I've sat through the hard sell. Now if it's not a clear yes, it's a no.

I have been on both ends of this, and the difference told me more about where I was than anything on the wall did.

The good ones were almost boring

The good ones were almost boring, in the best way. I went in, the surgeon looked at the thing I wanted fixed, talked me through it honestly, and told me the price himself. No theatre. No pressure. He was advising me, and I could feel it. I left able to think, and I booked because I wanted to, not because someone had worked me up to it.

Then there is the other kind

Then there is the other kind. You go in and before you have even met the surgeon you are sitting with some coordinator filling in forms. You meet the surgeon, he examines you, says nothing about money, and out you go. And then you are taken into another room, and that is where the real meeting happens. The numbers appear. The discount that is only good today appears. The “so what would help you make a decision now” appears. You realise, slowly, that you are not in a medical appointment any more. You are in a sales pitch.

I know a sales process when I am in one, because I have spent my working life around them. Listen to the customer, let them tell you every pain point, then tell them how you will fix all of it, then land the number while they are feeling it. That is a technique, and it works. And it is the last thing that should be happening when the product is surgery on your body.

How hard it is to say no

The hardest part is how difficult it is to say no in that room, even for someone like me who walks in knowing exactly what she wants. Especially someone like that, actually, because you have just told them all your pain points, which is precisely what the process wants. You try to say “let me think about it” and instead of “of course”, you get “what more would you need to know to decide today?” And it keeps going. And you can leave happy, or you can leave a thousand down and not quite sure how, having committed to something because saying no felt impossible.

The pressure is the information

Here is the thing I had to learn. The pressure itself is the information. A surgeon who is confident in the work does not need to corner you before you reach the car park. The fact that a place needs a closer at all, someone whose whole job is to get a commitment out of you while you are sitting there, tells you what that place is optimising for. It is not whether this is the right procedure for you, or whether this is even the right surgeon for you. It is the booking.

A surgeon who is confident in the work does not need to corner you before you reach the car park.

Could you be in a genuinely reputable place and still get the hard sell? Yes. It is not about how big the clinic is or how nice the room is. It is about whether you are being advised or being closed. If you cannot say “I want to go home and think” without it turning into a negotiation, you have your answer, whatever the answer to the surgery question turns out to be.

One rule that has never let me down

So now I have one rule, and it has never once let me down. If it is not a clear yes, a hell yes, once I am home and calm and nobody is selling to me, then it is a no. A real option is still there next week. The pressure to decide today is the one part of the whole thing that was never about me.