SalesRants

The Acne Horse

Business culture has long been marked by impressive selfishness and a chokingly competitive spirit that has, on occasion, literally left bodies in its wake. In the purely scatological sense, if you're not number one, you are, indeed, number two. Invariably, this effort to avoid fecalization can breed a certain amount of paranoia for weak-minded fools who traffic in a combination of pettiness and secrecy. A one-time coworker of mine personified these characteristics, but the story doesn't end there.

After I was out of work for far too long, a friend took pity on me, getting me on board with the US branch of a successful-in-spite-of-itself, UK-based pharmaceutical media company. It was a gig, and in the interest of personal hygiene and saving my marriage, I gladly took the job. My faithful cohort was also kind enough to give me the lay of the land. This included giving me the lowdown on Ed Morgan.* Ed was a lifer, a company man who felt as though his existence was absolutely vital to the survival of the US operation. He'd convinced himself of this fact, but was seemingly unaware that

At the most basic beginnings of perception, Ed's complexion was reminiscent of the back of a sunburned armadillo. Along with this pockmarked landscape, he'd carried a lisp into adulthood, making every use of the "s"sound an adventure (especially fun when selling the company's wares required frequent use of the word "pharmaceutical.") To cap the whole package off, though, Ed was a confident bastard, which is generally the hallmark of an insecure loser. He bore a passing resemblance to actor James Woods, a characteristic that would send a normal man off to the plastic surgeon looking for some pro bono work, but it was a fact that Ed would point out with a peacock's pride. It seems cruel and rather base to make fun of a colleague's personal appearance and speech impediment. But when the barer of these traits is a throbbing rectum of a person, all's fair game. In business, though, he reigned supreme, at least in one area of the media trade.

Ed was easily the biggest commission hound I've come across. He would crawl across a solid half acre of nail-filled, dirty diapers to grab onto any sales lead, and then hold on for dear life. Once in the door, he'd guide the mark toward whatever paid him the highest rate, regardless of whether or not it would yield any meaningful results for them. Then, when the unhappy client would never advertise again, he would proceed to try and sell them anything that wasn't nailed down. It was an embarrassing effort, but even when his eyes were swollen with tears, and any normal man would've reached for a length of rope, Ed was steadfast. He was a living monument to persistently misguided energy, a veritable human Hackney horse, reputed to be so stubborn and single minded that he would die working in his harness.

 

       

But there was always the determination, a highly enviable trait that cannot be taught, but when combined with skill and polish, can create a sales professional of unequalled talent and value.

Talk around the office was that Ed could continue to come home as long as that sweet paycheck led the way through the front door. He had some sort of common law marriage, which was rumored to have grown out of one of those classically romantic substance abuse issues. (Think F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, or Liz Taylor and Richard Burton, just without the talent or notoriety.) This blessed union resulted in the birth of a child. While by my guess, Ed was a perfectly loving father -- not prone to wickedness or abuse -- he was not a skilled father. When he failed to enroll his child in kindergarten because he didn't know he had to do so, this was an indication. When he excitedly told us of the load of used plush toys he'd lucked into at no cost to him, sure to result in the merriest Christmas ever, it was simply further proof of his dubious parental instincts.

But there was always the determination, a highly enviable trait that cannot be taught, but when combined with skill and polish, can create a sales professional of unequalled talent and value. For Ed, it was an internal organ as vital as his liver or kidneys. It was his special donation to the effort and what made him successful, regardless of the definition. Then again, perhaps this is all a great joke, the higher power getting a giggle out of putting this engine in a truck with no tires and dented front fenders. Maybe we all need a little Ed in us, but then that's what his drunken common law wife said.

most of his colleagues regarded him as a chronic annoyance.

Luke, I am Your Sales Guru

You've decided to make a go of it and blaze your own trail into the media forest. You're ready to become one who disseminates the information. You spend a year or so learning the ins and outs of the business, maybe as an editorial assistant, a marketing assistant, a production assistant, or just plain assisting. But there's always an eye solidly looking forward to the day when you're whisked around the city in a town car, lunching with celebrities and prospective editorial talent, turning jobs away because "$1,000,000 just ain't gonna cut it."

