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pseydtonneNo salesman is happy just to sell. We all say we are, but notice we're actually talking when we say that. A salesman is like a teenage boy that just got laid: he has to tell his buddies and he needs to make a great story. If all you did was close sales every ten seconds and make a fuckload of money, you'd be depressed as a salescritter.
Selling is storytelling. You greet someone that came to you in search of something. You sound the dude out, pitch based on that sound, field objections and then achieve orgasm. This feeling of sexual conquest explains a lot about sales.
I haven't always been a salescritter, and I don't want to be one forever. I like sales and I believe in my product, but I'd also like to build the future services other salescritters will pimp.
All salescritters must believe in what they sell. The job for most sales managers is to psyche the sales force into that faith, re-energize a worn lot. A good sales meeting is like a tent revival.
I believe in my product wholeheartedly. My experiences in life have led me to cherish cable TV, cable modem and any phone service that doesn't involve Ma Bell. I know all about the false idols but I vow to outsell them.
The guys in Glengarry Glen Ross are going through a crisis of faith. Outsiders see these guys as the pimps of crap -- no one really wants to buy land 2000 miles from home that isn't about to become livable property. All of them dance around this thought but none of them want to hit this in the heart. They sell junk. Only Ricky is still hearty about his delusion. Still, it's all delusion.
When I worked at the Dot Com From Hell three years ago, I sold bullshit. I took the job because my temp agency sent me there. I stayed two months because I was scared of unemployment during the height of the economy. I put up with a lot of bluster and lies, mostly from the boss. I also put up with a couple shit-filled coworkers that couldn't live without their delusions and just plugged the boss's lies into their own lies.
Working that job stripped me of a lot of my dignity. I was left downcast a lot of the time. I wanted the job to be a stepping stone; instead, it was a boiler room gig. It took me a long time to recover my self-worth from that fiasco and the couple jobs after it. I sold advertising space on a web site with no viewers. Every stack of "leads" we'd been given were completely made up. I remember killing a couple hours a day researching the companies that had supposedly filled out a membership form (often to get a simple phone number), then having the boss lie to us about how hot these leads were.
Maybe I should explain a little about the founding of a dot-com. A couple guys get together with a bullshit idea. Then they'd start some work and beg beg BEG anyone they remotely knew at any other company to say "hey, I'd stare at your web site for five seconds and I work at X." If they couldn't get that, they made stuff up. This allowed the venture capital people to see an impressive list of companies that would be ready to do business at the dot-com on day one.
In our dot-com's case, the founders (let's call them both Jerry) handed this list to their buddy, the King of the Phone Sales Creeps. Let's call him Mort, because that doesn't sound anything like his name and thus I won't get sued. Mort asks a staffing company to send him outbound sales people. The staffing company, ill-equipped to answer this need, sends a bunch of their temps that have phone experience. He then bullies us into submission.
I only survived as long as I did because I got the first sale in the place. I got a couple sales the next week, then one more the following week. I went one week without a sale and I felt like a loser. Then he screamed so loud at us that I couldn't get out of my chair. The blood dropped out of me.
I was told that Mort only lasted a couple more weeks in the place because he clashed with the intentions of the company. All his talk about his experience rescuing various sales firms (such as a flower delivery service, which is inbound) made me think he actually knew what he was talking about. Then he'd say "we worked this strategy out scientifically, psychologically" when I remember that he simply picked stuff and said that's it. He'd lie about the leads when I'd built the list of leads myself (I was fast at that because I knew how to pull information together). I suspect he'll have a heart attack soon enough.
I had no faith in that product. The company's service made sense but the numbers were not there yet for anyone to beg for subscriptions. There was traffic, but not enough to pay four figures for it. Anyone that really needed the service would call up to pay, not be begged for it.
I lost faith in my sales skills because of that job. I realize now that I was simply burned out. A good product sells itself; a salesman merely turns the edge for a customer. If the product sucks, there's no reason to sell it. If a product is comparable to its competitors, you find a few specifics that stand out and drum those into the customer's head... politely.
You come to believe in a product when you can swim in it. Even when you're pissed off at the product, you're pissed because you want to return to the joy you felt the first time. You pray to the folds and creases of the product.
The salesmen in Glengarry Glen Ross are being called to action. Fundamentalism has been decreed. One of them will be sacrificed. The invocation of the sublime is supposed to be frightening, and all but Roma are frightened. Roma is so strong in his faith that he barely notices the break-in.
That faith is thus narcissism transferred to other objects. "I rule, so whatever I'm selling rules, so buy into me. Sign here."
That was a rough idea of what I meant,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
epanastatis.
