Word: salesmanship
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...merchandisers, the key to bigger sales is a new pseudo science that analyzes the U.S. housewife's whims with equal parts of salesmanship, psychology, hypnotism and common sense. Its name: impulse buying. The idea is not new, but with the rise of self-service supermarkets, super drug and variety stores, there is a greater incentive than ever before to encourage shoppers to throw away their shopping lists and buy more than they ever intended...
...People are bored with us and the things we sell," said Adman Brower. "Up until the last few months, Americans have been the most desiring people in the world. Salesmanship and advertising and consumer credit have stimulated this desire. We have been the prophets who condemned the old and showed the way to the new. We have been merchants of discontent, creators of obsolescence...
Time for Tranquilizers. Well, then, what can be done to rekindle the desire? "The answer is not simple," said Brower, "because the mediocrity of salesmanship is only part of our pattern of being willing to settle for something less than the best. For this, in America, is the high tide of mediocrity, the great era of the goof-off. The land has been enjoying a stampede away from responsibility...
Smith: Well, why not? If we try to solve our economic problems by shoving goods down people's throats through manufactured money and high-pressure salesmanship, we risk a deep corruption of the people, not just because they will be stuffed with goods they haven't earned and don't really need, but also because people eventually won't know what to do with them...
...Steele broke off the talks when he saw that the fight was inevitable. Steele, who took over Pepsi when it was floundering and sent sales and profits soaring, apparently felt he could do the same for Pabst; Pabst also stood to gain by Pepsi's crack management and salesmanship...