Then, one day, your landlord says he's got a gaggle of diplomat's children ready to pay $2000.00 more per month for your studio apartment with the shower in the kitchen (where you normally store pots and pantry items for lack of anywhere else to put them). Inconsolable, you take a $20 cab ride to go and drown your sorrows in $7 pints of beer while burning through an $8 deck of Marlboro Lights. The next day, when your boss responds to your request for a raise with a little giggle and pat on the head, you head to HR, and see if there are any jobs available in... sales?

You feel dirty, maybe even a little nauseated. You've just inked your name on the devil's dance card. You're cold, ice cold, but you're also pragmatic. Sure, sales guys have been tagged as the slimy suits who write off Brylcreem and own reversible slacks, but they also seem to have homes. That they own. Some are even fairly okay folks. They're not all about fast ones and sleights of hand. Maybe you can really make a go of this -- burn a whole different path into the sales game -- but how do you do it?

There is a multi-billion dollar business that envelops sales training -- some of it useful, much of it, redundant at best, and patently misguided at worst. To say that all sales-related manuals and seminars are useless is both incorrect and unfair, but jumping into a sea of sales advice without knowing anything about how the game works helps no one. You were practical in your decision to get into sales, so be equally practical in your approach to learning about it.

For those seeking some simple words of wisdom, here you go:

 

1) Don't sell steaks to a vegan. (In other words, make sure your potential customer has use for your wares.)
2) Don't be a jerk.
3) Ask more questions then you normally would in the course of a conversation. (However, steer clear of politics, religion, prurient subject matter -- yes, that includes the latest Paris Hilton snippet on YouTube -- and any obvious physical afflictions.)
4) Know your product at least as well as the buyer.
5) If you don't know the answer to something, say "I don't know, but I can certainly find out."
6) If you suck at all of the above, quit and go join the Army (I'm fairly sure they're hiring.)

Let's be as objective as we can: There is no Nobel Prize for sales, and no one's won a MacArthur genius grant for landing a deep-pocketed advertiser. We don't spend our days peering through microscopes to cure disease. We don't sit across the table from banana republic dictators trying to convince them that slaughtering citizens isn't the strongest way to gain most favored trading status. We sell. We sell intangible goods and services. We sell eyeballs. We sell "sticky." But most importantly, we sell ourselves.

 

       

This job is not for everyone. You'll be involved in so much glad-handing that you'll pray for leprosy, and there's no byline for getting tanked with vendors at a trade show.

When you pay a visit to the media buyer for a small to mid-size company with a half-million dollar ad budget, you're sitting with someone who has enough responsibility to help you make quota, but you can't expect them to redirect your career. Don't get too worked up. You're not about to choose between snipping the blue wire or the red wire. Sit back, relax, and have a nice chat.

To be clear, this job is not for everyone. You'll likely be involved in so much glad-handing that you'll pray for leprosy, and there's no byline attached to getting tanked with vendors in town for a trade show. But, as you move along, best case scenario is that you learn through doing saleswhat makes media tick. Whether you want to acknowledge it or not, the media biz doesn't glide around on a cloud of integrity -- rather, it speeds along a patched-together ramp made from equal parts hope and speculation. Despite what you've heard, read, or even seen, working in sales isn't all lies and distractions, nor is it a three-way contest where the third prize is a pink slip. It's a good way to make a solid living, learn about a business you've always wanted to be in, and occasionally, even get a satisfying opportunity to be creative.

Like, say, if you get to babble about all your experiences in an anonymous column.

 

Masters of Their Domain Name

The late 90's were a great age, an era built on a quivering, Jell-o-like foundation of bloated hope and empty promises. The media landscape was littered with modern-day robber barons -- wannabe Rockefellers with freshly-minted MBA's trying to weld a ".com" onto everything they could. They fluttered around, desperately seeking funding for their shaky -- at best -- business proposals, drawing their self-importance like gunfighters, even though there was seldom any substance to be found.

During the heyday, I worked for a consumer title as its ad director. As part of this gig, I'd inherited the "Director of New Media" title from a colleague who himself chose to stake his claim in the wilds of Silicon Alley. Along with this post, I was endowed with a stack of greasy business cards and a directive to "see what these assholes are all about." One of these cards, marked with a large, cocktail-sauce thumbprint was for Blake Rothwax*, director of business development at Hombre.com.

ombre.com billed itself as a site for men who do all those things men do. It provided softheaded frat boys and socially stifled geeks with enough obnoxious ammo to enter the battlefields of condom selection and choosing the costliest leather recliner on which to drink oneself into a Budweiser stupor while watching Sportscenter. It made Maxim look like The Paris Review, thanks to a combination of editorial lifted straight out of last night's drunken conversation and re-purposed junk from other, equally egregious sources -- mashed together with all the élan of a 10-car pile-up. In the interest of full disclosure, my tastes run only slightly above the lowest brow, but Hombre was just stupid -- and there's never an excuse for stupid.

