yeah yeah yeah its been a month, here, chew on this

http://www.thefloatingfrog.co.uk/fun/too-much-tango-made-me-think-i-was-a-ninja-but-im-not-im-just-gary/


i want some tango



So its been a month, When last I checked in, I was in sunny miami at a retreat.

Now I've returned. I've been hiring people in our main market, and losing people in our sattelite market. we're about to get a new trainer rolling. this is exciting. this means i can hire more people more often. and eventually reach the fabled 5 stores i need to be running in order to really rock this market. (and promote people to assistant management/unit training. Basically i need it in order to get my life back).

Interviews.

I am disgusted with the human race. I tell people 3 times its a full time job, and they think they can make their own schedule. GRRRR! I had one interviewee who might actually be worth her salt. we will give her a shot and find out.

Clusterfuck Payoff

I'm in Miami now. The Cool Sea Breeze (tm) is mixing with the Gallons of Liquor (tm) and erasing all my worries.

I'm on the Freakin Ocean.

Trainers Retreat. I finally feel like i'm part of this company.

I met people who work for us all across north america, I got a free flight and 3 night stay at a decent miami resort.

I still ponder the meaninglessness of the word 'Miami". I mean when you call a place "long beach" you can assume it has a long beach. When you call it Black rock, you can assume it has some rocks that are black. what the hell do you think of when you think Miami

Uno Cerveca Por Pavor, and a taco.


Meanwhile, i have agents in one city not breathing. and in another they are struggling. I have agents who can't give me their availability, I have a world potentially falling on my head.

But for the first time in months, i have a few days off, and i'm in freakin miami.

I'mma go swim in the ocean... or the resort pool. they're almost close enough to do both at the same time.

Things actually said in some pitches

I can't beleive i'm writing this post *shudder*

here's some of the stupid stuff said and overheard in pitches recently


Me: So its one knife for bread, One Knife for Meat--
Customer: One Knife to beat your wife
*Gasp*
Me: Sir... when you beat someone with a knife... thats stabbing.


Customer: did you cut yourself with that knife?
Salesperson: No, that band-aid is just a fashion statement.

Salesperson: This Knife is Made from Triple-tempered, surgical Stainless Steel, Its like having a razorblade with a handle on it.
Customer: Could you use that knife to slit your wrists.
Salesperson: What?
Customer. I heard once about this girl who cut her wrists all the way down and she bled to death.
Salesperson: Well, you wouldn't WANT to do that, but you could.

Me: Raise your hand if you've heard of the JINZU Knife (name altered to protect the innocent) Raise your hand Extra high if you OWN a JINZU Knife. oh, how do you like yours
Customer: Actually I don't
Me: Well, that's.... too... bad, for you. *audience Bursts out laughing*

ME: when this knife retails, it will be 29.99, i can't cut that price today
Customer: so there's something this knife can't cut.
Me: Pardon?
Customer: The Price
Me: You Sir, are the living end!


I feel dirty.

The Training of newbie

"IF you let me know, right.... Am I doing this right?"

"you're doing fine, shut up and get through it"

"If you let me know, right NOW, I will give you that. oh i screwed up"

"no you didn't, or at least you didn't until you stopped, relax and say it"


this is the perpetual loop of training a new agent. people are fucked up about 'doing it right' when the only way to do it right is to stop thinking about it and get on with actually doing it.



the other half of this cycle is me, stomping on their feelings and not letting them get a word in edgewise because they're doing it wrong.



stupid fucking earthlings.

Tweet Tweet!

I have joined in on the nerdery.

Find me on Twitter @PITCH_MAN

A pitch. For a really great service.

https://www.getdropbox.com/referrals/NTEyMTMwMTU5


Thats the link to DROPBOX. basically its the most amazing tool ever.

you're gonna want it. especially if you have more than one computer. AND IMMA GUNNA TELL YOU WHY!

Dropbox is a folder, it sits wherever you want it to, you can move it. its okay, dropbox knows where it is.

now the neat thing about this folder PAY ATTENTION YOU IN THE BACK! is that it SYNCS, SEAMLESSLY to any other computer you run dropbox on. because you are also running this little program in the background.

so say you're like me, i run a windows torrentbox and media centre at home. its nifty. but since it has things like an external 500 gig hard drive and all sorts of other attachments, i can't haul it around, its more like a desktop that i can move around the house. it takes me an hour to pack the thing up. (this is my toshiba tecra, great computer, i love you baby)

I also use this box for gaming (as its about the only thing windows does well). and yes. I use Vista. its the most stable OS that microsoft ever put out. I don't use anything else microsoft gives me. because their design is crap. I don't plan on using windows 7.


