Salesmen And Dinosaurs Poem by Buddy Bee Anthony

There are many products services and service positions that have come and gone with the times.
One of them is the day to day running of a traditional
paid subscription newspaper, another has been
telemarketers.
These industries may or may not yet
understand they are on their way to extinction.
like the rare white rhino,
they may not comprehend how they've been pursued
by progressively more sophisticated poachers,
with state of the art night vision, high powered rifles,
telemarketers who've been cut down by regulations such as
no call lists, caller I.D.
blocked call numbers,
just as newspaper delivery
has been replaced by on-line marketing giants,
newspapers replaced
with blogs, on line news networks,
all manner of electronic news outlets.
Who looks in the newspaper want ads to
find employment anymore?
It's found elsewhere. Also, going the way of
the Tyranasaourus
are the editorial sections in a
conventional subscriber, newspaper,
as well as the clip coupons found in them.
the funny papers,
and crossword puzzles.
I can still find comics,
coupons or a crossword puzzle elsewhere
on line, if I do a search.
Telemarketers are
still calling from some banana republic
In a boiler room, deep in the shadows, behind
a laundromat with some private peep holed
back entrance.
The big daily newspapers are going the way
of the answering machine,
Pagers and the rotary telephone.
As a pre- historic, phone peddler,
of low status, the term salesman,
has now become a dirty word.
I used to earn a comfortable living
in ancient times as a salesman
using my telephone to
locate new prospects, who'd
become clients later on.
One position I held down was
telemarketer for a big city newspaper
With my skill set, it was a good fit for me.
But, my days there were numbered
This news network being ahead of the curve in the 90's,
understood their glory days were behind them.
so they decided to sell their newpaper while the going
was good to a huge national
news conglomerate on the West Coast.
Since, telephone sales was heading for extinction anyway,
With draconian, trade restrictions now being
implemented, and enforced,
backed by a plethora of ongoing class action suits
headed up by eager beaver law clerks with
staff attorneys
suing and winning cases not as
much on the basis of seller misconduct but
more often simply for dialing the wrong phone number.
Suddenly it's become illegal
to prospect for new business over the phone,
making it a federal harassment crime
Putting companies, and their
reps, on a legal hot seat,
on tele-probation by fining them,
thus restraining trade.
"Ok, sales person,
you are commanded to stay 1000 feet away from a telephone"...
Tragically, this hysteria had become business as usual,
Being now trendy
to sue on behalf of the millions of victims
with a phone number who've
been put through the traumatic ordeal
of having to say no thank you,
I'm not interested, to a salesperson
on the other end of the telephone line.
But, what of that criminalized individual
just trying to put bread on their tables.
by sharing with the caller a possibly new
and better option for an existing product or service.
An option now heavily regulated and restricted.
Has this restricted buying or selling.
Hardly at all,
for every phone call not made
there are new contact methods
to hook potential customers
such as social web sites, sales pitch
luncheons, testimonial advertising,800 numbers, meetups.
Search engines
employing sophisticated, target marketing
often using subliminal consumer tracking
a whole bag of hooking tricks and shady techniques.
Now, you're just an mouse click away from purchase
often an effortless and impersonal
transfer of funds. Marketing marches on
without telemarketers or direct sales people.
personally servicing our clients, who had previously
hustled long hours to make an extra buck.
Direct phone sales people like me
are now considered nuisances,
even crude, pushy irrelevant, dinasaurs,
the untouchable's caste of merchant.
operating outside or on the fringes of the law.
This never was the case when I was earning a living
the old fashioned way
as a tele- salesperson.
No more letting your
fingers do the walking
to acquire new customers on the telephone.
I used to use an effective pitch
when I sold the newspaper,
for example, my objective was to sustain enough interest
to get my foot in the door and pitch my product.
Keeping their attention
with the goal of
gaining their trust.
they may not have seen
but they could hear my confidence
and enthusiasm filtering down through the phone.
I was at once, courteous and professional
I would first dial up a number,
and if perchance, on the other end of the receiver
they said hello. I'd say hi and introduce myself.
Since, we spoke the same language,
I had a potential customer on the line.
and could continue on with our conversation.
after a hello, and my first, name' I'd say,
who am I speaking with.. This is John.
John, 'I hope I'm not pulling you away from anything'?
This opening statement indicated my respect
for their time
Maybe they had a situation going on.
their dinner was on the pot, and was boiling over.
Maybe their baby was crying and needed changing.
Maybe their house was on fire.
But, then, if they said, that's ok,
I have a second, what is it, or what can I do for you?
or go ahead. I'd say thank you for taking my call
'I don't know if I can help you or not,
that's why I'm calling.
Now I'm not so much of a pesky salesman
they must quickly dispose of,
but, a potential problem solver.
They still don't know what that problem might be
but many folks are just curious enough
to find out before
breaking our connection.
I then informed them
"I just deliver the paper out here.
Now, they're thinking, It might not be wise
to be short with me and hang up yet
because each morning at 5am
I'm walking by their door
with a rolled up newspaper
I could toss through their front picture window.
So, then, I go right into my question.
Do you happen to read the
(insert name of paper here) ? ..
Yes, or no, it doesn't matter because,
I inform them, this week only
we are running a special on Home delivery
quickly quoting the deal.
and wait for their answer
Then they might say sure, sign me up for a trial,
Or more likely they might say,
I don't have time to read the paper every day.'.
I'd say great, you know, we have our Sunday special for folks like you
including all the coupons, want ads,
comics and a wrap up of the entire week.
So you don't miss anything that's going on in town.
Who doesn't want to be in the loop, in the know.
I mean, do they really want to risk missing
something important they needed to be aware of?
My point is, if you go step by step
correctly on each call
you'll sustain consistent numbers in sales.
The problem was,
at this gig, my bosses side job was
to moniter phone converstions,
She was pleasant enough but nervous and said,
you can't say you deliver the paper out here.
My argument in rebuttal was, I am the company, what does 'here' really mean?
It's quite probable
I'm as close as they are ever going to get
to the company.
For them, I am the newspaper,
at least the delivery side of it.
My direct supervisor liked my sales numbers
but had some issues with my approach.
My goal was to get in the door
to make as many sales
pitches to potential customers
then solidifying the sale.
Of course, she didn't have to pitch our newspaper on the phone,
as I did, making cold calls, from the phone book
to suspicious, impatient, strangers
So, what happened was before the company was being sold
they sprinkled the sales room with
order takers
who'd slam a newspaper sale onto anyone with a pulse
To any voice who answered the phone.
Let's say somebody spoke in a foreign language.
They might say bueno, si, oui, or just grunt,
when they answered their phone.
These tele-frauds,would then terminate the call,
and write it up as a sale.

