A slight dust kicks up in the hot air, walking in the shadow of China World in Beijing.
It's a city with some of the best salesmanship in the world -- and some of the world.
The Chinese hustle. They work hard and constantly, relentlessly sell.
But sometimes their sales skills need some work.
I'm walking past a booth adverting a gym with swimming pool, tennis, and nice facilities.
Staying in a different district than last time, I need a new gym. I'm very qualified as a buyer and very interested, but also have a lot to do today. I keep walking, but one of the girls at the booth/display sees my interest and starts walking alongside me.
She asks me to put my name and phone number on her sheet of people to call.
I say, "How much?"
She doesn't answer, and asks me to put down my info to get a call.
I say, "Well, how much?"
She says, "I don't speak English well... just put down your info and..."
She seems pretty smart though, and I suspect she speaks English.
"Renminbi? Shenme renminbi?" I ask.
("Money? What money?" in my broken Chinese.)
She won't say, and again presses me to put down my info, and the interaction ends.
Now, maybe it did make sense not to say. Possibly. But, "How much?" is such a common question that she should have a better response for it.
She could have answered that she doesn't know the pricing, but the gym is excellent and it won't be a waste of time to talk to the manager who does know on a personal call.
Even better, she could have said that if I put down my info, I'd be eligible for a free pass to the gym to try it out. If it really was magnificent, that would be a good way to get someone in there to see it.
I don't buy the piece about no English. The forms and displays she had both contained English and Chinese, and this is a very foreigner-heavy neighborhood. Even if it was the case, she could have had a written reply in English to show people.
You need answers to common questions. Ideally helpful and productive answers, but at the very least answers that explain why there's value in doing the action they recommend -- getting on he sales call, in this case.
Don't blame her though -- blame whoever trained her.