My phone call to the number listed in the newspaper ad that caught my eye led to a cup of coffee and a sales pitch in a booth at the Majestic restaurant. He was a smooth talker this business suited salesman who would, he let it be known, take me under his wing and teach me how to fly from sale to sale to sale. And what I was selling he assuredly laid out was individualized adverts that bordered a give away map of my sales territory, southeastern GA. Each business that advertised on the map would get one map to display prominently in their place of business and a couple hundred others to also hand out. And just think the clincher of the sales pitch went every other business that bought an advert on the map would also be advertising your business, too. It was win win, baby.
Truth be told I wasn't all that blown away by the pitch. The map struck me as cheesy and for the price of each advert it seemed a couple hundred copies of the map in return was far away from a bargain. In hindsight I should have begged off and opted for a product I at least believed in. But I didn't. Instead I ventured onward with what would later prove to be a succession of passionless sales pitches. But first there was my tutelage.
A couple of days later I was invited to lunch with several other would be salesmen and the CEO of the company. He was this leader of men a squat little guy with a receding hairline and a gruff and raspy voice. He had the looks of a retired drill sergeant who through his bearing instilled in his charges the willingness to die for the good of the cause. He talked up the maps with utter conviction. The product he assured us would all but sell itself. Now get out there he said and close some sales. After our lunch I noticed he left a lousy tip.
The next morning I met up once again at the Majestic with the salesman who had promised to be my mentor. We hopped into his car. As we drove along rather than telling me how to sell he instead told me about how he'd once been into music and drugs. But he had found Jesus. Our CEO he assured me was also governed by the word of God. As he was telling me this and more all centered on the greatness of our lord he slowly began slouching against his door and his foot eased off the gas until he was slumped over and we were puttering along on a thoroughfare at ten miles per hour. A bleating horn snapped him out of his trance like state. He sat upright, jammed on the gas, and asked, Now where was I? A few minutes later we pulled up to a gas station and he told me to watch how it was done. He asked for the owner and when the man appeared he turned on his smile and made his pitch. His patter was friendly and inviting but he did not make a sale. From there we went to a succession of different businesses. At each stop my mentor turned up the wattage of his smile and slipped after pleasantries into his pitch. Not once did he make a sale. The following morning he had me meet him in the lobby of a hotel in down town Decatur, for one last day of training. As I was waiting for him a bloated middle-aged man had a heart attack and keeled over in the hallway leading to a restaurant on the other side of the lobby. I watched several kneeling waiters do their best to render first-aid. The following morning I was off to fend for myself, an able body salesman with my very own territory.
Donning polished shoes, crisp pressed pants, a buttoned up shirt and tie I consulted a map and set off for the outer reaches of my sales territory. I was truth be told putting off my first attempt at making a pitch. But eventually after much driving I pulled into a motel driveway, parked, and made my way inside to give it a shot. I was far from smooth, ingratiating and articulate. In short I muffed it. I got back in my car and turned up the AC. For I was for my efforts drenched in sweat. The rest of my calls that day and the several that followed were likewise unsettling affairs. None of my pitches garnered a sale.
One morning in East Atlanta, I stepped up to a building that had no sign indicating what type of business it was. After several knocks the door opened just wide enough to reveal the face of a glaring and evil looking man. I slipped into my pitch the whole time thinking there was something wrong with this picture. "I can't help you," said the man with a sinister look that seemed borrowed from the crazed antagonist in a slasher movie. I asked if him if his boss was around. By then I was thinking that behind that door was a woman dangling from a meat hook. "I told you," he said, his eyes seeming to look right through me. "I can't help you." He closed the door. The following few days I read the newspaper religiously on the look out for a story about a gruesome discovery in the bowels of a building in East Atlanta.
Some how ten days into it I managed to close a sale at a hotel owned by an Indian man named Patel. It turned out the business was outside my sales territory. So the salesman whose territory it was chalked up the sale. Not me.
After an exceedingly bad pitch the following day I stepped out of the business and raising my arms heavenward and spinning slowly around I yelled out, "I'm the worst salesman ever." Shortly thereafter my mentor had me meet him at a nearby Shake and Steak. "I want you to turn in your clipboard," he said. "And don't take it so hard. This kind of work isn't right for everyone."
No comments:
Post a Comment