As some of you would know, I used to work in some Singaporean advertising company early last year. To say that I hated working there would be less than an understatement. Well, no, I didn’t hate my job. I just hated working there. In the bloody company which I shall be nice enough to not name. Before I tell you why, let me introduce the art of conman-ship.

    My job as a “sales distributor”, an oh-so-polite alternative term for “salesperson”, was quite fine and dandy. Getting paid to be one of the most annoying characters of the corporate world who attacks anywhere, anytime, any place as long as the dough comes rolling in just r0xx0rz. Nothing’s better than the pleasure of having the rights to piss strangers off. After all, you can blame the harassment your customers get on the marketing technique you were taught by your mentor.

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Direct Selling for Dummies:

    Now, in order to be successful “sales distributors”, you have to accept that notorious attention-seeking is an essential trait to master. Nevertheless, never apply the “3-for-10-ringgit-want-or-not” style. Even though it’s a classic marketing technique, remember that more often than not, you’re not selling porn but crap which doesn’t have mass appeal. You’ll never be able to sell that way. In that case, you have to focus on a style which is not outdated and overused by the Bengs in your friendly pasar malam.

    So you tell your customer you’re about to conduct a test market survey. And you say that your company is trying out a new foreign brand, hoping to create a market. Immediately, test your product on your customer. You have to do it quickly because prospects are more likely to buy products that they have already tried, hence feeling some sense of belonging to your bait.

    Proceed to brainwash your customer with the following points (according to sequence for more foolproof results):

1. The product you just polluted their possessions (e.g. clothes, epidermis layer, nostrils) with is brilliantly refreshing even though it smelt like yesterday’s dung.

2. The non-existent launch date is sometime in X month.

3. The “suggested” market price is MYR 1xx.90 (Or some absurd sum of money).

4. But not to worry, for this “pre-launch promotion”, you’re going to lower the price “all the way down” to MYRxx.90! Reduction of digits! OMFG yay!

5. As “a token of appreciation”, feed on the Malaysian greed by saying that the second piece of “the set” your customer would be entitled to is “free”.

6. In case of any sign of reluctance, show mock surprise and exclaim that they can have the next X pieces “free of charge” because they have student/senior citizen privilege, you happen to have extra products, it’s your boss’ birthday, or/and your stupid naive customers was so nice.

They don’t have to know that the number of free crap they got came from a set they’re actually buying instead.

7. In case of suspicion, throw out the company’s receipt and challenge them to sue your company in case of medical complications resulted from malfunctioned goods.

You do not need to reveal that 43,184 customers have called to complain in the past month.

8. In case of the usual claims of lack of money, tell your unsuspecting preys that you understand that they’re students/shop assistants (“tengah bulan la, mana ada gaji, moi“) and since that you’re both doing the same conman-ship, you’ll only charge them MYR X (the actual product price per unit).

Oh, and tell them to keep this juicy “secret” hush-hush too.

9. After sealing the deal, pack up your bag and keep about one to two sales unit income. Your capitalist company won’t notice because you are underpaid anyway. (Usually a commission of 20% from a single sales unit)

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    Savvy? With carefully chosen words, rest assured that many are suckers for this shit. The fact that I was a Korean/Japanese-looking “sales distributor” selling a fake Japanese fragrance prolly explained why I often ended up making at least MYR 500-600 sales per day. (Author’s note: Not very cool. On five different occassions, I was held back by our friendly Malaysian Royal Police force because I was assumed to be some illegal immigrant from China/Japan.)

 

 

    I realize that I’ve just betrayed the colony of marketers.

 

 

    I digress.

    So, basically, my job was to follow my group leader to wherever he/she wanted to go to make sales. Sometimes in the city like KL, sometimes in a town like Kajang, and sometimes in a suburban area. Usually, we would hit the malls like One Utama and Sunway Pyramid, and we would talk to literally anyone we see, from any shopkeeper in any stores to people in the washrooms and even the cops in police stations. We tried to meet as many customers as possible; especially because our pay is commission-based and one of our sales mottos was “Every ‘No’ brings you closer to a Yes’”. The most prospects I met in a day was about 360 people. All just to sell fragrances within 8 hours.

