Beware of those who tell you what you need

In today's intense competitiveness, companies are no longer just making products and services to satisfy your needs. It has come to the point that most companies are telling you what you need, and are developing products to cater to that need that they have created for you.

It has now as Robert Levine puts it, 'the salesperson's task to convince you that you need his or her product'.

As salesman B. Earl Puckett explains, "It is our job to make women unhappy with what they have".

So be warned. Levine quoted in The Power of Persuasion: How We're Bought and Sold, 'be careful when the same people who want to fill your expectations are also in the business creating them'. And that, 'Perception is more important than reality'.

Michael Schudson says to watch out for people who says, "Buy me and you will overcome the anxieties I have just reminded you of".