Lincolnite: Lincoln's Online Community

How Not to Earn a Sale (Windstream Edition)

April 2, 2007 at 9:20pm By: Mr. Wilson Posted in The Lincolnite Blog

A Windstream representative came to the door tonight to, in his words, “lower peoples’ monthly bills”. A salesman trying to sell cheaper products to existing customers? Sounds good to me. Of course, that was just his foot in the door. Most of the rest of his spiel was standard door-to-door sales talk.

Of course, if that’s all he did I wouldn’t be writing this. Unfortunately, “D.R.” violated a few rules. Future door-to-door salesmen of the world, take note.

First, if the person who answers the door is obviously home alone with his kids, a good salesman will offer to come back later, or he will at least keep his visit as short as possible. My kid is only going to let me stay at the door for so long before he bonks his head, tries to eat the dog’s bone, or does something else that requires me to ignore the guy at the door. Robert is a pretty low-maintenance kid, but he still demands my attention.

Second, a good salesman will never lie, and he will never try to bullshit his way through a conversation on a topic he knows very little about. In D.R.’s case, for example, he made elementary mistakes like confusing megabits and megabytes, arguing that 3 Mbps is greater than 7 Mbps, and going off on a weird tangent about how “the whole Internet relies on phone lines”, which proves that DSL is better than cable. I was waiting for him to call the Internet ”a series of tubes”, but he stopped short. A good salesman will either admit that he doesn’t know something and offer to contact me later, or he’ll wander his way around the topic, sticking to the stuff he does know, while doing his best to convince me that he answered my question.

Third, and probably most importantly, salespeople really shouldn’t advocate breaking federal law when trying to sell their products. People use broadband to illegally download music and movies. We all know that. Many people have done it, from kids to retirees. But that doesn’t mean you should openly advocate using your company’s 3 Mbps DSL plan to “download music, download movies (illegally, of course)”. I made sure to remember that quote.

Last, don’t ask me for a pen so that I can write down your contact information so that you can earn a commission if I decide to go for one of the products at a later date. Why the heck should I give you a pen so that I can write down your contact info? Don’t you think you should carry a pen with you? Or better yet, have some business cards handy? Sheesh.

In the end, poor D.R. didn’t make a sale. He tried, and he was nice enough. He may have even had me if he had stopped with the $5/month phone service upgrade. Unfortunately, it was all downhill from there. Now if only I could get a lawn service guy to come by the house. My yard looks awful. If anybody out there can make my yard look better than, say, the medians on 84th Street (zing!), I may have a sale for you.

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Do We Need the Women’s Commission?

April 2, 2007 at 7:25am By: Mr. Wilson Posted in The Lincolnite Blog

The Lincoln-Lancaster Women’s Commission plans to change its name and mission. The switch is partially in response to the county’s aborted attempt last year to remove their share of the Commission’s funding. That raises some questions: Do we need a publicly-funded Women’s Commission today? Do the Commission’s activities justify continued public support? Would private funding be more appropriate for the Commission’s mission?

Those are all honest questions, by the way, not statements disguised as questions. I really don’t know enough about what the Women’s Commission does to make a decision one way or the other. I do have a general bias toward favoring private rather than public funding for interest group organizations, but my opinions on the matter are not absolute.

It seems like the burden is on the Women’s Commission to justify its continuation (though I could be wrong about that). The Commission’s reorganization seems like one attempt to do just that. What other arguments can be made for keeping the Women’s Commission around?

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A Year with Few Potholes

April 2, 2007 at 7:20am By: Mr. Wilson Posted in The Lincolnite Blog

I admit I don’t drive around town all that much these days, but it seemed to me that pothole season was pretty kind to Lincoln’s drivers this year. There were some big holes, sure. But there didn’t seem to be as many of them at any one time, and the ones that did open up were generally patched very quickly.

Does my impression match reality? If so, I think we need to give the city’s pothole crews a round of applause.

Oh, and I suppose I should mention that technically we aren’t necessarily out of the woods yet. April’s weather could still play tricks on us.

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