Jul 23 2008
Why Not Lease Your Telephones?
In 1992 when I left high-school and needed a Job, I found that AT&T was hiring. They were hiring for their leased phone division. Since the breakup of MaBell in 1984, AT&T maintained the leased telephone division.
The primary aspect of my
job was to convince people that leasing telephones was a viable thing to do. (dumb, huh?) And I was very successful. I would lease cordless phones at $50 per month… and you could go and buy one at the time for $100.
I would very often get calls like, "I just noticed that I had a bill from you all for $4.95 for a Princess Phone. I don’t have this phone, please cancel my bill"
Upon further discussion with the client, we had been billing them since 1984 for that phone at $4.95 per month because prices never changed. (Our records didn’t go before the break-up) Nearly $500 over the 8 years. They often would not have seen the phone in 5 or 6 or more years… yet we were still billing them and they kept making the payment.
How does this apply today?
Well, at my phone book post, there has been a discussion about the thought that if a client buys an ad, he must think that it is worth something… it must provide him some value.
Nope. I don’t buy that sales line for a minute.
Sure, some people may actually see benefit. Some people may actually see an increase in sales, but, just because a salesman can continue to sell someone on something doesn’t mean it is worth the paper it is printed on.
Let’s not confuse the ability to sell something with the actual viability of the value of that product.
Corey Smith is the Chief Web Architect for Dealer Marketing Systems and is the editor in chief for OfficeProductNews.net.