‘Go on. You wouldn’t be the first client I’ve screwed today.’
Another reader writes in: ‘Our firm has recently set up a series of workshops under the banner of ‘Pursuit’ training’, in an attempt to help us cross-sell our different services to ‘potentially receptive’ clients (The business parlance for such clients is ‘pinatas’).’
These workshops range from ‘Starting the conversation’ to ‘Making an offer they can’t refuse: the Don Corleon guide to Networking’ and ‘Sealing the Deal: Waterboarding your clients for Increased Revenues’.
One of these sessions encouraged junior employees to prepare ‘elevator pitches’ which they could then spring on unsuspecting victims on 'elevators, subways or even nightclubs'. This link was provided as an example of model pitches:
Where the fuck to start with this cornucopia of corporate bullshit? Unfortunately it appears the art of the business card introduction is dead, which is a shame because at least business cards can be used to provide sustenance in a survival type situation. Instead, we are now being trained in how to verbally assault unsuspecting targets as if we were Nigel Farage being let loose at a human rights convention.
Take the first example on the link provided; if I had the misfortune of sharing an elevator with Simon King, and he attacked me with his pre-prepared 257 word soliloquy, he would get as about far as informing me about his ‘excellent track record in achieving agreed profit improvement objectives’ before he finds his ‘WOW factor’ has been forcibly jammed so far up his anus that shit starts spewing out of his ears. ‘Simon King,’ the reader opines, ‘you are dead to me. Just like my brother was when he killed Mewtwo and then saved the game on my old Pokemon Blue’. Well said, reader.
Simon King - this is how you make me feel.
‘My accounting firm has a solid track record of balancing books.’ Fantastic, considering that virtually every single accountancy system in existence will prevent you from creating accounts which do not balance. This is not an achievement, more an absolute minimum standard. An accountant who cannot balance his books is about as much use as a leaky condom in an Asian whorehouse. ‘...We are virtually error-free’ he goes on. Perfect... if my business is looking to ‘more or less’ increase revenues.
And if your elevator pitch opens with ‘I met someone at a party recently who was in so much debt he was having trouble paying his monthly bills.’ Before explaining that ‘as a result of my free in-home consultation I was able to consolidate their debt’, my immediate thoughts are not ‘Oh yes, you sound like someone I want to hire’, but 1) What the fuck kind of parties do you go to? And 2) What sort of dickwanker goes to a party only to advise people on restructuring their personal debt?
Anyone who steps into an elevator, turns to me and says ‘let me tell you how great I am’ can quite honestly go to hell. If you primarily see the elevator as an opportunity to shake other people down for money, I can almost guarantee that knowing you would make my life more miserable. And for God’s sake, if you you think ‘moving drums and climbing ladders’ entitles you to introduce yourself as ‘the Willy Wonka of Chemistry’, I hope you get blended into a smoothie and shat out into a sewer in Shoreditch.
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