Jim Haysom | This Is Your Life an internet professional in digital advertising

Confessions of a Salesman, the ITV programme

Tonight on ITV was a new series, Confessions, and it was about Salesmen. OMG, for a salesman to watch this, was not only cringeworthy of the lowly tactics that some of the people featured would use (e.g. road works), but some of the elements rang true, such as closing techniques. So Confessions of a Salesman may have given marketers and the general public some previously untold advantages.

I only caught the last part of the programme, so will have to find it on Sky+ again and see if it is repeated. It would be worth watching again, only to marvel at some of the types of closing that was featured, such as the Ben Franklin Close - hadn't heard that one before, at least that phrase. I very much doubt car sales people are using that one.

Now being a sales professional, it's not about using one of the closes and making it so blatently obvious. I see it many times each week, whether it be people pitching me on the phone, in retail stores, or face to face. In fact, sometimes, I've commended the salesman on their trained technique, and said "nice alternative close, but the answer's still no". Sell me the FAB's, Features, Advantages and Benefits, not just the Features.

Now I'm not going to confess everything myself, that would give you an advantage, but let's just repeat a LinkedIn.com recommendation from a former colleague... "Not all Salesmen are evil".

Without sales people I'm sure people will be spending their entire life milling about not making any decisions, and there would be no advertising on the TV, in your magazine, on the tubes, on the internet, everywhere! And Marketing Managers and Directors would have pots of budget but no-one to spend it with.

Some might think that's a good thing. But let's take the Mega Jackpot for the National Lottery Euro Millions this Friday, with an estimated £85 million jackpot. Have you seen the advertising online and offline this week? I saw the posters in Tesco and jumped online and bought a few tickets.

Well, it's a lottery anyway, so click here to visit the National Lottery website and buy a ticket online. You have got to be in it, to win it! And for a jackpot of £85 million, that's a lot of money for one person to win.

ABC