Now, i do a fair amount of work on the Tecra, its a good machine, but when i'm travelling around the contenent pitching my products, I like to have something a little more... ULTRA portable..... and ultra-violent.

So I have my little aspire one. it fits in a purse, but i'm manly so i have a mini laptob bag for it. I run Ubuntu netbook remix - Jaunty jackalope on it. its fantastic. BUT WAIT, what if i do some office work on the Tecra and then run away with the Aspire One and suddenly need it!

DROPBOX to the rescue motherfuckers!

Its CROSS-PLATFORM!!!!! MAC, Linux, AND WINDOWS! Take that computing stupidity!

All i do is go to the website and set it up, download the little background program and log into dropbox ONCE. its now set up.


Wait a minute, Don't want to install anything? GUESS WHAT DICKHEAD! there's an online version!

its hella cool. So how much can you sync? A WHOPPING TWO GIGS. FOR FREE.

yeah. that's right. GIGZ. DO YOU REALIZE HOW MUCH INTERNET PORN THAT IS????

oh yeah, and you can set your torrent client on one computer to automatically open .torrent files inside your dropbox. THEN AUTOMATICALLY OPEN TORRENT FILES AT HOME WHILE YOU'RE AWAY BY SAVING TORRENT FILES TO YOUR DROPBOX.

yeah, i know its AWESOME. basically a billion times better than a USB stick for most applications, and its free. two gigs on USB is usually gonna run you 20 bucks. nope. free.


no file size limit, as long as it fits in your dropbox.

whats that? 2 GIGZ not enough?

well for you film editors, graphic designers, porn kings and e-pimps, you can get 50 or even 100 gigs as long as you're willing to pay nominal fees! considering its seamless, how can you NOT get yourself a dang dropbox!

here's the ling again, you get extra space if you use my referall link. dick

https://www.getdropbox.com/referrals/NTEyMTMwMTU5

Clusterfuck again. the shocking conclusion...again!

Well, I've officially worked more shifts than anyone else in my company worldwide since january 1st.

when last we spoke of the clusterfuck that is my career, I was just about to have my first weekend since becoming manager.

Well, ever since then, it has only gotten crazier. (hence my lack of posts.


First, I began training two new trainees, one of whom quit after 4 weeks. I never realized how hard it is to find good help. during this period i basically worked every single day, if i wasn't pitching then i was getting stock or training.

Finally, i got things running stable, I trained two more agents and am about to start training the next.

and now i go back to the main city to re-open it.

finally, finally things are looking up





so..... I bought a toy!

a netbook!

and it runs Linux! its fantastic!

yep. i'm a nerd.

Cock shot

to find the second video funny, you need to be familiar with this guy



Meet Vince, He's a failed comedian who falsely claims that his chamois are made in germany. our company makes ALL the chamois. they are made on a german machine, yes.... but that machine is in china. He also sells the slapchop. Both of his products have also been put out by my company, and by billy mays on TV.

there is NOTHING unique about them. plus he does some stupid crap in his pitch, most of which is pointed out in this parody....

THE COCK SHOT!

The clusterfuck... conclusion

the clusterfuck subsides... i have won the day. i am now the last man standing. i'm quite a lot richer.


When last you heard from your faithful pitchman, i was but a trainer and sales agent living in a run down apartment. awaiting impending doom when the national director came to visit. my oh my how the tides have changed.

The Big Boss man showed up, and like the wizard of oz fixed a medium amount of things. the plan for the satellite city was (and is) totally bogus, but it seems to be working, He made me manager for my region, running two cities, my old boss took over philadelphia, and our last remaining experienced agent went with him. This left me and our struggling trainee in the satellite market. the first week went great, we pulled great sales, and i was scheduled to take two days and run back to the central city to move into the new corporate condo.


Then the shit hit the fan.

what follows is a journal of the shit hitting the fan.


