Betting on the Odds

 

“I damn well guarantee, nine times out of ten, it’s bound to work.

You’ve got the sucker on the hook.” That’s pretty much what the

training guy told me and the other salesmen in our class that day.

Kansas City Star, that’s what I are. That famous Roger Miller song

of the 1970s played on my car radio the first day I went to work

as a display advertising salesman for that acclaimed Midwestern

newspaper.

The instructor, hired by the paper to increase sales and production

from their reps, was a high pressure tactician with an array of

deceptive shyster practices in his repertoire.

“When you’ve finish your pitch to businesses extolling the benefits

of newspaper display advertising as the optimum and lucrative

method to attract prospective customers to buy their products and

services, look them in the eye with a confident and reassuring

intensity. And holding the contract in one hand, present them with

a pen outstretched in your other hand.

Their instinctive inclination is to accept the offering, and then they are

prompted to act, signing their contract to buy. Don’t take no for an

answer. Keep pushing that pen in their face. Close the damn deal,

signed, sealed, and delivered!”

Well, for me that was a nervously sweaty proposition. I was not

used to pushing my will on anyone especially trying to convince

a hesitant customer to spent some of his profits on the “maybe”

possibilities of advertising.

But this was the job which my employer not only expected,

but demanded results from me. Sales and profit were the sole

objectives here.

So, off I went that day determined yet a bit nervous about my

first attempt. It was a local car dealership, AMC Rambler as I

recall (at the time, not one of the top automotive companies

in the industry.)

Upon my arrival at the dealership, I identified myself to the

lady in the lobby and asked to see the person in charge of

advertising who happened to also be the owner of the estab-

lishment. I waited in the showroom, and in a few minutes

he appeared (not congenially smiling either as he would have

had I been a customer rather than a newsprint salesman).

His look, I surmised, told me intuitively that he had better

things to do with his time and money. Nonetheless,

we shook hands and I began my spiel, showing him

examples of display ads from some of his successful

competitors.

At the finish, my outstretched pen in hand was a no go.

With arms firmly folded across his chest, he roundly

rejected my proposal telling me business industry-wide

was in slumping times.

His negative demeanor convinced me to withdrawal.

And with my tail between my legs, so to speak, I left

empty handed.

It was just my luck. I had run into the one and only

guy in this whole stinking town who “wasn’t buying it.”

I got that one in ten chance that asshole trainer had

talked about earlier that day. What, I wondered, were

the odds of that?

It was then it struck me, I had better look for a different

profession, being skeptical of any wise guys who tried to

hand me a pen. Perhaps the next time I would take Roger

Miller’s musical hit career path as my theme song—

“Trailers for sale or rent, rooms to let 50-cents…

I’m the King of the Road.”

                                    -30-

Chris Hanch 2-27-2023