Schooling younger salespeople

I am amazed sometimes at the approach people take when they want to offer me a deal.  They think I'm really stupid,  I had one such conversation last night.  A publisher called and wanted to market my books for me.  The sales person launched into a line of questioning about my book to "hook" me into talking with her.  She asked me questions like how I had come up with the idea and how long it took to write.  As if she was interested.  Somebody who's really been around the block doesn't fall for those tricks, but she was young and wanted to treat me like I was 20 and dumb.

When she told me of all her marketing strategies, she wanted me to jump at the chance to join with her company, no questions asked, and marvel at the prowess of the her company which would put all other companies to shame.  When I balked, I could tell she had been given a plan B for people like me who balk.

She reloaded and reiterated all the marketing tools available to her company and began casting dispersions on the publishing company I was using.  Finally she got around to mentioning the price of all the marvels of her company's marketing ability.  I, of course, thought the price was much too high.  What I told her, though, was that I wanted a different deal than her company's standard package.  I wanted equal participation.  I had already done my work.  They needed to show me theirs, then we would profit together.

She couldn't deal with this off-the-track counter-move to her offer.  So, she reiterated all the marvels of her company, then offered the same deal she had originally offered.  I said no, and then reiterated my counter-offer.  She had to get her supervisor.  He was older and understood exactly what I was doing, so he promptly got off the phone in a less than gracious fashion.

They weren't exactly scammers.  They were selling for a legitimate company.  But, it's amazing that people think they can gain a profit by cold-calling complete strangers and getting them to fork over several thousand dollars.  Who really does that?!  Young people have to learn that hard lesson I guess.