What Tesla did was to turn every owner into a commissioned sales person. It was a brilliant scheme for a company with no dealership network, or advertising, until it had enough stores in place and enough demand/production to be profitable. Some people are comfortable with it, others not so much. I personally just love to promote the car as an altruistic endeavour and always presented my argument to use the referral code as a benefit to the buyer and downplayed any potential rewards. I'm sure I led many people to buy a Tesla and in fact sold a used one for a dearly departed friend and received no rewards besides the feeling that I made a contribution (also part of the reason I bought one for myself) to both Tesla and the new owners experience and to put more of these on the road. Did they need to run such a campaign? Not sure. Perhaps a campaign of webinars and podcasts on the technology, it's history, it's advantages, owner expectations, how to operate etc. would have been more beneficial and could have solidified the brand with more respect than leaving it up to the public at large to argue it's merits. That said, I had to buy my arachnids from a successful YouTuber who is a better promoter than I and I'm grateful those wheels were made available to me. Struggling with some envy for those who scored new Roadsters though.
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