The toughest job in business is selling. The toughest job in selling is selling intangibles. The toughest sales venue is selling intangibles through the airwaves.

The profession of selling is not for everyone. The threat of rejection is constant, failure is everywhere. Audible. Visible.

Kicked to the curb, thrown out in the street. No hiding the humiliation.

Sales is just like show business. Especially when it is show business.

The wife of Your Business Blogger, Charmaine, goes through some degree of humiliation weekly in peddling public policy through a channel of distribution of 500 cable channels.

Usually it’s merely a misquote, stupid picture, occasional death threat.

Last night was about as bad as it gets.

Charmaine was scheduled to debate on Scarborough Country. We alerted friends! media! mom!

But she was bumped. Dumped. Humiliated. Some sales professionals will insist that it’s not personal, it’s not you — it’s your product or service.

This is nonsense. It is always personal. It is always the sales rep.

Vicious competition. (Lord, I love sales.)

However, it is often difficult to discern the decision process of the decision maker. Especially if you need to choose.

Between a segment on the World’s Ugliest Dog. Or Charmaine.

…or…

Screen Capture Credit:  Peter Shinn

Personally, I’d choose to hear Charmaine. Watch a good looking broad try to sell me something.

But nooo, MSNBC decided to air the ugly.

So Charmaine was rejected at the last minute while in the green room and we all had to watch the (perceived) more appealing topic. Well.

Every sales presentation requires preparation. Even the sales novice understands that the pitch prep is time consuming. Charmaine’s work to get ready took up half a day. Here are numbers down the funnel:

3 hour notice
2 hours in traffic
25 minutes for makeup
all for…
what would have been…

75 seconds of airtime

This was not the first time Charmaine was rejected. The first was back during the Bill Clinton non-stop peccadillo programming.

Charmaine, as talking head, was in the chair on the set, live, talking, debating away. Then it happened.

The network gets a better offer.

In walks Gil Davis, esq.. Alert readers will remember the super lawyer Davis, who was representing Paula Jones and the disagreement with the President. I think it was an oral argument.

The producer sees Davis; cuts to a break. Another producer with clipboard and papers a-flying jumps across the table. In 59 seconds, Charmaine was flung out of the chair, IFB ripped out of her ear, wires stripped off blouse, bodily thrown off the set out to the curb.

When they returned from the commercial break our friend Gil was sitting in the chair smiling and selling.

Gore Vidal once said, “Never turn down a chance to have sex or to go on TV.” But it might not be worth it. (The TV part, I mean.) The pressure is not for everyone.

Charmaine was bumped five, count ‘em five times before CNN put her on live. Brutal.

But if you ever have a chance to peddle on radio or TV, I say take it.

And know that no matter how bad it gets; if you don’t make the sale, you will not have lost out to the World’s Ugliest Dog.

Posted by Jack Yoest | | Permalink

1. MSNBC Chooses World’s Ugliest Dog…Over Charmaine

   This is an update on that old story about an ugly dog. It came back to bite us. The story, that is. Charmaine was bumped last night off MSNBC for a segment on The World’s Ugliest Dog. You could choose:…

   Trackback by Jack Yoest — 7/1/2006 @ 6:39 am

2. Great post Jack. I love your stealth sense of humor! Just like a sales funnel so goes the airtime calculation.

   Comment by Steve Rucinski — 7/1/2006 @ 8:44 am

3. Steve, you know, you are on to something…I just noticed on my blog site meter that my Average Visit Length by my (above!) average readership is 85 seconds. As compared for Charmaine’s 75 seconds of airtime.

   The funnel mentioned above seems to have the same numbers — going and coming out — for sales, TV and business blogging.

   Except for maybe, the makeup. But everything else I do in life would be cosmetic.

   And not that I’m a slave to checking traffic; as depicted by gapingvoid:
   http://www.gapingvoid.com/Moveable_Type/archives/002766.html

   Best,
   Jack

   Comment by Jack — 7/1/2006 @ 11:57 am

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