    Fucking crazy and exhausting.

    So exhausting that I almost lost my voice and due to that my mum told me to quit my job after my first week in the company. She said that I sounded more and more like a guy. Since that the best way to keep my throat from cracking into two was to drink birds nest, if I kept doing my job, no matter how well I did in it, I can never fully pay for my voice maintenance.

    However, like I said, I don’t hate my job. I love meeting people and gaining novel working experience. It was also nice being egocentric at times like this. Act like you care for customers ’til money do you part. Talk their heads off and pick up good-lookers.

    But things can get fucking get on your nerves when you have to endure lecherous sleazebags for the sake of business. For countless times I had guys asking for my number though they know that they’re buying crap from me. If there was anything educational about this, it’s that you should give out Tanjung Rambutan’s hotline whenever this kinda shit happens.

    Now why do I hate working in that company? Firstly, I don’t like my boss. He’s your typical old and fat gold chain-wearing Beng-ish male chauvinist who makes sexist jokes during meetings.

Old fart: So, do you watch football?

Me: I only watch the World Cup.

Old fart: What? World Cup? Not A cup?

Me: …

Some retards: (Guffaws)

Old fart: (Looks at Friend) And you? D cup or E cup?

Friend: …

    Initially, it seemed like I had a great motivating job because the place felt like a motivational camp. The people were friendly and team work was emphasized. There were even incentives and emotional support for those who succeed with the highest earnings for the day. We were even told to write out our aspirations and our plans for the future.

    But the fairy tale ended soon enough when I felt that something was wrong about the company.

    My superior actually came over to my place and work on my “Goals and Plans”. She went on to rephrase my aspirations in that piece of paper into moralistic rubbish like “consistently make at least RM500 per day” and “must treat my parents”.

    WTF, shouldn’t my goals and plans be my goals and plans?

    On another occasion, when my superior sensed that I wasn’t really patriotic about the shitass company anymore, as if in accordance to company’s procedure, she personally came to my house again, wrote down the hundreds of thousands I could possibly earn in a year and the years I could save in the long run, only if I kept working like the dumb cow I was. She told me: “There is no need to further your education. Why bother anyway when your can do it later when you retire rich?”

    Oh, sure, I’d like to work like an ass, be treated like an ass, just to get to her assholic position so that I can manipulate other dumbasses too. With her postponing her education, no wonder she talked like an ass.

 

    And so, after 16 working days, I resigned from hell. Told my sohai supervisor that education was the main reason why she would still work for the shit hole and I would not. When I went to get my payment, the smart buggers accidentally-on-purpose put this chart of high earners of the week on my boss’s desk. I was reminded that Malaysia’s sales beat Singapore’s again.

    That would only mean that I was a top 8th seller in both Malaysian and Singaporean market.

    Not that it was anything jaw-dropping. What I sold was perfume crap which so happened to be extremely well received among our local Malay bimbotic delights.

    Later on, I found out that my superior who was all gung-ho and patriotic about my company quitted her job. Met her couple of months ago.

Me: So, you retired rich eh?

She: Hehe, nola, quit the job. Working as some sales assistant now.

Me: Why quit?

She: Got la. Boss didn’t keep his word. Promised to promote me into manager but the fucker promoted some junior instead.

Me: Heh. Somehow “I told you so” doesn’t seem to say enough.

She: Haih. And you know la, the boss had an affair with the secretary. I was pissed with his decision so I told his wife about it. His wife got pissed so she called up the president of the company. The president got angry and demoted him so that he cannot own a branch anymore. Now he can only work in Singapore lor. Haihhhh…even the company’s sign board oso take down because he bought it.

Me: …And I don’t fucking care?

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An example of bad marketing skills