11AM sunday, got the trainee set up and bought him supplies to last him while i was gone, discovered how to call 1800 numbers from inside the chain without having a cell phone.

left for home.

3pm sunday, arrive home and break down the last booth in that city for a while, run to pick up my friend who is helping me move

5pm, grab my couch and drop it at the condo. other than getting the van stuck 8 times and nearly killing my friend, things go smoothly

8pm the boxspring doesn't fit into the van, drop my friend off and then go to get money from my parents so i can buy rope and strap the boxpring to the roof of the van. i also visit a friend i loaned a book from years back. the book is somehow ruined en route.


midnight i get a call from the trainee that the hotel is booting us out, i have to return to the satellite market, i buy some red bull.

5am, after three more trips and seeing the old boss off, i begin the trip back to the satellite market. having nearly fallen asleep on the road several times already, i am slamming energy drinks and singing along to bad rock songs like there's no tomorrow


11am, i arrive in the hotel just in time to check out, the trainee is there, which struck me as odd since he was supposed to be working, i send him to the store and handle the rest of checkout and other business.

2pm i complete the paperwork necessary for everyone to get paid and fedex it to texas. then i go to check on the trainee\

3pm. the trainee is not at the store, and therefore he no longer has a job, i pitch in a state of exhaustion for several hours, then i go to the new hotel and sleep.

Tuesday through thursday are all doubleshifts. i am a zombie. but sales are excellent

Friday, interviews, i might actually get a day off one day.



and now i've been managing for a week, the store shuts down tomorrow and i can finally get some rest.


i now also have the company van, free gas, and partially free phone


i earned my chops fast, holy crap do i deserve it.

Dr. Tran 100% ICE - - kind of remotely about sales.

The clusterfuck

so we're branching out,

the company is taking on a nearby city. The NATIONAL UBERBOSS is coming to town to oversee our thrust into the nearby city, and guess who is taking over the market this week? lil ol' me.

now, this would be fine, if anyone had asked me if i could do this all in my fist week of management, but the didn't, and i probably can't without the company making a bunch of concessions.

we were given 48 hours notice that we're all moving to the nearby city, they damn well better be helping me move in.

at least i'll be saving money.

Wonderweekend

we're in Fancychain now, this makes me happy.

i have two shifts there this weekend. i'm going to make lots of cash. retarded amounts of cash.

i rule over fancychain with an iron fist.

the people will buy, and i will be rich.

which is good because i'm going to invest in a big bottle of jean paul gaultier's Le male. i hgave higher sales when i wear it.

slow day

we're in suburbanshop, i walk in this morning and i see a tumbleweed blow through a main front aisle. our booth is at the back, its gonna be a slow day

normally we make an announcement designed to make people think we're handing out iphones and that our product cures cancer. when its this slow, we make an announcement that sounds pathetic and awkward.

i sell to everyone that comes to the counter. all four of them... all day.

for every day you pull over 40 bucks an hour, there's another day where you make less than minimum.

i do my taxes between shows.

FANCYCHAIN

In my company, in Canada, we do our sales in five chains. First, you have GROCERYCHAIN. a big supermarket like WAL-SUCK but not quite as evil and with union employees. its nice because all the supplies are right in the store, along with anything you could want for lunch. I used to work for GROCERYCHAIN. it's super poorly managed. the guys at night are no longer allowed to use the dumpster because they would dump whole pallets of food into the dumpster rather than putting it on shelves. good to pitch in. super high traffic. madhouse all day long.

Then we have GHETTOMART, which is a part of GROCERYCHAIN, except that nobody knows it exists. its like costco, but smaller and more rediculous. if you buy NINE 100 gallon packages of ranch dressing, you save TEN CENTS. its cool there though cuz you can buy board games for five bucks, and cleavers for five bucks, and an entire cut of tenderloin for 20 bucks. 0ver 9000 deals.

now we have MALLSTORE, this is the standard, its a chain that spans north america. traffic is almost always good. clientele is middle class, its an all around neat place to work, but they make announcements a LOT. like every 5 minutes. its annoying trying to stand out.

next up the evolutionary scale is SUBURBANSHOP. another department store, this one is like the canadian equivalent of a target or k-mart. most of them are in suburbia, and generally suck, but the odd one can suprise you and turn out to be a cash cow. we've been working a lot of these lately