My initial call to Blake was pleasant enough, leading to a scheduled meeting at our office to discuss "synergy." To me, synergy was a word I'd throw around in order to guzzle whiskey and eat filet on the company dime, but for Blake, it was what got him out of bed every morning. The day before we were set to meet, Blake left me an excited voicemail to announce that he would be coming to the office with a special guest -- chief executive hombre himself, Mr. Roman Romanus. In anticipation of his arrival, I asked the marketing department to prepare a few gross of rose petals to toss at his feet, but they were too busy pandering to our circulation director.

Blake and Roman arrived at our office 15 minutes late. The mélange of stale cigarette smoke and wet wool that usually filled the air was instantly replaced by a sickly sweet aroma -- eau de pure arrogance. As someone with a low tolerance for legends in their own mind, I could tell it was going to be a special day.

We gathered in the conference room, where Roman presented the publisher and I with media kits -- not for Hombre.com, mind you, but for him. Yes, the man had his own personal media kit. He'd been one of the first 25 employees at one of the few truly successful Internet companies. He had the requisite MBA from the highfalutin' Ivy. The upshot of this epic was that his efforts resulted in a paid five-year lease for 15,000 square feet of prime Bay Area property, in exchange for a significant portion of pre-IPO stock. In other words, the only thing protecting us from an explosion of pure bombast was the healthy skepticism his tall tale engendered.

 

       

This was the new media, and he was breaking ground, a modern-day William Randolph Hearst trafficking in hangover remedies and bikini model clip art.

The print version wasn't enough, though. He spun us his tale, packed with the hyperbole of the time: This was the new media, and he was breaking ground, a modern-day William Randolph Hearst trafficking in hangover remedies and bikini model clip art. He saw us being shoehorned into his vision by allowing Hombre.com to use our archived content as his. We would get a cut of all ad revenue based on page views of the channel where our old editorial ran. It all sounded good enough to us. No one on our side of the table was blinded by his aura, nor were we choking on smoke, but he wasn't asking for any money. Our content was essentially rotting on a server in Florida, so why not throw it his way and maybe make a few bucks?

A week later, Blake called to see what we thought of Roman. While he was obviously eager to hear how impressed we were, it was simpler and far less offensive to say "Yeah, nice guy" and move along. Blake told me that they were just waiting to get the contract back from "legal" and he would send it our way to sign off. Three days later, a 15-page PDF file landed in my inbox, an impressively pointless document filled with words like "heretofore" and "fiduciary." Before I committed to actually reading this garbage, I figured I should make one more phone call to old Blake.

"Say, Blake, just out of curiosity, how much are your ads selling for now, and how much do you anticipate selling in six months?" I asked

He responded with an extended silence, finally breaking it with "Um... let me call you back."

I wasn't surprised that I never heard from Blake again. On closer inspection, there wasn't even a faint whiff of advertising anywhere on the site -- no banners, nary a button, not even a hyperlinked keyword. Nada. It seemed Hombre.com wasn't the man it claimed to be. Unfortunately, those heady days were marked mostly by light ideas given weight simply through greed. Maybe it's not all over, though. As I lean back in my third-hand Aeron chair, staring at the broken second-generation blueberry iMac perched on the foosball table, I wonder when the renaissance will begin?

*Names have been changed to protect the... you be the judge.

 

The Boss' Idiot Son

Part of the grand history of American business is the tradition of the family-owned company. These vaunted names of modern commerce -- Ford Motor Company, McGraw Hill -- have flourished, or at least managed to survive relatively unscathed for decades. Invariably though, somewhere down the line, the assumption of inherited management yields to another American tradition: the boss's idiot son.

Without the benefit of a Latin genus nomenclature, the boss's idiot son is not so much a rare, as he is an unfortunate breed. On occasion, the owner's progeny can be a resource -- better yet, a trusted-ally in back office power plays -- but more often then not, he deserves little more than a pat on the head and an office where he can't do any damage. He's the one who takes a full fiscal quarter to order office supplies. He's the one who negotiates vendor contracts based on economic factors like the volume of lap dances and smoked sausage-filled gift baskets he's gotten over the course of a year. He's the one who's mocked, occasionally openly, for his misguided or nonexistent work ethic and well-honed ability to make a mess of the simplest tasks.

