A clever commenter on my recent post about Tony Robbins provided a link to a key scene from the 1992 movie Glengarry Glen Ross as a humorous counter-example to the Robbins video. The clip is worth watching, first because of the hammy acting (cue the thunderstorm, Fred!) and second, because it’s so ridiculous from the standpoint of real-life selling. (Warning: the clip contains numerous obscenities, so if you’re easily offended, you probably want to skip it.)
Here’s my comments on the clip and (by extension) the movie:
First, Baldwin’s sales manager character is completely absurd. While I have no doubt that such creatures exist in a more moderate form (Example: Commission Only), anybody who was that big a jackass would find it impossible to hide his jackassedness during an actual sales presentation. Bullies make lousy salespeople, because they immediately create resistance.
Second, the entire premise of the scene doesn’t make sense. The film is based upon the idea that to be successful in sales, you need to be evil and manipulative. But in real life, successful sales pros are the nicest, most positive, and most friendly people you’d ever meet. Are they be driven? Sure… but they’re driven to help people, not to force people to buy stuff they don’t want.
Third, Baldwin’s “sales training” is a string of cliches. Does he think that staff has never heard those bromides before? Or does he think that repeating them will suddenly turn on light bulbs? The only way that sales manager could actually improve sales would be to show them how he makes a sale. Which he can’t do, because somebody like that couldn’t sell a life raft to a drowning man.
Fourth, the whole “brass balls” thing is unintentionally hilarious. When he pulled them out of his briefcase, I couldn’t help but wonder where he got them. Did he go to a store? If so, what store? Balls-R-Us? Or did he have them made specially at a machine shop? Seems like a lot of bother just to make a point at a sales meeting. Or did they come from a more personal source, maybe? I don’t know about you, but if somebody pulled out a set of brass balls during a sales meeting, I’d fall on the floor laughing.
Fifth, nobody who can actually sell would stand for that kind of abuse. Sales professionals know that they have a valuable skill. As such, they tend to be highly intolerant of idiotic managers and bullying behaviors. Any group of sales reps who’d let themselves be abused in that way wouldn’t be able to sell anyway, so it’s all wasted effort.
Anyway, when I see this kind of stuff, I realize that it’s no wonder that the sales profession doesn’t get the respect it deserves in the United States. I might note that this is not the case in other cultures. In China, for example, the ability to sell, and add value through selling and connections, is considered both respectable and a desirable career.
However, I notice that there is a cultural shift taking place within business culture that’s not yet reflected in popular culture. Sales professionals are being treated with greater respect in the B2B environment because they’re now adding more value than in the past. So I’m looking forward to a time when a sales professional appears on a television show or film who isn’t either a manipulator or a sad sack.
But then, I’m not all THAT plugged into popular culture. Can you think of any sales professionals in movies or television who are portrayed positively?
