Tuesday night, hubby and I were at the barn, contemplating where all our critters would be spending the winter months. Everyone needs a space that gets them inside some shelter if the weather is nasty. A car came up our driveway during our discussion and neither of us recognized the driver. I looked at hubby and said "we aren't buying anything!"
The gentleman got out, smiled and told us we have a nice ranch. What a laugh....we are a horse/4-H critter operation. There is nothing "ranchie" about our place. He held out a piece of paper for us to see. It was an aerial photo of our farm. I have always loved that type of picture. My dad has the one from the family farm which was done in the early 70's and I still enjoy looking at. We purchased an 8x10 aerial photo back in the early days of being at our current location. I have had the thought in the back of my mind that it would be nice to get an updated one. See the one we have was taken when we still lived in a single-wide mobile home. We now have our "dream house" which is a big white ranch style house sitting up on our hill.
So obviously this salesman piqued my interest. I let him start his pitch....but quickly jumped ahead in the story to "what's the price". He chatted up the idea that they add green grass where the fields were and spruce up the front yard which was pathetic thanks to the drought we had been under for the summer. I again asked for a price. He then told us about the custom framing that they have done by the Amish. That was all nice...BUT WHAT IS THE PRICE FOR AN 8X10????? Finally he answered me, and I know I need to take pilot lessons. For a simple, framed 11x14, they wanted $199.00!!!!!!!!
I am not sure whether hubby or I hit cheap first, but the conversation was over. I politely told him that was way out of our budget. He offered just the picture, without framing for $99.00. I again said too much. His final offer was the small 4x6 print he had in his hand, with no retouching and the letter "C" framed in the middle of it for only $10. We turned him down a third time and he returned to his car.
What a tough business to be in, and I am sure we weren't the only ones on the road that turned him down!!
2 comments:
What do you mean the only ones on the road who turned him down. We ordered three pictures, one for the kitchen, livingroom and bedroom! HA!
When he came up on the porch and said our place looks like the Ponderosa I knew he was probably a better pilot than salesman. Then after he sniffed, snorted, coughed, wiped and snorted again through his presentation (he had a bad cold) I finally got to the bottom line of his price. I flipped out and then nicely turned down his offer of the $10 snapshots with what looked like crop circles in the center of the picture....like I'm gonna spend $10 on that? With the kind of sales success he had on our road...he probably had to wash dishes to afford his dinner!
I wondered if he had made it your way. He got turned down at mom and dads as well. Mom didn't even let him start his sales pitch. I suspect he left our area very hungry. Wanna get a pilots license and start a business.....
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