Blockbuster Rant - Day 2

Suggestive Selling:
Part of the nine step checkout they teach you in nine hour training is this: suggestive selling. This is basically pushing something they didn’t ask for and pretending like they can’t do without it.
At first I didn’t do it. I would not compromise my made-up morals with such filth as promoting passes and peddling products. McDonald’s made the method famous with their “would you like fries with that?” At Blockbuster, it’s just a variation on the same theme.
I thought to myself, “There isn’t suggestive selling in the rest of the world, why should I have to do it?” When you buy a plane ticket to Vermont, they don’t say, “Would you also like a ticket to Oregon with that?”

But soon I started to get the hang of it. That and the added pressure of competition with my coworkers, I sold a few movie passes.

In case you don’t know, Blockbuster has this deal going on where you can pay a flat monthly fee and rent as many movies as you want, with no due dates or late fees. Well, the managers cut the price of them by $10 to get a bunch of people signed up on a trial basis. So I sold a few more passes.
Then they started offering incentives and setting up store contests. And I can’t PASS up some friendly competition. So I sold some more. But I still hated selling them as much as people hated hearing it.

Well, once this punk kid named John started trash talking at the registers, it was on. I brought my ‘A’ game. John and the customers didn’t know what hit ‘em. They’d walk up to the register to ask if we had a movie and they’d walk away with a movie pass and a look of confusion. “What just happened?” they'd think as I mark another one up on Little John.

Soon I got to a point where I could just feel out the suckers. If you’re a college kid strolling up to the counter, dumping pocket change on the counter, you’re probably not going to buy a $25 movie pass. Same with a businessmen in a suit, holding a movie he knew he was going to rent before he even parked his car and in the other hand an American Express Platinum card poised and ready. Yeah, I’m probably going to skip the spiel and you’re getting the Leins Special.

Unfortunately sometimes the suckers are not only gullible enough to buy a pass, but are also financially challenged. Nothing worse than drawing up all the paperwork and getting “Card Declined.” Thanks Pablo, but how about if you come back when you learn that charging it doesn’t send the payment off to magical happy land where you don’t have to worry about it anymore.

However, let’s say you come wandering up to the register holding 3-4 movies, with a puzzled look on your face. And you’re confused, wondering which two you’re taking home. Well, the movies aren’t the only thing that’s about to get taken, my friend.

Like a gazelle that wanders from the pack, you’ve strayed into the kill zone, baby.

I execute my technique to near perfection, starting first by lulling them into a false sense of security. That warm, snuggly feeling I was talking about earlier.
Then I place a harmless question such as, “Have you heard about our movie pass?”
At this point I’m not pitching anything, I’m just wondering if they’ve heard about it already. I’m expecting that ‘Yes’ or ‘No.’ Truth is, it doesn’t matter which one they say. They could shout something in Swahili for all I care. It’s a trick question any way and the only correct answer is an immediate “I’m not interested.”

They hesitate for one second, and that trap slams shut around them. They’re then bombarded with rationalities that boggle the mind. They haven’t had to think this hard since the GED.
I’m throwing out prices, comparing, contrasting, wheeling, dealing… If I have to draw a Venn Diagram for these people, I will. And a lot of the time they give in to the inescapable reality that they will save a few dollars. It’s win/win really.

But other times, inside this web of logic, they start to wriggle. And when they don’t want to hear it anymore, out come the excuses.

A memorable quote from a little underrated movie called Boiler Room said this:
“A sale is made on every call you make. Either you sell the client some stock or he sells you a reason he can't.” And while I’m not telemarketing stock options, I sure as hell am not going to lose to some idiot who can’t decide between 2 Fast 2 Furious and You Got Served.

He’ll usually stutter through some poor excuse about “Maybe next time.”
“Next time? Next time! Sir, do you know what John F. Kennedy said to his secret service about riding in a bulletproof car? He said ‘Maybe next time.’ And you know what, sir? JFK is dead. Yeah, dead. All because next time was good enough for him. Well it’s not good enough for me. And it shouldn’t be good enough for you. He also said, ‘Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.’ You know what you can do for your country? Buy a movie pass. The economy needs you. Your country needs you! God bless America!”
And the slightly shorter version is: “If you don’t buy a movie pass, the terrorists have already won.”