Humor
Mitch and Murray Have Some Feedback For Blake’s “Glengarry Glen Ross” Presentation
Coffee is for everyone!
Dear Blake,
We thank you again for going down to speak with our Chicago sales team, although we were recently informed that your presentation was less than appropriate for an office environment. To that end, we wanted to give you feedback to take into consideration for future presentations.
First and foremost, office morale is very important to us. We want our agents to come through the door and have a friendly rapport with their fellow salesmen. Therefore, we ask you to please not restrict coffee for “closers only.” While we obviously want all our employees to find success and land deals, we don’t believe withholding access to a basic office perk will make them look forward to coming into work every morning.
While we were thrilled to hear you drummed up excitement for our annual sales competition, you provided incorrect information about the winning tiers. First prize was indeed a Cadillac Eldorado, and second prize was, as you mentioned, “a lovely set of steak knives.”
But third prize was a $50 gift card to Macy’s….
A $50 GIFT CARD TO MACY’S. NOT termination.
If for some reason an employee’s performance is substandard and we have to make the decision to let said employee go, it would be a long and complicated process. We would give notice; we would meet with them one-on-one. We would never kick them to the curb because they got third place in a friendly sales competition! This would lead to a long series of wrongful termination lawsuits for operating in that way.
Additionally — and frankly we’re surprised we have to remind you of this — let’s go over some appropriate responses to the question, “what’s your name”:
Appropriate
- Your name
- An innocent, fun nickname you like to be called
Inappropriate
- “Losers”
- “Cocksuckers”
- Any slurs typically used against members of the LGBTQ+ community
- “You drove a Hyundai to get here tonight, I drove an $8,000 BMW”
- “Fuck you.” In fact, this should never be your response to any question posed during work hours… ever.
This kind of combative language is not good for building team spirit or, as we’ve mentioned, office morale.
Opening up a conversation to talk about what it takes to sell real estate is wonderful, but please try and focus on more general skills and traits, like charisma, a friendly demeanor, or a good sense of humor everyone can enjoy. These are much more important than “a pair of brass balls”, which is both irrelevant in the buying and renting of houses, and something we find discriminatory towards our female real estate agents.
We hope these notes will help make your next presentation be a bit more work-friendly, and we will be using it for our leadership conference in April.
Sincerely,
Mitch and Murray
P.S. We loved your “ABC” and “AIDA” mnemonics, and will be implementing them in our future training packets.
