Steal a Business Model

Why do certain businesses (and industries) do marketing in a certain way?

For example, it seems like every timeshare company uses the same shtick:
Acquire a broad list of prospects.
Filter with very loose requirements (not too poor, not too young, preferably married...)
Contact them by phone and offer a free trip or other goodies just for attending a short sales session.
(They probably don't use the word "sales", but some sort of euphemism).
Convert a bunch of these prospects to attend the session.
Know that only a small portion of those who commit will actually attend after thinking about it some more.
At the session, try to wow them with your amazingly wonderful investment and vacation opportunity.
Hold back on giving away the freebies as long as possible.
Try to wear away their resistance a little bit a time.
And so on.

Why?

Surely some timeshare companies must be offer a good, legitimate product. So why not approach marketing it in a way that isn't associated with a high-pressure sales scam?
I'm sure the above process must work, to some degree, but I'd love to see a brand take a completely different approach to:
a.) Get even better results
and
b.) Differentiate themselves in a competitive marketplace

They don't even have to come up with a completely original scheme* - why not just borrow one from a different industry?
Just a few ideas, totally off the top of my head, for the timeshare example:
- sell them through travel agents like other vacation options
- sell them through financial advisors like other investment opportunities
- setup a retail storefront where people can browse the available properties in a comfortable, low-pressure setting
- use the capabilities of the Internet to sell extra-small shares efficiently

There are probably a million reasons why these are bad ideas, but I'd be there's a way to make at least one of them (or something similar) work quite well.

Here's an example of a company that's broken out of their industry's "normal" sales and marketing processes: Spence Diamonds.

Buying jewelry can be quite a stressful (and, obviously, expensive and serious) experience. It seems like most jewelry stores are designed more to keep people out than to invite them in. The decor is pretentious, the staff are often snobby (I'm not sure why - they only work there, they don't own the place), the products are all under lock and key, you have to shop with a salesperson looking over your shoulder, you have to ask permission to see any items you're interested in...

At Spence, though, the store looks and feels more like any other retailer. Some of their locations look like they could be selling furniture or electronics. All the products on display are fakes, designed to let you see what the real items will look like, but made of much cheaper materials. So, you can pick up and check out any ones you like. Staff will leave you alone if you want them to. It's actually quite a high-volume business, so the staff make very good money for a retail position and are quite cheerful and friendly (interestingly, since they're the ones who could get away with being snobby)...

The strange thing is that they're very successful with this approach yet few of their competitors have changed to follow suit.

It would be great to see other industries with a negative or controversial or questionably-successful approach have their own highly-successful exceptions.

And if the industries that have any sort of negative reputation can do, why not the "good" industries? Let's see a restaurant that takes some good ideas from a plumbing company, or vice versa. Or a car dealer that acts more like an appliance store. Or a lawyer that feels like anything but a lawyer.


* Funny how the word "scheme" has a bit of a negative connotation in North America. Maybe it sounds too much like scam? In other English-speaking regions, it seems to be used in a much more positive light.