EPISODE 34

Things did get better.  I spent some time with Bosco discussing the way I had been working the leads.  It turned out that he was incredibly generous and he seemed to actually enjoy teaching me how to listen better and to probe the prospects.  His feeling was that if I could be cured of the lousy habits I had of over-presenting and interrupting clients before they’d had the chance to reveal what motivated them, I might someday make him a few dollars.  The managers at the studios he owned were equally obliging.  They knew that my success meant their success.  It was a first for me.  I was working in an organization that recognized that being mutually supportive wasn’t just a nice thing to do.  It was a smart thing too.  Everyone was so damned pleased with the steady improvement of business that I knew it was time for me to do what I do best: blurt out that everything we were doing was fucked.

I did so in my own very diplomatic way.  I came into work one afternoon, about an hour before my shift was to begin.  I sat down in the chair across from Bosco’s desk and gave him a smile.

“Oh Jesus!” he exclaimed as he laughed.  “What are you gonna do now?  Quit on me?”

“Nope.  I’m going to show you how to make some real money.”  I kept my eyes on his and waited for him to react.  He shrugged and pointed his hand at me.

“Okay,” I began.  “I finally get how I’m supposed to get these leads to talk to me and I’ve gotten pretty good at booking them.  Hell, more than half of them show up for their appointments and that’s a frigging miracle as far as I’m concerned.  But the problem is that we’re still not making the kind of new sales that we could.  It’s not like I’m not qualifying them and it’s also not that the studios aren’t doing a great job of closing them either.

“What we need to do, Bosco is to flood the studios with qualified prospects and we can’t do that if we’re only averaging 30-40 bookings a week.  We need to make it 60 a week, maybe 70.”

Bosco wasn’t smiling anymore.  I had his attention, but he held a skeptical expression on his face.  He liked the premise, but he doubted whether I really knew what the hell I was talking about.  Still he didn’t say a word, even though I remained silent.  It was funny, both of us were waiting for the other to go first and neither of us was in any hurry.  In retrospect, I realize now that while I was doing this to sell Bosco, he was doing the same to me, to see if I’d get rattled.  Did I actually have anything, or was I just woofing it?  Finally, a long 15 or so seconds, I started back up.

“We don’t need to hire any new telemarketers either, which should at least make you a little bit happy.  The bad news is that you are going to have to shell out more money.”

“I figured as much,” Bosco said sourly.  “How much?  And why?”

“You’re going to have to come up with enough money to put me on full-time.”

Bosco looked up at the ceiling and laughed.  “Oh man, you have big balls, Michael!  So you want more hours?  Sure!  But what are you planning on doing, calling people up on Friday and Saturday nights?  They won’t even be there.  It’s a waste of time and money.  Believe me, I know.”

I waited for Bosco to finish and then I fixed my eyes on his again and very evenly, I said, “I realize that.  I wouldn’t waste my time then either.  What I want you to do is to turn me loose during the daytime.”

Bosco’s success and indeed the success of the entire industry had been based on an important assumption about their target market.  You approached these guys by advertising on late, late night TV.  “The moles”, Bosco used to call them.  They were up late with nothing to do and so we hooked them with a 30-minute infomercial that promised them the hair of an Adonis and the social life of every mean popular kid they’d known in high school.  The ads were slick, showing stunning male models at the swimming pool or at the beach with gorgeous women, living it up.  The dream was sex and the moles were awake at 1 in the morning, watching our models live it.  You want that life for yourself?  You better have some hair on your head otherwise none of these hotties are going to give you a second of their time.  If you think that was cruel, you would be right.  There was nothing subtle going on here.  The promise of the good life with hair was juxtaposed by the threat of watching TV alone with your bald self.  But then, our prospects were alone with nothing to keep them company except for the tube and that was usually what got them to pick up the phone in the middle of the night and call into the toll free number that constantly scrolled at the bottom of the screen.  Some of them likely dialed in just to see if they’d get a real person on the end of the line.  That’s how lonely they could get.  But the reality of it all was that we were looking for the guys who couldn’t take it anymore.  They were willing to do anything to change the fact that their socials lives had been reduced to watching infomercials on late night television.  They’d wake up the next morning after only 6 hours of sleep, go to work and crawl back home in time for dinner and another night alone.  The whole strategy of getting to the ones who called in was predicated on the assumption that they were dying to hear back from the people who had promised to give them hair and a real life before they found themselves watching another infomercial after midnight.

This was why Bosco practically barked at me.

“Michael!  No one’s home during the day!  They’re at work!”

“Not the ones who work second and third shift, Bosco.  We can’t reach those guys at night, ever.”

Bosco smiled as he thought about that.  “Good point,” he replied.

“What time do you think you can get to these guys?” he asked.

“Well, the third shift usually gets out at 7AM, so they would be walking through the front door at about 8 o’clock…”

“Assuming they go straight home,” Bosco interrupted.

“Not a hell of a lot of bars to hit at that hour,” I offered.  “But let’s assume that our guy joins a couple other folks from his company for breakfast at a diner before heading back.  He’s still home by 10, at the latest.  A third shift worker just doesn’t have a lot of after work social opportunities.  We have to get to him before noon though, because after then, he’ll be asleep.

“Now the second shift is more like 3PM to 11PM and that’s the guy we can start to chase at around 1 or 2.  You see what I mean?”

“Sure,” Bosco agreed.  “So, you want to come in from 9 in the morning until 2 and then take off until your regular shift here starts at 5, right?”

“Only if you make me.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?

“Well Bosco, if I do this right, I see this being a straight up 8 to 5 operation.  No nighttime calls at all.”

“Michael, I think I’m getting to know you pretty well.  You’re a good salesman, but there’s no way you can reach the prospects who work at a regular job at home when they’re at work.”

“Exactly,” I replied.  “That’s why I’m going to call them at work between 2 and 5 every day.”

“We don’t have their work numbers!” Bosco protested.  “We have to get them at home!”

“So, I’ll ask whoever answers the phone at home what our prospect’s work number is.”

“Like I said, you have huge balls!” Bosco laughed.  “What makes you think anyone will do that?”

“Let me come in next Monday and Tuesday morning and make calls from 8 until 5.  If I can’t book at least 16 appointments during those two days, then I’ll never bring it up again.  What the hell you got lose, Bosco?”

“16?  You’re talking about me paying you for 18 hours.”

“Fine.  Make it 18 appointments then.  Do we have a deal?”

The next episode of SlipNot will be published on April 28th.

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