Sales Resistance

Man oh man, the ads and the offers keep coming. I'm good about throwing away advertisements that come in the mail -- my recycling bin is right by my entry door, so I can easily discard "junk mail" before I enter the house and therefore have less clutter.

But the electronic forms of promoting items is increasingly insidious!

Should I receive unsolicited offers via email, I just delete them -- I don't even open the message. When I visit certain websites, I do not click on links that lead to on-line stores. I may visit those stores on-line sometimes, but only when I am looking for something in particular. I have learned to stop following links and looking around -- because that's how those companies get you to make "impulse buys." I don't buy on impulse.

Speaking of having sales resistance -- you should observe my partner and me at the grocery store. We have a written list that we follow, and stick to it. We don't buy anything we see on a shelf or an end-cap (end of aisle display) unless it is specifically on our list (and on sale.)

Should I receive a call on the phone trying to promote some product or service, I take the name and phone number of the caller, then report them as a violation of the U.S. Federal "Do Not Call" list, because companies are prohibited from making "cold calls" (with a few exceptions.) But I certainly do not buy anything that someone tries to sell me on the phone.

Should someone come to the door and knock -- if I don't know them, I don't answer. And my partner doesn't even bother to look in the video display to see who it is. He never answers the door or the phone (which when I am at the door or on the phone, his non-response is very annoying!)

And one final but very intrusive gimmick are the ads that are targeted to viewers of some websites. The ad sales read cookies on your computer, then target you for ads related to website that you may have visited in the past. For example, Sheplers (western clothing and boots) comes up in ads on certain other websites that I visit, and a bank that I now detest shows up on another website that I visit. Google ads show up on many YouTube videos... it goes on and on.

I try, as best I can, to reduce the clutter and avoid ads, delete, or discard them. I clear the cookies from my computer daily. But it all boils down to this: don't click on the links on those ads, because they are indeed enticing, and the active marketing techniques that use high-end technology to target your weaknesses (in my case, boots), are used much more frequently now.

Life is short: have sales resistance!