Have you ever walked through the entrance of a grocery store only to find some desperate promoter or sales agent waiting to ambush you? I'm not talking about girl scouts or Christmas charity collections (among others). They tend to be more laid back about what they're doing. I'm talking about someone representing a business who is using the entrance of a grocery store as a means of generating business. They're out to make money, and that's why they're in ambush-mode.
I recently encountered such a person at the local grocery store. Presumably her purpose for being there was to generate sales-leads for some company. (If you don't know, a sales-lead is basically the contact information of a potential customer or client.) This is usually how it works: You have people fill out a card with their contact information; address, email, phone number, maybe all of the above. In return, the person filling out the card is given some incentive to do so, such as "your name will be entered to win a free vacation or $1,000 shopping spree," or something like that. Thus, the company representative is able to generate a list of potential clients/customers for her company to follow up with, while the potential client/customer feels satisfied with being entered to win the moon. What I have just described is exactly what I encountered. But how do you suppose this woman approached me to fill out a card?
It's been my experience that people will generally begin by telling you who they represent and what the heck they are doing cornering you in the partition between the electronic sliding doors of a grocery store. It should be no surprise that they have a better chance of your cooperating if they treat you like a person. There is another school of thought, however, which basically says that people will do what you tell them to do, so just tell them what it is what you want them to do and most of them will do it without question (I know this because I have worked in sales and studied sales extensively). The woman I encountered opted for the latter.
It seemed like she was already in my face before I even had time to breathe. She didn't look me in the eye at all, she didn't tell me who she represented, she didn't tell me what she was doing there. She simply pointed at me and, handing me a card, said rather impatiently, "Here, fill this out!" She acted like I was under arrest and she was charged with taking down my personal information, almost like it was my duty to fill out the card and that I had better hurry up. "Here's a pen," she added. "Put down your name, address, phone num..." "No thanks," I said, and walked away.
Now I'm normally pretty polite to these people, and, depending on what the situation is, will often fill out a card. It all depends on how they approach me. You're probably the same way. Maybe you won't always do what they ask, but sometimes you will, and it probably comes down to how they treat you. This woman treated me like I was a robot, like I was inhuman. I wasn't told what was going on, I was told to fill out a card, a card with my personal information on it. As a result, I wanted absolutely nothing to do with whatever it was she was doing. Suppose instead that she politely told me what she was doing and then asked for my cooperation? Maybe I would still have said no, but wouldn't she have at least treated me like a human being?
Regardless of who you are interacting with, always remember that you are dealing with a person, a person who has their own life circumstances, their own struggles and hardships, and their own hopes and dreams. And you can never go wrong by treating them with dignity and respect.
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