It didn't matter if it was
the right or wrong person or address.
It didn't matter if they had no idea
a daily subscription was now arriving at another door,
of which the resident would be
legally obligated to pay for
they'd get this alien thing landing
on their porch or in their driveway
getting soggy in the rain.
Hey, no problem, just slam it home.
These in house, poseurs
were garnering the brunt of the daily bonuses
winning most of the daily
in house prizes. So, when I finally had enough
of being passed over on their prize parade,
I decided to contact
the incoming parent company buying our newspaper
to let them know what was happening to their good people.
How management was rewarding
fake salespeople and turning the other cheek.
How these bogus paper sales
were being rubber stamped and put through.
Didn't the new parent company have the right to know
how newspaper circulation was being grossly
inflated, by blatantly unsavory tactics.
What I might not have understood
was this glitch didn't mean the
same thing to the big bosses
who made the critical decisions,
Because their solution was
for our departmentto only
contact existing customers
and hand out for free,
our premium package to them all,
for two entire billing cycles
as a thank you for being a loyal customer.
Each billing cycle lasted sixteen weeks.
This arrangement wasn't selling,
it was a give away.
A fantastic deal for our existing clients and
us telephone sales people, alike. It was childs play
to contact only our current paying customers.
Calling them on an inbound auto-dialer.
So, when they said hello, it would say on the screen
what they had already ordered from us,
where they lived and who to send it to.
If they just subscribed to a Sunday paper,
we gave them the rest of the week
absolutely free.
Meaning, if they only subscribed to our Monday through Friday delivery, 'we'd then throw in the weekend delivery as well.
and so on... The one stipulation. was
they had to remember to contact us to cancel after
two billing cycles, of 32 weeks or they'd continue to
get this new everything plan and start being
charged accordingly, for the entire week
of home delivery, at regular delivery price.
Do you know what happened?
I made just short of 400 dollars commission
with such a tasty in-house promotion
working one short shift
I earned this windfall
on the very first day of this promotion.
And, do you know what else happened.
These unethical posers
couldn't even give the paper away.
The sales room fired me though, a week later
I guess, because they figured out
I was the mole who spilled the beans
to the purchasing company.
I suppose I learned a valuable lesson though.
Don't be the whistleblower when
working alongside dinosaurs
when the extincion meteorite hits,
it's best to keep your head down and scatter
because it's every reptile for themselves


All rights reserved as is by author

Buddy Bee Anthony