Throughout my media career I've encountered the species in several variations: as my boss, as my co-worker, and as my client. Interestingly, the common threads among them all were false workaholism and a well-honed appreciation for pornography. (I'll leave it to the scientific research community to determine if there is a link or not.) A case in point is a young man we'll call Johnny Incompetent*.

Johnny was the heir to the throne of a once-mighty, family-owned trade publishing company -- a fourth-generation softhead unto whom was bequeathed the reins of his diminished, although profitable birth rite. With this inheritance in place, Johnny first chose a path far from publishing, joining the Marines to fly "whirlybirds" (as he liked to call them), rather then become a bitter, old publishing failure like his father (a tale for another time.) Johnny even graduated from the Naval Academy: a true commitment, his demonstrated dedication to defending liberty through aggression. Regrettably, Johnny's plans to be a career officer were sidetracked. I heard a litany of stories as to how he ended up in the family business, as opposed to making his living as a merchant of "Death from Above" (as much of his casualwear advertised).

A few tales involved drunken hijinks that would likely have had superiors suggesting a career change. There was the story of nerve damage caused by a broken bottle at an Anchorage, AK wedding reception. There was even a tale told in hushed tones involving the accidental deaths of some colleagues. No one really knew what drove Johnny back to the cold bosom of the family biz, but whatever the reason, we were stuck with him and he with us. Johnny was named operations director, a title and role created especially for him. This meant it was his responsibility to make sure that everything ran smoothly. As he would explain, "If I'm doing my job right, you won't even notice I'm doing my job."

Sure enough, everyone noticed Johnny wasn't doing his job. When the office fax machine he'd bought used -- prior to learning that ink cartridges were no longer made for it --suddenly ran out of ink, we noticed. When he booked the editor of the company's international agricultural magazine on a flight from New York to Brazil that made four stops -- totaling 14 hours of layover time -- we noticed. But, the most noticeable mark of Johnny's reliably terrible operational actions was the hire of Suzy* as office receptionist.

Suzy was a towering woman who looked like she'd been plucked from obscurity at a gentleman's club. Everything about her was exaggerated: the artificially bloated lips, the bottled blondness, the Barbie doll-like curves. She dressed for success, if you measure success in yards of black lace, fishnet hosiery, and red leather. Simply put, she was a walking wet dream -- a teenage boy's notion of perfection -- which made her more than qualified as far as Johnny was concerned. Her office duties? If she had a written job description, I was never privy to it.

       

His myriad requests for his bombshell secretary had all the subtlety of a barnstorming evangelist.

As Suzy's top-heavy form teetered around the office on her customary spike heels, Johnny kept cooking up reasons to have her walk over to his desk. "Suzy, I need help with this order form." "Suzy, could you get me some more paper clips?" "Suzy, could you tie my shoe?" He had all the subtlety of a barnstorming evangelist. The only saving grace was that Johnny's objectifying requests often kept Suzy from actually answering the phone, which was for the best. Left to Suzy's devices, callers often wound up on hold for minutes that gave way to hours, often abandoned altogether. But, it wasn't really her fault -- Johnny needed some mushroom barley soup, and he was simply too busy to leave the office. Four months after she started, Suzy went to lunch one day and never returned. Why? No one really knows. She had no personal items at the office, nor had she established any real attachment with the company. Johnny was crestfallen: No more peeping down blouses. No more derriere-gazing. It was all over.

As the boss's idiot son, Johnny excelled. He was the picture of inherited success, no taking that away from him. There was even talk in the production office of adding him to the top of each masthead with this very title -- above the editor-in-chief, above the publisher – "Boss's Idiot Son," the real position of honor. It would've been a thing of beauty. Not that Johnny would've noticed. He read just one magazine, and last time I checked, there was no masthead in Barely Legal.

*Names have been changed

 

Marrow Focus

That old housewife axiom, "The easiest way to a man's heart is through his stomach," was steeped in the tradition of the king returning to his castle, in a 50's Donna Reed sense, of course. In the modern day of world of cutthroat media sales, this phrase can be co-opted and gloriously bastardized to something along the lines of, "the easiest way to a fat man's ad budget is through his epic appetite."

