife No 1 and wife No 2. I assumed No 1 was the ex. Then you say, "...she certainly wouldnt mind giving one of my ex's such a slap although not the ex-wife in this case."<<
Well you see since this isnt the 1930's you can actually have more than one ex, some of whom you didnt marry, which makes them an ex, but never a wife. I have several ex-gfs to compliment those I married, you only live once :-)
>>I'm struggling a bit here. :-)) <<
My ex-wife was a PITA but she looked good, I struggled with that too, but it was useful when buying cars.
|
"Well you see since this isnt the 1930's you can actually have more than one ex, some of whom you didnt marry, which makes them an ex, but never a wife. I have several ex-gfs to compliment those I married..."
Ah - all is now clear. for myself, I don't apply the term "ex" to anyone other than my ex-wife, hence the misunderstanding.
I will spare everyone the embarrassment of the details of my past love-life. Marriage, long-term relationships, short-term relationships, one-night stands, sex parties... that sort of thing. Highly embarrassing. I lost count.
|
When I'm selling a car, once someone's looking over it, I get SWMBO to ring the 'phone, come out and say 'there's someone asking about the car'. I reply 'tell them someone's looking at it, get their number and tell them I'll ring back later'.
Concentrates the mind of the purchaser and discourages them from making an offer.
I price my cars realistically low and the last couple I've sold have been bought by the first to see them without haggling.
|
|
Discourages them from making an offer? Not a great tactic then...
|
Not sure if it was tactics or force of circumstance but....
Went to local dealer to look at a Berlingo, model we wanted and colour we could live with in showroom. We were clearly serious and after test drive didcussed price. Basically best he could offer was list, less Citroen's £1k incentive and a tenny bit more. More or less pleaded poverty over what his margin on that would be.
That was a whole £2k more than web advertised prices at Milton Keynes dealer. The Northampton guy sort of suggested he might do better if I broughjt in a written quote from MK but no guarantee.
Wasn't prepared to mess around to that extent and bought in MK.
|
|
When does a "tactic" become a "strategy" or indeed vice versa? I've often wondered, appropos of nothing really.
|
Tactic - short-term way of achieving a limited objective.
Strategy - overall game plan, long-term.
Or perhaps you were merely being rhetorical.
Last edited by: FocalPoint on Tue 10 Sep 13 at 18:30
|
Indeed FP, that has always been my interpretation. Just that I've often heard apparently smart people in business meetings describing what I'd call a tactic as a strategy. Just thought I was being a bit thick. It's comforting to know that condition is maybe not always the case...
The other one I get slightly confused and probably unnecessarily mildly irritated by is "hyper-low prices" surely that should be "hypo-low" if it's to be granted any leave at all?
|
Apparently clever people in business meetings or anywhere else talk gibberish a lot of the time. You only have to look at LinkedIn to see that their linguistic capabiltites have got seriously warped.
"...he leads from the front with a revenue focus..."
"...he manages and mitigates operational risk on the fly..."
(Genuine quotations, by the way.)
In any case, tactics and strategy are often confused.
|
In recent years I've found the best strategy is not to have a strategy. Trouble with strategies is that while you may wish to stick to them no one else really cares and beats you down with tactics.
:-)
|
>> Bulldung baffles brains.
that's a short term strategy, the brains eventually work it out.
|
But then of course a short term strategy could be just a tactic.
;-)
|
Strategy is all very well, but what you need is a vision ;-)
Visions, I've noticed, are often accompanied by a set of values... Values are to be adhered to at all times, unless of course it's tactically expedient to ignore them :-)
|
Well put Peter !
I have a sneaking suspicion that for some time now I've been turning into a latterday version of Reggie Perrin.
It's becoming increasingly difficult to choose between sighing or giggling in "meetings"...
|
>> >>
>> It's becoming increasingly difficult to choose between sighing or giggling in "meetings"...
>>
I often understand every single word of a meeting, but none of the sentences.
