I've done sales before. Though I am not a good sales person, I can spot certain techniques that sales person applies when they talk to me.

I've been thinking about joining a gym for some time, but have never got around to doing it due to time and money constraints. Recently, California Fitness got my number thru Samwin and invited me to go to their hypnotising session a tour of their facilities. While I am there, I can really see a lot of sales tricks.

She try to make me feel I share an afinity with her by pretending that she is a Star Wars fan as well when she saw that I am reading a Star Wars Expanded universe novel. And she proceeds to talk about a Lord Of The Rings pendant that her friend bought for her.

Then she brings me on a tour of the place, showing me the facilities that they have. This is also known as product demo I guess. :P

Then she quote me a very high price for joining, and ask me what price am I comfortable with. I do not want to answer. In any sales negotiation, the one who makes the 1st offer is always at a disadvantage. But she kept asking, in the end, I gave a ridiculously low price.

She tells me she'll have to talk to her boss about it and went off. I am not sure, but I think she's not talking to her boss. They are already prepared to give me a better price. I am not someone special. There must be lots of people like me here already. They must have a doctrine on how to handle such situations. I think she just wants me to think that the management is concerned about my case and wants to bend backwards for me or something. I half expect the "manager" to come out with her. The person could be a manager or just another colleague to masquerade as one. Anyway, she came out alone and tell me a much slashed price. I still do not want to take it up.

So she went off to see the boss again. This time she really came back with someone. An ang mo. He say that since it's my first time to a gym, he can give me an even better offer and proceeds to tell me a much much lower offer than what she originally tells me. This should be the real offer that they want to offer me. Anyway, I think it's a slightly below average amount, but I may be wrong.

I told them I am interested but I need to go home and sit on it. One of the rules of sales closing is not to let the customer leave without commiting to you. If he leaves, he'll never come back, no matter what he says. So he tells me the offer is the last day that day.

So I signed up.