A few years ago, I was working for a lifestyle publication dedicated to an unhealthy lifestyle, a title laser-focused on shortening the existence of its readers. As you may imagine, many of the book's advertisers were equally dedicated to pleasuring themselves to death (so to speak.) Lunches were liquor-soaked. Dinners were bacchanalian feasts of grilled meat with sides of grilled meat. Desserts were commonly enjoyed at any number of New York gentlemen's clubs, and involved surprisingly little sugar. Despite the fact that virtually every one of these advertisers was a reliably despicable individual, one of my most vivid memories involved something akin to a family-style dinner, with an extra dose of family.

Ralph Balboni* was the pursestring holder for a multifaceted, internet-based packaged goods company. I'd known him for about a year, but his position always fascinated me. In that year, I'd spoken with several other of his colleagues who always chose to defer to Ralph on a variety of issues. When the CEO said he'd have to get Ralph's blessing as well, my curiosity mounted. Ralph seemed to be a company oracle, more than anything else -- a shaman without whom nothing could be achieved. Or. he'd just worked his way up high enough in the crime family, to the strata where all decisions had to be run by him. One of the two.

My boss and I went to his suburban New York office to chat about some ad space on a windswept Thursday afternoon. Our plan was to dazzle him with our shiny wares, throw a piece of meat and a glass of wine down his throat, and hit the road, victorious in our conquest.

After we chatted about the benefits and pitfalls of advertising schedules, we shook hands on a deal, and decided where we would go for what had now become dinner. It would be my boss, me, and Ralph…and Ralph's wife, and Ralph's son, and Ralph's daughter-in-law, all heading to one of the finest steakhouses outside the New York city limits. Now, Ralph was obviously no Saturday soldier of the dinner table. This was a man who made sweet, yet indelicate love to every plate of food ever to find its unfortunate way beneath his nose. There's a self-affirming, if not slightly crude phrase which travels the underground network of plus-sized gentlemen everywhere: "it takes a big man to build a shed over his tools." Over the years, Ralph seemed to have constructed something of a substantial split-level ranch with a family room, wet bar, and bonus den over the garage. His generous proportions and easygoing demeanor were clear indications of his appreciation for life's bounty.

Ralph's family met us at the restaurant. A surprisingly attractive and sophisticated woman (his wife); a beady eyed, ex-con wannabe sporting a wrinkled dinner jacket (Ralph's son); and a once-pretty woman whose hobby appeared to be insomnia (the daughter-in-law), were waiting for us at the bar. This enchanting gaggle greeted us with a combination of flaccid handshakes and crooked smiles. Once seated, Ralph started regaling us with tales of meat. To call him the Socrates of Sirloin would be too strong, but he certainly knew more about steaks and fat marbling than anyone without a portable oxygen tank or who works in a kitchen should know. He knew all the different ways to "slice the flank." He knew the layered components of the proper short rib. Needless to say, we ordered steak. The porterhouse for six -- a lunch tray-sized slab of rare beef, seasoned with salt, pepper, and a generous dollop of butter -- arrived at the table. Ralph looked slightly wild-eyed. His wife subtly placed her hand on his wrist -- perhaps a loving gesture, but, more likely some sort of control mechanism.

       

No morsel of meat was too small to escape this surgeon's scalpel.

The actual dining portion of the dinner went off without a hitch. We all made pleasant conversation, and a real family atmosphere imbued the whole proceeding. The steak itself was indeed very good, and Ralph was obviously satisfied. He wore a Cheshire cat grin, albeit one with all the teeth jammed up with flecks of creamed spinach and gristle. It appeared everything was a tremendous success. Then, Ralph gave me the single greatest validation of my skill as a sales professional.

Ralph reached over and grabbed the knife and fork off his wife's plate, upended the abandoned bone, and proceeded, butcher-like, to shear it of its remaining beefy goodness. No morsel of meat was too small to escape this surgeon's scalpel. My boss and I had obviously managed to make Ralph feel at ease and we watched, both gratified and horrified, as Ralph gnawed his steak bone with reckless abandon. If there was any doubt as to Ralph's comfort level, the last shred of it was abandoned as my boss and I bore witness to the end of this digestive display: a small bit of tendon taking brief refuge in Ralph's moustache.

