Death of a salesman?

Are salesmen really needed anymore? It depends for what, I guess. When there is a new sale to be made, a good salesperson can tip the scale and drastically change the outcome by influencing the buyer, so I would say that in this case, the presence of a salesperson makes a significant difference.

True, it can either help or hinder the outcome depending where that middle-person stands in the way of the buyer's self-interest. So it can be good or bad and, in most cases, the outcome depends a lot on that salesperson's integrity and competency.

This said, here are two practical examples that I'll share with you. One of these cases has to do with our private health insurance; we got that coverage five years ago, after I did some research on my own and zeroed-in on a carrier that we thought was the best for what we needed. We signed up on our own, on-line, without anyone's help.

Then a few months later, I learned that we had been “assigned” a sales representative that we never met, let alone select. For all these years, this person has been collecting commissions off our monthly premiums while also proving to be totally useless.

Recently, as I wanted to put that saleslady to contribution, I asked her some information, then as she never got back to me within a reasonable time, I went out on my own and got that information on-line, directly from the insurer. The lady called me a few days latter and brought me some information that wasn't even correct!

Along the sames lines, I'm now eligible for Medicare and, here again, there seem to be the need for some “sales rep.” This time I sort of chose the individual, but when I asked her to check something for me, it took her forever to respond, and once more, I couldn't wait and had to find out on my own by calling the new carrier. Again, that lady called me later with some fragmented and inaccurate answers to my questions.

For one thing, these two example show that there's room to cut health care cost by getting rid of such, useless intermediaries that are burdening the insurance carriers, and it also illustrates the absurdity of residual or recurring commissions that bear no relation with the actual service rendered.

In this days of computers and on-line transactions, it would seem obvious that anyone who is not providing a necessary and lasting service in a transaction shouldn't be able to collect money off of it anymore. Hence my prophecy that the “death of the carpetbagger” is close, but I might be getting ahead of myself!