The company is there to make money

Paulgonnabedebtfree

The subject says it all really. I first saw this fact emphasised in Martin Lewis's book when I first bought it about a year ago. Although I've always been aware of it, reading it in print crystallised that fact for me. Yet companies use all manner of persuasive techniques to convince you that they are only trying to sell you something for your own good.

Yesterday was the first time that I really experienced this in a more obvious way.
It was time for me to make my final decision on what (if anything) I was going to spend on my Yellow Pages ad for the coming year. Undoubtedly, having some sort of presence in YP is a benefit for my small business. No problem with that concept. The issue though was do I want a free one-liner or do I want to spend a lot more as I did last year.
Before meeting the ad guys, I had already decided on either a three line or a 6 line small box ad. Last year, I had a rather larger (and more expensive) ad and it didn't really increase the enquiry level from a smaller ad. I've found that, in my line of work, a small paid ad works better than a free one-liner but once you go above that, it stops being cost effective.
It truly astonished me the mental gymnastics the admen went through to persuade me to go for a larger ad as I did last year. Now I'm not knocking the guys. They're there to do a job just as I am. A large chunk of their salaries (perhaps all) is based on how much they sell as I am paid for how much work I do.
All through the discussion Martin's words were ringing through my head. "The company is there to make money, the company is there to make money". I'm surprised the words didn't slip out of my mouth LOL.
Basically, before I got to the meeting, I had made up my mind that I wanted one of two products. I was unclear as to whether the lower priced product was allowed to contain something I wanted in the ad. So that was the only question. All the rest of the conversation was largely irrelevant I suppose, though I did keep my ears open in case they came out with a special offer on a larger ad (they didn't).
I even told them that there were far better ways for me to publicise my business than YP. This is because YP doesn't target a customer base very well. I prefer to target my work by leafletting and calling back a week or two afterwards. With a lot of services, targetting isn't so important but with mine, I feel it is.
It may not sound like much but due to being able to focus on what I want and why I want it, I probably saved myself £300 on unnecessary ad expenditure. I can either save that or put it towards leafletting.
So, cheers again Martin.