Some may have taken Ralph's final pass at our table's entrée as an act of overbearing gluttony. What it was, though, was a satisfied gastronome who felt comfortable enough to up-end a steak bone and hack at it like he lived in a jungle. As to whether or not Ralph would have been as comfortable working the leftovers with any dinner companions, who's to say? But, I do know this:

Screw the sizzle -- it's the steak that sells.

*Names have been changed to protect the... you be the judge.

Death of a Salesman

Recently, my wife's grandfather passed away. He was a great man, and a true gentleman in every sense of the word. As the patriarch of a large Italian family, Santo fathered five children, had nine grandchildren, and a few dozen great-grandchildren. They were all at my mother-in-law Vera's* house after the funeral, eating trays of mediocre eggplant parmiagiana (a sad reminder of how good his wife Vera's legendary cooking was) and trying not to cry. At 88 years old, Santo* lived a great life. "What a run," everyone was saying, and it was true. The 30-odd family members gathered at the house -- a veritable football team of direct descendants and in-laws were Santo's living legacy. I kept thinking how amazing it was that he had created this.

Since all of my grandparents had passed on a dozen years before I met Santo for the first time, I naturally adopted him as my surrogate grandfather. I don't know if it was something we had in common (a decent sized beer belly, and a love of Italian food), or just his natural way with people, but Santo put me at ease the moment we met twelve years ago. He was instantly concerned that I was getting enough to eat, and made it clear to Vera, in a very gentlemanly but insistent way, that I was to be wanting for nothing while I was in his house. That night the dish was crab sauce, a special red sauce made with fresh hunks of blue crab, slowly simmered and laid over a fat hollow noodle. So abundant was the spread on the table that I made the rookie mistake of eating my fill, not realizing that the pasta was merely the first course. When the pot roast, vegetables, and the mighty braciole came out, I was surprised -- and frightened. I was sitting within Santo's view and somehow, I felt I was being judged on my appetite. Despite my discomfiture, I managed to put down several thick slices of pot roast.''

t's funny. My natural grandfather was also a real gentleman -- very quiet and reserved, and certainly well loved and respected by his family and friends. He, too, had the requisite beer belly and a twinkle in his eye. His family ended up distant and conflicted, though. Santo's family is tighter than a drum. I don't know if it's the difference between growing up Italian and Irish, but the family Santo created seemed to have a power in it that defied division. Maybe he was the one keeping it together all the time. More likely, it was (and still is) his silent force -- a feeling that if you did something wrong, he would hear about it, and feel differently about you. Santo was somebody you would never want to disappoint.

Santo was a salesman, by the way. He owned his own sewing machine company, and he sold industrial sewing equipment to the factories in New York. He always referred to them as "machines." He would be telling a story about some guy he knew back in the 60's, and I would ask him how he knew the guy. "I used to sell him machines," he would say. Somehow, that explained everything.

If growing up in East New York ever hurt his prospects, I never heard it from Santo. The part of Brooklyn where Santo grew up was a vibrant neighborhood, populated with tons of interesting characters, and lots of friends and family. In hearing the tales of the old days, Santo would always -- and I mean always -- begin the story by referencing the car he was driving. He had pictures of most of them, and after a while you could pinpoint the decade by knowing whether he was driving the Chrysler or the Buick at the time. He did a lot of driving, and sold a lot of machines.

 

       

I never heard Santo tell a specific sales story. The sales aspect was always kind of a given -- just a small part of his identity and persona.

It's funny, but even with fifty years of sales under his belt, I never heard Santo tell a specific sales story. Sure, it may have involved him "going over to Jersey to deliver a machine," but usually the story was around a flat tire, or some kind of trouble he managed to land in while on the road. The sales aspect was always kind of a given -- just a small part of his identity and persona. I don't know how many machines Santo ultimately sold and delivered in his life, but it must have been a lot. He provided well for his family, and kept them close. Especially Vera. Until the very end, their relationship had a level of fiery passion that would put a Shakespearian romance to shame. Just a few weeks ago, Vera unceremoniously dismissed a part time nurse whose medical ministrations to Santo seemed too flirtatious. Did they fight? Yes, to the very end. It was proof that their passion for each other never dimmed, even after 50-plus years of marriage.

Salesmen are usually judged by their numbers. Some successful ones like to have the most cars, biggest houses and boats, and largest bank accounts. Santo was financially successful, but I know he got more pleasure counting grandchildren than money. I guess it's the difference between making a killing and making a living.