-coffee's for closers, Ps/d
Selling is storytelling. You greet someone that came to you in search of something. You sound the dude out, pitch based on that sound, field objections and then achieve orgasm. This feeling of sexual conquest explains a lot about sales.
I haven't always been a salescritter, and I don't want to be one forever. I like sales and I believe in my product, but I'd also like to build the future services other salescritters will pimp.
All salescritters must believe in what they sell. The job for most sales managers is to psyche the sales force into that faith, re-energize a worn lot. A good sales meeting is like a tent revival.
I believe in my product wholeheartedly. My experiences in life have led me to cherish cable TV, cable modem and any phone service that doesn't involve Ma Bell. I know all about the false idols but I vow to outsell them.
The guys in Glengarry Glen Ross are going through a crisis of faith. Outsiders see these guys as the pimps of crap -- no one really wants to buy land 2000 miles from home that isn't about to become livable property. All of them dance around this thought but none of them want to hit this in the heart. They sell junk. Only Ricky is still hearty about his delusion. Still, it's all delusion.
When I worked at the Dot Com From Hell three years ago, I sold bullshit. I took the job because my temp agency sent me there. I stayed two months because I was scared of unemployment during the height of the economy. I put up with a lot of bluster and lies, mostly from the boss. I also put up with a couple shit-filled coworkers that couldn't live without their delusions and just plugged the boss's lies into their own lies.
Working that job stripped me of a lot of my dignity. I was left downcast a lot of the time. I wanted the job to be a stepping stone; instead, it was a boiler room gig. It took me a long time to recover my self-worth from that fiasco and the couple jobs after it. I sold advertising space on a web site with no viewers. Every stack of "leads" we'd been given were completely made up. I remember killing a couple hours a day researching the companies that had supposedly filled out a membership form (often to get a simple phone number), then having the boss lie to us about how hot these leads were.
Maybe I should explain a little about the founding of a dot-com. A couple guys get together with a bullshit idea. Then they'd start some work and beg beg BEG anyone they remotely knew at any other company to say "hey, I'd stare at your web site for five seconds and I work at X." If they couldn't get that, they made stuff up. This allowed the venture capital people to see an impressive list of companies that would be ready to do business at the dot-com on day one.
In our dot-com's case, the founders (let's call them both Jerry) handed this list to their buddy, the King of the Phone Sales Creeps. Let's call him Mort, because that doesn't sound anything like his name and thus I won't get sued. Mort asks a staffing company to send him outbound sales people. The staffing company, ill-equipped to answer this need, sends a bunch of their temps that have phone experience. He then bullies us into submission.
I only survived as long as I did because I got the first sale in the place. I got a couple sales the next week, then one more the following week. I went one week without a sale and I felt like a loser. Then he screamed so loud at us that I couldn't get out of my chair. The blood dropped out of me.
I was told that Mort only lasted a couple more weeks in the place because he clashed with the intentions of the company. All his talk about his experience rescuing various sales firms (such as a flower delivery service, which is inbound) made me think he actually knew what he was talking about. Then he'd say "we worked this strategy out scientifically, psychologically" when I remember that he simply picked stuff and said that's it. He'd lie about the leads when I'd built the list of leads myself (I was fast at that because I knew how to pull information together). I suspect he'll have a heart attack soon enough.
I had no faith in that product. The company's service made sense but the numbers were not there yet for anyone to beg for subscriptions. There was traffic, but not enough to pay four figures for it. Anyone that really needed the service would call up to pay, not be begged for it.
I lost faith in my sales skills because of that job. I realize now that I was simply burned out. A good product sells itself; a salesman merely turns the edge for a customer. If the product sucks, there's no reason to sell it. If a product is comparable to its competitors, you find a few specifics that stand out and drum those into the customer's head... politely.
You come to believe in a product when you can swim in it. Even when you're pissed off at the product, you're pissed because you want to return to the joy you felt the first time. You pray to the folds and creases of the product.
The salesmen in Glengarry Glen Ross are being called to action. Fundamentalism has been decreed. One of them will be sacrificed. The invocation of the sublime is supposed to be frightening, and all but Roma are frightened. Roma is so strong in his faith that he barely notices the break-in.
That faith is thus narcissism transferred to other objects. "I rule, so whatever I'm selling rules, so buy into me. Sign here."
That was a rough idea of what I meant,
epanastatis.-coffee's for closers, Ps/d
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no subject
Date: 2003-10-06 06:41 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-10-06 09:46 am (UTC)"When you're on the phones, a sale is always made. Either you make a sale, or the guy on the other end of the phone sells you a reason why not."
That's not verbatim, but I thought the idea was interesting.
MM