Anurag Jain's Blog on Bangalore Events, Travel, IIM Bangalore, IIM, IIMB, Management

Sunday, January 30, 2005

Posted 7:56 AM by Anurag

Telling isn't Selling. (For more, watch Boiler Room.)

Boiler Room was on my To-Watch list for quite sometime, but could watch it only recently. The term Boiler Room denotes a (usually scam) telemarketing sales operation. Some people allege this movie is a Wall-Street rip-off, but IMHO the essence of this movie is how to make a Sale Pitch. In fact, it is known for that. A friend of my mine works with a call center here in Bangalore, and according to her: "Boiler Room has been recommended to us by our Team Leaders in order to know more about how to make sales calls.." Statements such as "Telling isn't Selling" assert the central theme of the movie: Sales!

Some of the fantastic quotes from the movie, including Ben Affleck's (Jim Young) fantabulous speeches:

# Seth Davis: I read this article a while back, that said that Microsoft employs more millionaire secretary's that any other company in the world. They took stock options over Christmas bonuses. It was a good move. I remember there was this picture, of one of the groundskeepers next to his Ferrari. Blew my mind. you see shit like that, and it just plants seeds, makes you think its possible, even easy. And then you turn on the TV, and there's just more of it. The $87 Million lottery winner, that kid actor that just made 20 million o his last movie, that internet stock that shot through the roof, you could have made millions if you had just gotten in early, and that's exactly what I wanted to do: get in. I didn't want to be an innovator any more, i just wanted to make the quick and easy buck, i just wanted in. The Notorious BIG said it best: "Either you're slingin' crack-rock, or you've got a wicked jump-shot." Nobody wants to work for it anymore. There's no honor in taking that after school job at Mickey Dee's, honor's in the dollar, kid. So I went the white boy way of slinging crack-rock: I became a stock broker.
# Jim Young: And there is no such thing as a no sale call. A sale is made on every call you make. Either you sell the client some stock or he sells you a reason he can't. Either way a sale is made, the only question is who is gonna close? You or him? Now be relentless, that's it, I'm done.
# Jim Young: They say money can't buy happiness? Look at the fucking smile on my face. Ear to ear, baby.
# Jim Young: Anybody who tells you money is the root of all evil doesn't fucking have any.
# Greg: "Now, now, listen to me. Even though you're not actually selling stock yet, I want you to remember the code we have here, okay? Did you see Glengarry Glen Ross?"
Seth: "Yeah."
Greg: "Okay, do you remember 'ABC'?"
Seth: "Yeah. 'Always be closing.'"
Greg: "That's right. 'Always be closing.' 'Telling's not selling.' That's the attitude you wanna have, okay."
Greg: "Now there's two rules you have to remember as a trainee. Number one: We don't pitch the bitch here."
Seth: "What?"
Greg: "We don't sell stock to women. I don't care who it is; we don't do it. Nancy Sinatra calls, you tell her you're sorry. They're a constant pain in the ass and your never gonna hear the end of it. All right? They're gonna call you every furking day wanting to know why the stock is dropping. And god forbid the stock should go up. You're gonna hear from them every fuckin' 15 minutes. It's just not worth it. Don't pitch the bitch."
Seth: "Okay, yeah. Don't pitch the bitch."
Greg: "Number two: Don't write wood, all right? A lot of trainees are so anxious to get off the phone that they just steamroll the guy into getting the press packet so they can hang up. Then I call back, and I'm, like, 'Hi. You spoke to a junior associate of mine last month.' And the guy's like 'Yeah, not interested. Bye.' That's a shitty lead, okay? That's fucking wood. The info we send is bullshit, all right? The most important part is telling them you have that one great idea and that a senior broker's gonna call them back in a month. This way they don't think we fire off a million recos a day. We don't want our clients thinkin' you're pitchg them something you read in the Journal this mornin', right?"
Seth: "Yeah, right."
Greg: "Okay, so no wood. I'm serious. No wood."
Seth: "All right. All right. Take it easy. Take it easy."
Greg: "Hey, don't even start that fuckin' shit with me, okay? I'm tryin' to tell you what's expected of you and what you job is. I'm tryin' to make the job easier here, okay? Don't give me any of that fuckin' lip."
# Funny stuff: FBI asks Seth Green to "back up your entire C:/ drive onto floppy"!

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