*Names have been changed to protect the... you be the judge.

Pigeon Feed

Remember that television commercial featuring the two consultants talking to a corporate guy? It went something this like this:

Consultants: First you need to optimize your sales force using a state-of-the-art CRM tool, align your marketing message across multiple media to drive your quarterly goals, and implement a company-wide monitoring system to insure message optimization across multiple business units, resulting in huge gains across multiple metrics. This plan is sure to turn your business around.

Corporate Guy: Great! When can you start doing it?

Consultants: [Break down in gales of laughter].  We don't actually do anything... we just tell you how to do it! [They dissolve paroxyms of malevolent laughter].

Anyway, you get the drift. Despite the almost universal reckoning that corporate consultants do little more than sell glorified PowerPoint presentations full of the latest business jargon, companies such as my beloved Big Media Company continue to employ them. Let me introduce you to the very best consulting scam ever invented, one that Big Media Company fell for hook, line and sinker.

carily enough, it's called "SPIN Selling�" "SPIN," of course, is an acronym. Let me save you $500,000 and give you the S.P.I.N. Selling� overview in a nutshell: First, find out what people want before you try and sell them something. Then, tailor your sales pitch to address their needs. Sounds simple, right?

Instead of barging into some agency, breaking out your media kit, and telling your customer your circulation, readership, and what special issues you have coming up, why not sit down over a cup of coffee and ask him a bunch of questions. Like: How is your business? (a Situation question); Is the price of paper leading to an increase in your costs? (Problem); Why is it important to solve this problem (Implication); and, If I lowered your rate, would this help you reach more potential customers? (Need/ payoff).

So, you SPIN a customer, slowly walking him through his situation, how it affects his business, and how you -- his savior -- may solve his problems using whatever it is you happen to be selling. It's how probably 90 percent of all salesmen and 100 percent of successful ones approach their business. It's called consultative sales or, put more simply, selling something that people need. What the company that sells the SPIN program offers, however, is more ingenious than anything that's gone along with products I've ever hocked. They take what is a very straightforward and simple sales process (ask questions, provide answers) and pile a bunch of meaningless process and acronyms on top of it, creating a sales pseudoscience that, like Boggle, is "easy to learn, impossible to master."

Let me tell you how it works (applicable not just to SPIN, but all bullshit media sales consultants and sales consulting in general): The Consultant comes into Big Media Company (the Pigeon) with a long list of corporate stooges who have used their product (IBM, Honeywell, or any Fortune 500 client whose size exceeds that of the Pigeon, and whose CEO is likely to be impressed by). The Consultant says they can increase sales by 20 percent a year using their new patented sale methodology. The Pigeon's CEO cuts that estimate in half and still figures he's up a few million net, even after paying the Consultant a healthy $500,000 fee. Soon enough, the Pigeon signs up, and mandates sales training for everyone on staff.

 

       

Naturally, since the test is based on the yet-untaught sales principles offered in the coursework, the results are terrible. Pigeon's people are way behind the curve!

The Consultant comes in for about a month, and trains everyone, 20 at a time, using the same off-the-shelf Powerpoint presentation, with Pigeon's name sprinkled throughout for that customized look. People are asked to take a test before the training to establish a "baseline" of sales effectiveness. Naturally, since the test is based on the yet-untaught sales principles offered in the coursework, the results are terrible. Pigeon's people are way behind the curve! Compared to (insert Fortune 500 company's results here), Big Media Company is a non-player in the 12th percentile!

The training commences, filled with obscure terminology and acronyms designed to turn what is essentially an easy-to-understand concept into something on which you can slap a patent. After the trainings are complete, another test is administered to make sure Pigeon's salespeople have absorbed the expensive, mandated training. Lo and behold, the results come in, and Consultant has really made an impact! Compared to the initial baseline results, the latest monitoring shows that Pigeon's staff is really embracing this new sales dynamic! Sadly, however, there is still work to be done. We show that IBM's salespeople achieved a 15 percent higher result on their post-training assessment, so we recommend a further dose of advanced training (at a discounted rate of $250,000).

You get the gist. By the time Big Media Company -- or any other Pigeon -- realizes that their sales are about the same as last year, and that Consultant's package is perhaps better suited to selling something like consulting services, rather than classified advertising, it's too late.

