The day I learned to sell, sell, sell
by Michael Maiello

In a fit of fiscal desperation, I signed up with Kelly Temp Services, a larger employer than either GM or Ford. There's lot's of jobs out there, you know. They just involve menial tasks and only last for two days. I file, type, surf the web on someone else's computer, and I'll even mow lawns, though Kelly says I shouldn't work for less than $7 an hour.

Then, Kelly showed me the way. They sent me to do temp work at a Tom Hopkins "results" seminar for sales and management. There, I learned "six figure income strategies for the next millennium." Tom Hopkins is a sales guru whose books, tapes, lectures, and weekend long boot camp at a hotel in Scottsdale Arizona can increase your income by sixty percent. He's got dyed black hair and looks like a preacher, but he preaches the gospel of money. His opening act, Omar Periu has silvery-gray hair that looks distinguished. He's the slick oldster who might be out to pick up your grandma when you drop her off at the Senior Citizens center, but only after he picks up your sales force, motivates them, and teaches those ungrateful slobs that the owner's income really matters.

I'm not being bitter, either. He actually said to a room full of managers and owners that "you people who own businesses put in more time, and more hard work, but take in less income than anyone else." That's what he said. He didn't document the statement with any facts, of course. It'd be a hard thing to say in a world where a CEO can make 190 times the salary of their average employee. I used to work at a chain record and book store, managing a department for $6 an hour. One Christmas, our chairman and CEO sent us a homemade card -- him and his family on a yacht. I got the card the morning I scraped ice off my windshield to make my morning shift shelving books. But that's not the reality of Omar's world.

Then Hopkins came on, and he really impressed me. He took a crowd of two thousand people, who paid $90 a pop to attend his seminar, through all the conversational tricks and turns of the sales pitch. How to make a buyer buy, even if they don't want to. He went on for about two hours, telling people to use words like "visit" rather than "appointment" and "endorsement" rather than the official and scary sounding "signature." The buyers don't "purchase," they make "investments." He went on for about two hours this way.

Then, he pulled the big trick. He used it all on his audience to get them to buy a $200 package of goodies which included everything they already paid $90 to hear, but in audio, video, and written form. He also sold a CD of inspiration funk music, on which he sings, and a CD of inspirational children's tapes, to help your children set goals and get on the right track.

He took an arbitrary figure out of the air and said anyone would sell his package for $428.95, and then another arbitrary figure to predict that a user of his materials would make over $800 more than usual in the first month of implementing the theories on his tapes. Tom was so sure of his arbitrary figure, he said that he would write a check for over $800 to anyone who tried his methods and didn't see the results. Then he laughed, said he meets so many people every year that he couldn't possibly keep track at them all, so he can't make that guarantee. Then, the big turnaround, because he can't promise to write them checks for 200% returns on their "investments" he would sell the package for $200 instead of the $498 any sane person would ask for.

He called the package a year's worth of training (another arbitrary figure), and then broke the cost of the package down to by month, week, and day, finally determining that his year's worth of training costs less than a cup of coffee per day at his hotel. Lying about figures is a Tom Hopkins technique, and it's in his seminar workbook. He instructs the seller to tell the buyers that most people invest (state 25% more than figure you want) a "fortune few" invest (state 50% over the wanted figure) and those on "fixed incomes" invest (state the figure you want.) No one actually has to have given the seller 25% or 50% over, the seller just says it, and then makes the buyer feel poor for spending merely the desired amount.

People bought it. I know, because I rang up the purchases as part of my job. They bought it enthusiastically. They laid down credit cards, cash, and scribbled checks. Some bought packages for their friends. I had to convince a grandma that the inspirational children's tape would not make her "cool" in the eyes of her grandson.

But I must admire the way Tom Hopkins controlled the crowd. And I learned the big secret. It's not the sales pitch, the random figures, or the voice of authority. His trick was to sit a thousand people in rows, facing him like they were students and he their third grade teacher. He even made them raise their hands to answer stupid questions like "who thinks they should be making more money and working less?" Once they raised their hands and took the mental journey back to grade school, he owned them.

I felt better about my cynical self as a thousand people fell for the sales routine they were just taught to use on the unsuspecting outside the auditorium. Some young, media savvy cynicism is the best protection against growing up a sucker. People will pay nearly $1,000 to attend his three day seminar in Arizona next August. If I can just keep my cynicism at bay, I won't use my Hopkins-fed knowledge to prey on the mental midgets who fall for Tom Hopkins lines. But, I'm spared the decision of selling out -- to really sell out, someone has to be interested in buying.

Michael Maiello figures he'll have a real job that pays, say, lots of money by, say, the time Hell freezes over.

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