Elevate Yourself
Elevate
on Jun 14, 2012
This past weekend was spent with buddies in viva Las Vegas. Yup, sin city. We managed to partake in your usual activities, going to the club, gambling, eating, drinking, shopping, and of course, a visit to the almost legendary gentlemen’s clubs of Vegas. It is here where I learned the true artistry of salesmanship or saleswomanship. Throughout it all I found common threads involving sales as in the fitness business industry.
I must admit, at the time the last thing on my mind was “sales” but in retrospect my naive little mind definitely saw the “machine” behind the curtain. One of the first things a stripper will do is come up to you and flirt with you. She will likely sit on your lap or do something to raise your excitement level. For this, you have to do nothing. But you do get a sample of the service and if it is a good one, your chances of buying the service increases. This also applies to the dances they do on the stage.
Dancers get to know their customers by asking questions. This allows them to develop a rapport and tailor the sales pitch. This is where the artistry in their craft lyes. The skilled dancers have a way of being authentically flirty and charming, while the ineffective ladies sounded like something from a cheesy 80s’ porn flick (I’m guessing that’s what they’d sound like).
Dancers will try different sales pitches to different people based on what she thinks they like. “I like to get dirty” or “Have you seen my great ass?” or “My ta-ta’s are real”. Each pitch may be the one thing that converts the potential customer into a buyer. (Pointing out a tight ass works well for me haha just kidding sort of). And she revises her pitch based on experience. Ultimately she knows she has to have a great product. If she put on 30 pounds, hadn’t showered for the past 4 days, had skin as soft as a crocodiles left thumb she would likely not get as many customers. Regardless of how great of a salesperson you are, you can’t do much with a crappy product/service.
She will make sure you are happy on your first dance or she won’t get repeat business or won’t be able to do what she ultimately set out to do…Upsell.
She sells the customer on a relatively cheap service, a lapdance, but then markets her other services to them. She tries to get them to the “champagne room” and sell an upgraded service, which is where the money is at. However, without the first sale, she would never get the larger sale.
Customer acquisition is tough. Once she does it, she needs to get as much business as she can. She will use a variety of closing techniques to get you to buy her services. There are a variety of closing techniques, but two popular ones used by strippers are the compliment close (usually flirting with you) and companion close (getting your buddies to push you into closing the deal).
Strippers market to individuals that are interested in her service. First, she works in a strip club where guys go specifically for her service, that is obvious. But she also knows which guys to go after within a group or which groups will likely spend the most money.
Spending time with cheap-asses only wanting to pay a dollar for a dance will not be a wise use of he precious time.
Even though the audience is qualified, she knows she will get rejections. Even so, she will go up to every guy and ask if they need a lap dance. She also knows that the more guys she asks, the more yes’s she will get.
As far as "branding" I don’t know any strippers that are named Ethel, Mildred or Agnes. Instead, you will get the pleasure to do business with Diamond, Destiny, Candy, or Raven.
The art of small talk can be one of the most valuable skills sets to learn when you are in the sales/ service industry an education that I recieved from the most unlikely places.
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