We have to find more opportunties to find sales for the product we already make - when did that become 'leveraging our IP stack' ?
|
>>I often understand every single word of a meeting, but none of the sentences.
I have an MBA and I don't understand much of it either, so I conclude it's mostly shiite.
Strategy is old hat by the way. You need a Customer Plan now.
|
>> But then of course a short term strategy could be just a tactic.
No one should expect sales or marketing people to be accurate or precise in their terminology, with a few honourable exceptions including of course Runfer D'Hills...
It occurs to me that as the owner of one or two Qashqais he may well have gazed his fill down that lady's dress, unless he went to the wrong place and had to listen to some droning prat of a man instead. Perhaps we will never know.
|
Actually that has just reminded me, there is or was anyway, a more than fit looking young service receptionist at our local Nissan dealer. She didn't appear to know much about cars, or if she did she wasn't letting on in public, but her comeliness did in some way partially compensate for that.
Bit of a tactic that one suspects. Might even be a strategy or indeed someone's vision I suppose.
|
One version of management-speak has it that there are three types of management - Strategic, Tactical and Operational.
Strategic managers sit round a table in suits, doing lots of blue-sky thinking, and handing over reams of strategies to....
Tactical managers, who try to interpret the now cloudy thinking and devise a Detailed Plan to take the business in the wrong direction.
Operational managers are the people who actually do the work of taking the business in the wrong direction.
|
Indeed Avant. One also finds that the strategists have a new and different strategy most days leaving the tacticians somewhat baffled as to how to break it to the operators that what they were doing yesterday now has to be undone in order to implement the new strategy...
:-)
|
"One also finds that the strategists have a new and different strategy most days leaving the tacticians somewhat baffled as to how to break it to the operators that what they were doing yesterday now has to be undone in order to implement the new strategy..."
Humph, I feel you have issues around the focus of corporate thinking here. Strategists think outside the box, pushing the envelope, and taking a helicopter view; then tacticians drill down before moving forward together after touching base to enable the leverage of performance indicators; and operators, once their ducks are in a row and they are fully incentivised, focus on deliverables and provide an excellent customer experience which is revenue-driven.
|
sounds like the banks. Screw the customers and make loadsofmoney.
Have I got that wrong?
|
>> sounds like the banks. Screw the customers and make loadsofmoney.
>>
>> Have I got that wrong?
>>
Not wrong - just missing a bit.
'Don't worry about retaining customers, there's always another mug along in a minute...'
|
An elderly old fashioned Bank Manager near me places the advisors in the City into two groups.
1. Those that don't know and...........
2. Those that don't know they don't know.
MD
|
I come across numbers of sales people who actually talk like that, both on the phone and in meetings. They also use ridiculous acronyms.
I tend to let them speak for a few seconds and then ask them to explain it in English, as that's the only language I can sensibly communicate in, and tell them I don't know what their acronyms mean. I don't have a problem with that as it's actually mostly true.
Usually they grin sheepishly (or chuckle on the phone) and then say it in plain language, but sometimes they actually can't do it. The latter get no more of my time - either they can't explain it or it's so techy boring it's too clever for me anyway.
In any event, that process usually reveals that the fantastic new product or service is a minor and expensive variation of an old one, or a very simple concept we're doing perfectly well already with a bit of paper that they want money for.
Obvious stuff really, just an observation.
|
|
One category you've all left out is The Scapegoat. The poor sap who has to carry the can when it all goes pear shaped, generally someone low down the pecking order who was given the impossible task of delivering whatever unworkable plan the others cooked up.
|
>> One category you've all left out is The Scapegoat. The poor sap who has to
>> carry the can when it all goes pear shaped, generally someone low down the pecking
>> order who was given the impossible task of delivering whatever unworkable plan the others cooked
>> up.
Precisely why I'm taking Voluntary Redundancy after 35 years. Too many bright young things at the top, Politicians and Civil Servants, who are insistent on implementing ideas we know have failed in the past.
|
Sales Tactics - Boxsterboy
