Dudes Part 2

These things really exist, they're not just a Hollywood fabrication (see the opening scene of Rubin & Ed).

Don't we all wish they were?

There really are dudes who travel the country and give "sales seminars" in which they spend eight hours reveling in the sound of their own voices, offer quippy suggestions, and then spend an hour unabashedly offering eleven different products, each with a guarantee to double, triple, or ... you know, your income! The best part is that these products, which usually sell for $395 a piece, can be yours for only $71 each! "We're not making a profit here, but we think it's important enough for you to have this information, that we'll make that sacrifice."

Bull.

A DVD costs less than a dollar to produce.

Way less.

Thisis Greedy Dude 1. My job sent me to listen to him for eight hours in the hopes that he would help me to sell more cars to more people, thus increasing my income and the dealership's profits.

Sorry, Saturn, but this plan failed on me:

In fact, the seminar had just the opposite effect.

Imagine my thrill when during my job interview here I was told that my job would be as an "educator." That's exactly what I wanted to do with my life. I was aware of Saturn's philosophy toward the car sales process, I knew that it was different than the slimy tactics of some dealerships where you are never sure whether or not you got severely ripped off when you leave.

Honesty, respect, no hassle, just straight-forward information and education about products and pricing.

I could work with that, and in fact, I felt like I was beginning to find my groove here. April and May were pretty good months. I had come pretty close to my goal of selling ten cars in a month during those months, and in the beginning of June I was ready to build on that momentum and help even more people to find just the right car that fits their needs, and in a way that they feel like a person, not just a dollar sign.

But then during the first week of June we went to a staff meeting where we met this guy.

Greedy Dude 2

Greedy dude 2 came to give us some tips on how to effectively sell to "phone-ups," or people that call the dealership. He gave lip service to such things as liking your customers and "acting" sincere. The clear implication was that we probably don't really care about the people who come into the dealership, but we need to act as if we do. He also said a bunch of things about schmoozing people with talks of "a great deal." He concluded his speech by attempting to sell Greedy dude 1's seminar to all of us. (I didn't sign up, for obvious reasons, but my team leaders signed nearly everyone at the dealership up for us.)

I felt like throwing up, really, after listening to him.

But I really had no idea how much his rhetoric had done to my self-image.

Not until I only sold two cars in June, and took some time to really consider what changed between May and June, did I discover how seriously these two dudes had affected my perception of myself.

I had prided myself on working at a company that really did respect its customers, and expected its sales consultants to feel the same way. I felt like I was actually doing people a service by working here--somehow making their lives better. And I felt like I did in reality sincerely care about my guests; I felt it was a privilege to work with them. I didn't feel like I was in sales at all, but rather that I was in the business of bettering people's lives by educating them and assisting them to make what was probably the second most expensive financial obligation of their lives (second only to buying a house).

But somehow, Greedy dude1's suggestion that in order to be successful I need to convince myself every day when I wake up that "I like myself" and "I love my job" by repeating those phrases out loud to myself, convinced me of just the opposite.

If I have to convince myself that I like myself and love my job, I must be in a job that is not easy to love because it is not worthy of being loved on its own merits--it's sales! Who loves a sales job? It's certainly not natural to feel that you love a sales job (implication: because sales jobs are by nature sleazy and dishonest). And by extension, if I can't love my job on its own merits, but have to convince myself of it, then I really must not actually like myself, because my employment is all about ripping people off and taking advantage of them, after all, I'm a dirty, greasy salesman.

Before hearing these dudes I didn't need to convince myself of these things. I actually, really did love my job. I looked forward to coming to work. I liked myself just fine, because I felt like when I came to work I was coming to help people reach their own goals.

These dudes made me feel like Jack Johnson was addressing me when he sang:

Look at you out to make a deal.
You try to be appealing, but you lose your appeal.
And what about those shoes you're in today?
They'll do no good on the bridges you've burnt along the way.
You're willing to sell anything
Gone with your herd.
Leave your footprints, we'll shame them with our words.
Gone people all careless and consumed.
Gone.

I had been "recruited" by a number of companies, prior to applying at Saturn, for a variety of different sales jobs. Each of them had anecdotal evidences from one or two of their sales guys of how they made such and such an amount in such and such a time. And each of these places felt as disgusting as the next.

I did not want to be in sales.

And when I got hired on at Saturn, I did not feel like I was in sales (you know, in the common connotation of the word).

But then I met Greedy dudes 1 and 2. And they made me feel like I was in sales.

My momentum was crushed.

And that's why those two dudes are in large part the cause of last week's anxiety attack.

There you have it.

Since discovering this stuff going on in my mind, I've been trying to purge out everything these two dudes said and get back to where I was prior to hearing them, which is probably the reason I put off writing about it.

But now it's out there; it's been released to the cyberspace universe.

I only hope it will be as easy to rid myself of as my old pet peeve of getting called bud.

(Oh, and it's a good thing that's gone, because on Saturday I worked with a guy for two and a half hours, and he called me buddy the whole time. Didn't bother me a bit.)