Moral of story: Never buy something from a salesperson who is full of more shit than you.

Ask SSG: Switching into Sales?

I'm thinking of getting into sales myself, but I wonder if it is fulfilling enough. What are your thoughts?

Is driving a brand new BMW 5-Series fulfilling? How about lingering over a $90 bottle of crisp French wine over a dozen oysters at an overpriced Hamptons eatery with a hot date? Or, perhaps, dropping $800 on an accessory sure to go out of style in three months? Are those things fulfilling? Of course they are. They are also the kinds of things that a successful career in sales can bring you.

There are thousands of very spiritually rewarding careers out there that can pay the bills—and some of them can earn you top dollar. However, for the average person without a load of specialized skills or an advanced degree, sales is the fast-track ticket to wealth.

       

With sales, someone basically sets you up with a computer, phone, desk, health insurance and an expense account, then prays that you can pull in four or five times your salary. The rest is up to you.

Look at me: decent enough education at an exclusive "you didn't get into Yale, but..."-type Northeastern college, pretty good writing and social skills, and a smattering of business experience culled from a variety of mid-level positions at various publishing companies. Fits neatly into your typical mediabistro.com reader demographic, right? I'm pretty smart, but I'm certainly no genius, and since I opted out of paying another $60,000 for an MBA, my choices are limited: If I aspire to make some "real" money, it's either sales or starting my own business.

With sales, someone basically sets you up with a computer, phone, desk, health insurance and an expense account, then prays that you can pull in four or five times your salary. The rest is up to you. If you are insanely motivated (by greed, mostly, but that's okay), then you'll find a way to move whatever it is you have to sell. Then you can watch the BMWs roll in. It's a pretty fulfilling life. Make enough dough, and you can assuage your privileged guilt by giving some of it away to charity.

Ask SSG: Sales Management

I'm the sales director for another big media company, managing the sales of three trade magazines, several Web sites, and a few supplements. I've been in the job for about three years now, laboring under a boss who is totally unsupportive. In fact, his decisions seem totally unrelated to the business, and I suspect he doesn't really know what's up. I'm afraid to go over his head, but I can't take this situation. What should I do?

Obviously, what you should be doing is trying to get your boss canned, but that's a complicated and lengthy process fraught with peril. As entertaining as it may be to load your boss up with faulty information and start planting mutinous seeds for a staff-wide revolt, such tactics are probably how your current boss got his job, and he may smell a rat. Remember, your incompetent boss was probably once just a soldier like you: young, hungry, and willing to upset the status quo to "make things happen." Now he is a fat, corporate pig who's been feasting for years from the management salary trough—neither willing nor able to snap at the hands that feed him.

If you have a modicum of talent and the willingness to trade your immortal soul for a shot at the bonus pool, you'll be wind up in the same position someday. If all goes well, you will laugh cynically at this query and realize how naïve you once were. For now, you need to compare your political smarts with those of your boss and examine your situation from the perspective of senior management (i.e., "What'll happen if we shitcan Mr. Fatcat Manager and replace him with Young Frustrated at a cheaper salary?"). If you can figure out the answer to that question, you'll know what to do.

Ask SSG: Online Sales

I am the associate publisher of small agricultural magazine that does around $3M a year in display advertising. Print sales are off, so we're looking to add more banner capabilities to our Web site and hire an online salesperson to sell them. What qualities should I look for in this employee? Also, not being well-versed in matters online myself, can you recommend training for me?

t sounds as though your company has been bitten by the "new media" bug, and is getting ready to flush a shitload of cash down the toilet in the interest of "staying competitive." As an avid reader of Pig International (and many other obscure controlled circulation trade magazines to which I subscribe just for the hell of it), I can tell you that the new media future in your farmers' market looks dim for years—if not decades—to come.

The first thing to do, as your magazine's AP, is set a really high commission plan for your salespeople (to incentivize growth) and, more critically, make sure you're receiving a healthy override on all sales. The second thing is to discourage your company from hiring a "specialist" to sell this online advertising manure. Just because a guy can differentiate among rich media banner units and delivery systems doesn't mean he's worth a $75,000 base. Instead of gifting some nerd with nearly a hundred grand a year, hustle one of your sharper print guys into a Learning Annex course, then throw him some extra dough to make more online sales happen. You'll wind up giving away half your banners to your best print advertisers as "value added," anyway.