How dare you walk into my chambers and question me? This is my world. Inside my cubicle, I am the man. My clients love me. All of them. They love my honest smile and familiar eyes. They'd trust me with their own family. I bet if I ever asked them to jump off the World Trade Center, they'd do it, even though it doesn't exist anymore. They'd build it all up from scratch just so they can take the leap for me… They'd do it, believing that my motives… are actually honest!!

I wasn't born good at what I do. It comes with practice. Along the years, I have come up with my own style combined with the arts of selling they teach us at the induction session on our first day at work. In order to close a sale, you have to focus on following the six rules of self improvement. Get your pen ready and running, my friend because this will only be said once.

Strangers walk into my cubicle, my world, my domain, everyday. I press NEXT on my client caller ID thingie and sit laid back and relaxed on my throne, waiting for my next potential. I see them walking towards me with the fear that I might be just another salesman. Just another scam. Another suit?! They walk towards my life and I can then hear the bell tolling for thee. It's Showtime!!

Step 1ne: SMILE
Smile like somebody left a hanger in your mouth. Those 17 muscles, the smile that says 'Welcome, sir. My life is yours for the taking for the next fifteen minutes. I'll be your slave, your doorman, your banker, your lawyer, your fucking mistress. Just say it and I'm yours.' Usually, if you smile at someone, they smile back… and once that happens, it becomes the first sale you've closed. I don't mean to be arrogant when I say that… I have excelled at that.

Step 2wo: RESPECT
Respect the SOB like he owns you. Always address them as Sir or Madame. If she's not married, you can always call her by her first name. Unmarried attractive chicks dig that. You become their potential. With your relaxed but firm handshake, your honest smile, your Gucci suit, and your serious professional but friendly voice tone. Older people enjoy the respect you've shined through at them. The respect they lack from their own children. If you can get that noticed, you become the son they've always wanted to have… forever. Right after that they know that you'll make them filthy rich, get them the dream house they've always wanted, or simply become a potential for their single unattractive daughter. Right after that, air becomes a commodity that you can sell.

Step 3hree: EYE CONTACT
Look the client straight in the eye. Whether you have green eyes, blue eyes, brown eyes, or even red eyes. They all say the same. The smile, the handshake, the eyes. The three musketeers, without which your words would mean nothing. If eye contact meant nothing, then the old and original love at first sight don't mean nothing really. If your eyes don't show confidence, then at any point you can very well expect the 'May I speak to your supervisor?' phrase.
Don’t stare though, unless she's hot.

Step 4our: EMPATHY
Empathy is defined as understanding and entering into one person's feelings. Into his wallet. When men tell women that they love them, that they're funny and sweet, that they can provide the needed empathy, the crying shoulder cliché, often all they want is sex. That's basically what they teach us to aim for. Our job is to fuck with every potential wallet. To me, those are not people I'm fucking; they're sex dolls in the form of money bags, with a big ass dollar sign at the bottom.

The idea is to make them feel as if I care. The over used and over dosed first rule in the How-to-get-laid book for dummies. Become a mirror reflection of their vocal and facial expression. 'Your problem is my problem', that's what they taught us to say. Your first handshake should no longer be a greeting gesture and should be used to express understanding. His second handshake should express gratitude. The all invisible thank you note.

I'm throwing pearls at you here.

Step 5ive: BECOME THE CLIENT'S UMBRELLA
Save him… or at least pretend that you did. Send emails and faxes. Make inbound and outbound telephone calls. Make him sign as many forms as you can, that should give the impression that you know what you're doing. Of course, after he leaves, official green documents will have left his bank account and signed official white documents will fill up your trash can, the vault of all your secrets. Every once in a while you can go out for a smoke and pretend that you've been discussing that client's problem with top management.

Funny!! Never thought I was that good.

Step 6ix: CREATE THE NEED
Now that he's satisfied, he's yours for the taking. He becomes your slave, your doorman, your friend, your mistress… your promotion. You two become frozen for fifteen more minutes that you can enjoy bluffing with the deck that you've stacked. Come to think about it, I've reached the experience level of not even having to stack a deck. Not needing a plan B to make a sale. I've reached the level of knowing exactly what to say and when to say it. Full control. He becomes my property to claim, with my flag sticking up his ass. Try to paint him a picture of how his life would look like without the new and improved "tailor-made" insurance/investment plan. Use your paintbrush to add the image of his children lying on their deathbeds, sick, poor, uneducated, and hungry because he couldn't afford sending them to a first class school. Because when he died, all sources of income were cut out of their lives. Because he didn't sign your Life Protection Saving Plan. Tell him that he doesn't even need to go back home to think about it. Tell him that his wife wouldn't know better. Tell him that every day that passes means less income for his family. Those whom he loves most; his wife, his 9 year old son, and his unattractive 23 year old daughter. Your future wife.
And before you can even say 'fuck', he's signing the contract.

After the sale is made, tell him that you'll make sure you have his request done in less time than it should, since you kind of feel for your father-in-law's new established need. The need you've managed to visualize out of thin air. The need you've painted in an animation, in the full feature film to be released in twenty five years after shooting. The need, that little consumption monster whom my job, basically, revolves around creating. The creation of the debts. The polishing of the road that leads to how his life is probably going to look like for the next three decades.

Show's over… I have nothing more to say, at least out loud. If you follow those steps, if you manage to close enough sales, you'll get promoted in no time.

Ladies and gents, that's what I do. But when people ask me about what I do for a living, I take a deep breath that makes my upper body look huge; huge enough to fill my throne, my cubicle, my domain; then I say, well, John Smith, Personal Financial Services Representative.

Before I finish up, there are a few more tips I'd like to offer.

1. Never give out your personal cell phone number – It helps if you return to becoming your old self after you've left work.

2. If you're all about ethics and morals, you're gonna think that this isn’t your line of work. You have to remember though, that we were all babies once… and look how cute we were!

3. Your clothes define you – Your Gucci suit image. Your Hugo Boss scent. They fooled us into thinking that this is how educated young men should look and smell like. We live in a sick, sick world where none of us really matter.

In the end, I'm still there, legs crossed, sitting majestically in my throne. Have we met before? Do you hold a bank account, Sir? How many times have you been scammed by suits like me? My suit, my smile, my handshake, and my lies. The things that I want out of.

It's too late for me to walk out. This is my all morally and ethically acceptable and approved of career. I get appraised and accredited for that. If I ever went to propose to a girl, her parents would definitely love me. I've been locked inside my cubicle for so long I don't think I know how to stop reminding myself of those six golden steps. Those steps… can be applied at anything really. They are my way of life and my religion. If I don't abide, I'd sentence myself back to full unemployment damnation.

We live in a world where people try to take each other's life savings and pension plans wearing a Julia Roberts smile and a Hugo Boss perfume. Your Armani suit makes other young men want to be like you. You become their role model. Their ALL!!

Now, if you walk into my cubicle, my life, my... huh… ever attractive breathtaking domain, and I lay all that bunch of bullshit for you. If I managed to become your dominant sex master… with my charms and my whips…

Tell me…

Would you build me that World Trade Center?

Would you take the jump?!

Posted by Яαgιи Яαvєи on Friday, June 02, 2006 at 6/02/2006 08:29:00 PM | Permalink