Finally, my favorite, FANCYCHAIN, by the same owners of SUBURBANSHOP. FANCYCHAIN has the highest class of clientele. you don't crack as many jokes in a fancychain, its about being credible, they have to be ready to ask if you're a chef yourself if you're selling in fancychain. best thing about fancychain though, people BUY. i ahd days where i actively attempted to PREVENT people from buying and it made them buy more.


we're going into fancychain this week. i'm ready to see a 20% boost in sales. fuck yes. moneygasm

lifelong learning

in our organization, if you're not selling, you're on the phone finding out why not.

we have a new national trainer, let's call him banderas. I have only had limited contact with him, and only for the past two weeks, but Banderas is the fucking king. he got me WAY the shit back on my game.

so the other day i'm on the phone with him talking about my issues, mostly that my crowds were small and i had no idea how to get more people in that store. and i ask how he's doing

"...Well, i just blanked twice, so i blame you, you cursed me Pitch"

We have a good laugh and I offer my ear, he's getting what i call a larry tip.

_____________________

INTERESTING PITCH TERMS FACTS TIME!!!!

LARRY meaning broken, if its our product, someone fucking ran it over with their car just to test if we would uphold our garuntee

TIP meaning audience, because we get our tip from them,

______________________

So Bandaras is getting larry tips, a larry tip doesn't want to participate, they hang back, they don't respond.

when you get a larry tip, you have two choices, fucking MAKE them participate, or cut the participation out of it. Banderas then tells me he opted for the latter. which means he handed out his free gift without making them work for it.

this means he isn't being genuine, and anything that is absolutely free, without any work involved, is automatically worth-less. and if they don't see worth in what they get for free, they aren't going to see worth in what they have to pay for.

so i tell him this, you have to be prepared not to give out the free gift if they don't participate, you have to be prepared to walk away hated. their curiousity alone will make them half-ass it until they actually become interested.



then when i hang up i think to myself... wait, did i just act as a trainer.... to the effing NATIONAL TRAINER? sweet shit.

i guess that means its not so bad that i had a crap sales week. going into the FANCYCHAIN this week though

about trent....

So, as a new local trainer, my first assignment, a few weeks ago, was to complete the training of a troublesome trainee, lets call him trent.


Trent was not the brightest bulb. in fact most bulbs are brighter than his bulb when the power is switched off. To give you an idea of how steep this learning curve was for him, here's an example:

By the time i became Trent's trainer, Trent had not come anywhere near memorizing the scripted pitch for the product, in this case, our knives. this should be done before the first day of training, Trent should have been ready to be pitching by himself, and there he was, stumbling. there is an important line about our knives, they are made from "TRIPLE TEMPERED, SURGICAL STAINLESS STEEL". Now when trent was pitching, after a week of practice, he would stumble and say its made from "TRIPLE tempered... surgically.... implanted... steel". and this was the strongest part of his clusterfuck pitch.

now dispite my cranky blogging alter ego, i'm a very well mannered fellow, and as such, i was patient with brent, tried to give him small steps to follow, rather than saying he needed to practice a dozen hours, just little steps he had to correct. these tiny, baby steps, requiring the smallest amount of effort, were apparently beyond him, more than once he outright told me he went drinking instead of spending time practicing. then he would go on to say he wanted to make sure he was selling so he could make money.

guess what trent? your trainer isn't a motherfucking magician. you have to work for your sales. you fucking dipfuck.

here's some more info about bre.... TRENT. Trent is in his forties, he used to be a trucker, he works at the local hockey rink doing something, he aspires to be a comedian, and he once tried to work for this company 9 years ago, and a disaster first pitch, and never pitched again. the average hiree in this company as a sales agent is between 20 and 30, and either has a marketing or performance background.

Trent will never be a comedian, he doesn't have the discipline to work out a script, and he isn't observant enough to discover what parts of that script play well, and how to adjust it. and he can't take risks. To be a successful comedian, as to be a successful pitchman, you have to be prepared to walk away hated. you have to lose your fear of rejection.

Trent will never become the comedian Ubermensch. he will never be a pitchman either.

eventually we terminated trent, he simply wasn't following our directions, we were handing him tools and he was making active choices not to use them, and as a result, he wasn't selling shit.

he still calls us, begging for a job. asking if we have a shorter pitch he can maybe do better at memorizing. I don't have the heart to tell him to go to hell, so i tell him i would consider hiring him back if he can memorize a script front and back without any effort from me, something he will never be able to achieve.

aspiring pitchmen and pitchladies, don't be like trent. just don't do it.

