In July of 2016, I went to Atlanta and booked a room at the Marriott for the Eritrean Soccer Tournament. I booked it over the phone, and right after I booked, I was redirected to another line for a promotion.
Out of curiosity, I stayed on the line…
I won’t bore you with the details, but basically, I had been offered a promotion to stay at a resort for a 3 night trip.
We’ve all seen this movie before(even though it wasn’t THAT good to be true)
……….but what’s the catch?!
After getting the details ironed out, I was told it that I had to put down $199 to book the ‘free’ trip, BUT, I get the money back when I check out….. as long as I go through a 2 hour sales presentation.
Seemed like a pain, but I would get the money back, so I initially overlooked the presentation.
Fast forward 10 months later, I finally cashed in on the deal. I booked the hotel in Orlando, and made my way over there on a Friday afternoon. It wasn’t a huge parking lot, but mostly occupied when I pulled up. The check in line was ridiculously long too. Seemed like the sales presentation wasn’t the only ‘catch’ at this time.
Got to the room, and everything was great. The sales presentation was the next day, so we had some time to see some old friends in downtown Orlando that night. Erm and I(my homie that went to Orlando with me) ended up sleeping at my old roommates house, and woke up at about 10am. The presentation was at 12:30, and 30 minutes away, so we headed over there. After getting ready, we headed to a resort where the presentation would be held. As I checked in, the lady at the front said it would be a one on one sales presentation, and that the 2 hours would start only when I met with my sales rep.
Sheesh.
These people have this operation running like clockwork.
That was my first thought
One on one pitch with a sales dude for 2 hours on something that I know I’m not going to buy….this is gunna suck
That was my second thought
I waited for about 15 minutes before my name was called. I was greeted by a guy named Angel. Angel was a middle age, hispanic, NY raised, smooth talking fellow that was going to try to get me to buy a timeshare.
2 hour timer has officially started……NOW!
We went to a random table, and he started asking me a bunch of qualifying questions, while also briefly explaining what a timeshare was. Angel was trying to get a sense of my financial situation, vacation frequency, and lifestyle, all to build a case against me at the end, and show me that I need this timeshare package. This questionnaire process lasted about 30min. I didn’t know it at first, but I was dominated by Angel, right out of the gate. I tried to drop hints to let him know that I was just here for the money, and had no interest in buying a timeshare, but he would have the perfect answer for everything. Any question about price, and he said that we weren’t at that point yet. Amenities that hotels didn’t have, and he would come up with an alternative solution on the spot. It was all a huge mind game. He was winning, and I was drained, 30 minutes in.
It felt like I was playing chess, and he took my queen in the first couple moves.
I had to bounce back, and once we left the table to tour the resort, I became more conscious of his genius on the spot thinking. I put more thought into my questions, and tried to come up with questions/statements, that couldn’t be disputed.
Angel’s big selling point in this presentation was that I am already spending X amount of dollars on vacation. If I ‘reallocate’ this vacation money, and essentially pre pay for vacations, then I can maximize on the money that I put in. The initial 30 min convo we had was to essentially get some numbers on paper, so that in the final stage of the presentation, he can corner me into saying that I already spend X amount of dollars, I cut that number in half, over Y number of years. Will this interest you?
As soon as I realized his tactic, I focused less on hassling him about price, amenities, etc, and focused more on disproving that the value proposition behind a timeshare like this, doesn’t necessarily align with the way I think about vacation. That is something that is true, and extremely hard for a sales person to dispute. Things like living amongst the poor, living in spontaneity, being in rural areas instead of the obvious lavish spots, are all things that I enjoy on vacation. To set the record straight, I’ll go to Beverly hills any day of the week, but I more so enjoy learning about new cultures, and living exactly how a foreigner lives in their home country.
This doesn’t align with IHG’s interest, which are to give it’s guests luxury for 1-5 weeks out of the year.
Even though I was always planning to say no at the end of the presentation regardless, I was glad to have something in my back pocket that would essentially ‘Trump’ him(sales people are too pushy to just accept ‘no’).
After the mental breakthrough I had midway through the presentation, we went to watch a video on the benefits of timeshares. After that, we headed into the same room that we started the presentation, but Angel had one thing on his mind.
…close the deal
He started by reviewing the questions I answered earlier, and started mapping out the cost structure behind a timeshare. When I brought up that I don’t think this program aligns with my travel interests, he didn’t seem to have the perfect answer, as he often did earlier in the presentation.
He answered things like “who doesn’t want to live luxurious?”, “You’ll be able to find something that fits your needs”
Those answers didn’t cut it for me, and I knew I had the upper edge. He lost his composure, and felt the sale slipping away. I pressed on the issue for the remainder of the presentation, and he proceeded to concede, and pass me on to the person who would pay me out.
Finally!
It felt like I just beat bowser and saved princess peach!
Little did I know…she was in another castle.
All jokes aside, the man who was suppose to pay me out, offered me another ‘special promotion’ that only people that attended the presentation. I smirked, and said no. He lowered the price again, and I said no. He did it one more time before I just said “I’m here for the money…I’m not interested in any other promotion.”
He said ok, and passed me over to a lady in front of a register. I cashed out my voucher for $199, and left.
I was exhausted, but it was an eye opening experience.
Being in the digital analytics/conversion optimization world, I’m always thinking about the science of getting people to do what you want. The presentation started off great(from his perspective), because he took the time to understand my needs, and use that info to tailor the right package for me. Although I had no intention of buying, Angel’s pitch made me think about the different possibilities/use cases, and how I can benefit from one. My imagination started to run wild, and this is exactly what he wanted. The pitch took a wrong turn when I expressed my concerns on if I can get all the value of a resort, because of the way I travel. Instead of generic answers and seemingly giving up, he should have took the time to better understand what I meant, and spend the majority of the time seeing how the program can help me out. If he would have taken the next 45min to research different places, and see how we can make this work for my specific use cases, instead of talking finances prematurely, I would have been WAY more attentive in the finance part.
I guess the point is that if you really want convince someone to do something that you think is worthwhile for them, you have to truly understand what they’re looking for, be able to step in their shoes, and solely focus on that. If you don’t have/offer what that person is looking for, a better answer might be to say that you don’t offer that, but show interest in working with them to solve the issue in the future. Picking your customers is pretty important too. I imagine the conversion rate for the promotion is pretty low, because IHG recruited a bunch of cheapos like me.
Thanks for the hotel IHG 🙂 …. learned a lot, but NEVER again.