Sales pitch lullaby
Picture the scene:

A young and fresh-faced BinDipper is 6 months into a new sales role for a large publishing company. Things are going quite well, he's exceeding his sales targets each month through a combination of hard work on the phones and a smidgen of luck and feeling pretty good about himself.

His performance has not gone unnoticed and his line manager decides that the time has come for young BinDipper to prove himself out in the wild.

His first taste of outbound sales is to be a powerpoint pitch to a group of agency execs. His line manager will attend for moral support but also to provide critique when they get back to base.

BinDipper is fucking terrified. He's never given a presentation in his life, let alone to a group of agency execs who he's heard are generally a bunch of cynical cunts who treat you like dirt.

The night before the pitch young BinDipper practices non-stop until he eventually falls asleep at 4am. He is however word perfect and can recite the pitch without looking at the slides, effortlessly segueing from one point to another.

Going into the pitch he's feeling pretty calm and confident but that evaporates the second he sees 25 stony faces staring back at him expectantly. Setting up the laptop and connecting it to the projector is far harder than it should be, mainly because he's unable to contain the shakes.

Finally he's ready and the hours of practice kick in and he's delivering the pitch somehow competently. Braving a quick scan of the front row, everyone seems to be mildly impressed (by which I mean there's no-one looking as though he's talking a foreign language) so his confidence begins to soar. He's on the final slide now and can almost taste the victory pint his boss is sure to buy him afterwards.

The pitch is done, and a triumphant BinDipper allows himself a long and lingering scan of the room, inviting the questions that will obviously follow such an amazing performance.

There are no questions.

But there are at least five people asleep.

There was to be no pint.

Ad execs really are a bunch of cunts :(
(BinDipper, Mon 22 Aug 2011, 14:59, 15 replies)

I'm surprised they weren't all asleep....
Lets face it, they spend their time working out how to sell you anything in 30 seconds or less, it stands to reason they've got very short attention spans...
(repooc, Mon 22 Aug 2011, 15:47, closed)

As an ad exec
I can conf...
(SnowyTheWereRabbit the Leporid from Hell, Mon 22 Aug 2011, 16:06, closed)

Sorry
We do have to sit through loads of presentations, though, and sometimes this happens. Was it on a Friday? NEVER schedule presentations for Fridays if you can. Also, blame the material - don't blame yourself. Was your presentation really on anything new or interesting? If not, why would people pay attention?

I'm basically trying to slightly refute the charge that we're all cunts...
(SnowyTheWereRabbit the Leporid from Hell, Mon 22 Aug 2011, 16:15, closed)

To be frank it was at least 12 years ago so I can't remember the day or content of the presentation.

Done hundreds of agency pitches since and don't think anyone has fallen asleep since that fateful day thankfully.
(BinDipper, Mon 22 Aug 2011, 16:20, closed)

Well
it's all turned out alright in the end then, eh.
(SnowyTheWereRabbit the Leporid from Hell, Mon 22 Aug 2011, 16:24, closed)

Tbh you'd have a hard time convincing anyone of that, let alone a herd of b3tans...
After all you spend your life trying to sell people mostly useless stuff they don't need and usually can't afford, and the sad thing is that most of you are good at it.

Your ticket to Hull was pre-booked long ago.
(repooc, Tue 23 Aug 2011, 10:27, closed)

'Selling people mostly useless stuff they don't need'
Don't most people? Do you have a problem with sales-assistants in shops? What about professional artists - surely they make their whole career out of 'selling people mostly useless stuff they don't need'?

People make shit, then they sell shit, and they get money for it. Frankly, I think doing the selling bit in a magazine or a TV adbreak where you KNOW you're being sold to, is pretty acceptable. There's certainly far more dubious professions out there.
(SnowyTheWereRabbit the Leporid from Hell, Tue 23 Aug 2011, 11:00, closed)

What's the word I'm looking for....oh yeah....it's...
BOLLOCKS!

No, most people don't. Sale assistants tend to just take my money when I've chosen what I want. Artists in general make stuff because they enjoy it, and of course they hope people will buy it, but that isn't the sole motivation for making it.

However Ad "people", are renowned the world over for (historical examples) trying to sell us cigarettes as health products or an aid to slimming, beer as really good for you, etc., etc.....

If you're gonna work in an industry that survives in a moral vacuum, at least have the balls to admit it.
(repooc, Tue 23 Aug 2011, 12:22, closed)

I'm all for regulation.
I'm all for limits on who can be advertised to and what can be advertised. It just annoys me that people have a go at advertising for being a 'moral vacuum'when it's an inevitable part of capitalism. Plus the fact the stuff you're using as examples is from 50 fucking years ago.

What do you do for a living that makes you such a saint, anyhow?
(SnowyTheWereRabbit the Leporid from Hell, Tue 23 Aug 2011, 13:01, closed)

Me?.....I don't work in advertising or marketing....
That's all the moral high ground I need :-P

It's not an inevitable part of capitalism....imagine if you tried to sell things based on their merits and what they can actually do.....just call me a radical.

Yes I know they were old examples, but it just means you need to think a bit harder to find some flimsy barely legal hook to peddle snake oil these days...the principal is the same.
(repooc, Tue 23 Aug 2011, 13:12, closed)

And how
would you like to tell people about their merits and what they do? Or are people supposed to guess?

And having a quick look at your previous QOTW answers, it sounds like you're some sort of IT techie. What sort of companies? Do you vet them to make sure they don't do social harm before you work for them? Do you refuse work if it's a business you disagree with? Do you push back on them if you think they're pursuing an unethical course of action? For the record, I've done all of the above.
(SnowyTheWereRabbit the Leporid from Hell, Tue 23 Aug 2011, 13:20, closed)

You've done all of the above?....
You can't really work in advertising then....

I pick and choose my contracts by the way, and there are some companies I've refused to work for....one of them was an ad agency :-)
(repooc, Tue 23 Aug 2011, 13:32, closed)

Ha! Fair enough
Gotta go now, anyway, but we're not that bad. Honest.

Now where did I leave my pitchfork....
(SnowyTheWereRabbit the Leporid from Hell, Tue 23 Aug 2011, 13:48, closed)

Blimey my post sparked a debate :-)

In fairness though, my awful experience was more to do with lack of respect than working in a moral vacuum.

I think people who are presented to every day should stop an think about how difficult a thing it is to actually do. The ad execs I've pitched to over the years have all treated sales reps with disdain and I've never really understood why when we're all sales people at the end of the day.

Maybe it's because the rep earns more money? Just sayin'.
(BinDipper, Tue 23 Aug 2011, 13:21, closed)

I know
some people are arseholes, especially to reps because they know they can get away with it. And yeah, I've absolutely no doubt many of you earn significantly more money than most of us. Suppose that's come compensation!
(SnowyTheWereRabbit the Leporid from Hell, Tue 23 Aug 2011, 13:50, closed)