I'll just leave this here...

The Union Square Peeler Man

Joe Ades sold peelers for 5 dollars in union square for 15 years. He died last week. legend has it he made 6 figures, which means would have had to sell about 60 an hour.

so thats 3 per pitch at 20 pitches an hour, 3 minute pitch in the one of the busiest squares in the world.

its possible he really did make 6 figures.

by the way, i tracked down those peelers. if you wanna buy em cheap and use them for pitching yourself, you can find them here:

http://www.zena.ch/e_metall.html

http://www.swissmade.com/en/web/index.php?id=254&s=zena_-_rex_economy_peeler_(pack_of_2)

speaking of stupid behavior

Now the most interesting thing about this job is the ways people behave. you see, when you put people in a group, they do the strangest things imaginable.

"I KNOW! I'll leave my crying child to be babysat by a complete stranger who sells KNIVES" in what universe is this a sane thought?

this actually happens. a LOT. Let the pitchman entertain the kids that I never planned to have and want no responsibility for. Its a great way to ruin my sales. fuck you absentee mommy.

Once I had a former pitchman come in and destroy my show for no reason. See, when you are a pitchman, you learn all the little social tricks to put rude people in their place, but you also learn to ignore them, like this gentleman, who blew out my measly audience and then wouldn't stop chatting with me. He claimed that pitching bought his way through law school. Now he's in his 40's or 50's and clearly too lonely to do anything but harass someone who he has something in common with.


**********

This is the best audience in the world. Everyone is going to buy. there's 20 people here, everyone is participating, when i ask them to cheer for a free gift, they all scream without hesitation, when i ask them if they're wondering how much it costs, all their heads bob up and down. and then SHE speaks up.

its a sweet little old lady. Don't be fooled, after 90 years, they become hazards for people like me, and heres why:

"Where are you from young man?" she speaks in a thick slavic accent.

i tell her gently that i can have a chat with her in a just a second. I'm two seconds from landing a killer sale. she responds

"I'm from prague, do you know where that is?"

I ignore her this time, i really would be happy to talk with her, but not while i'm trying to build tension up for the audience so they'll pull the trigger and buy.I pull out the biggest, fanciest knife that we save for last. she keeps talking, people are starting to leave. I look like an asshole now. fuck. fuck. fuck.

FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO LET ME KNOW RIGHT NOW!!!


I sell 9 units. a good show, the old lady even bought one, but if she hadn't shown up, i could have sold twice that and i know it. 9 is an awesome show mind you, its good. but fuck do i ever hate knowing i could have sold way more.



Want to know my fatal flaw? I KNOW that there is always some better way i could have done my show, i'm not satisfied until everyon buys five sets, and goes and gets store credit to do it.

because i know its possible. i've seen shows happen that way. once in a blue moon.

but you gotta be fast, you gotta be on your toes. in every show, something will go wrong, its how you deal with it that makes or breaks your sales.

An Introduction....

I'm a pitchman,

Those people in chefs coats you see in the mall showing you knives that never go dull?

The guy with the cloth that absorbs water like a vaccum?

yeah. that's me. I won't say what company I work for, or what products we sell, but simply that its a strange job. I'm also a trainer, and soon to be manager for this particular company, I work my ass off, so realize any complaining comes with an equal amount of love for my job.

My background is in theatre, and i still produce plays. as far as day jobs go, i'm one of the few actors i know that make their money performing. It's not glamorous, and generally you don't get flowers at the end of your show. but you can walk away from a show thinking "hey, i just made a hundred and fifty dollars in 45 minutes for doing something fun". so in my eyes, I'm still ahead, especially since i'm only a few months out of school and actually have some sort of plan for acheiving a career in theatre. This is a stepping stone.



Here i will chronicle the daily adventures of pitching, the terrible mistakes i make, the rediculous stories of my co-workers, my complaints about the competition, and the most entertaining, the strange things folks do as audience members.




It should be noted that the pitches where knives fly into the audience dangerously are always the ones where people buy the most. being reminded of our mortality makes us stronger consumers.... scary.