ISWYDT… 
So did durian fruit and I’m in no hurry to repeat that experience either. The movies, I’m talking about the movies.
From the first time I watched GGR (trivia: first movie I ever rented on my IPad), it was incredibly obvious to me that Blake is a complete poseur. Where’s the evidence for all his great successes? Where’s the $80,000 car? The receipts for his record-breaking sales? How do we know how much that watch cost? Cripes, fake gold isn’t at all hard to produce or obtain. As for his “motivation” techniques, notice that he doesn’t actually address what the salesmen are doing wrong and give concrete tips on how to improve? No, it’s just the usual predictable noise about busting your butt and having brass balls and crap.
His purpose is to act all loud and obnoxious so the disturbingly large portion of the movie viewing audience who loves the idea of loud and obnoxious being the key to success have something to latch onto. No more, no less. Same death as endlessly quoting Drill Instructor Hartman while conveniently forgetting the primary reason he’s nowhere in the second half of the movie. As someone who’s never had any desire to be loud and obnoxious (and would very likely have died years ago if I was), I’ve never felt any need to elevate Blake beyond the bloviating empty suit he is.
It’s entirely a performance, a coach’s motivational speech. The clue is at 1:18 in this clip, when he’s told they’re not all here, and he calmly says “well I’m going anyway”.
Baldwin’s speech was all boilerplate motivational berating. An old roommate of mine watched this scene and told me about when he worked selling electronics at Montgomery Ward. They’d get the same visit from corporate every year that included a speech virtually identical to GGGR. “Always Be Selling” was the phrase for MW. And the guy had the same “I’m a badass and you should be too” attitude that Baldwin was pushing.
Yeah, except society – especially back then – tends to reward those types of people. If Baldwin’s character is merely an empty suit putting on a motivational speech, damn, his character would make a killing making motivational speeches. I don’t believe for a second he’s merely a phony, and never had thought so. Exaggerating? Almost certainly so. But I suspect he actually is damned good at what he does and could sell the shit out of anything. His personality completely conveys that to me, despite him dialing up several notches in the face of “motivation.”
Levene checks out the BMW parked on the street as he crosses from the restaurant to the office building.
But that’s what most (all?) corporate motivational speakers are, They get these accounts to give these big speaches that are all hot air, but the big wigs think are going to have an impact on the bottom line. I bet they never do, but instead of learning their lesson, they hire a different speaker next year.
They’d be better off buying Tom Landry’s hat. Because if Tom Landry’s hat doesn’t motivate you, then I should just quit right now.
Bad-ass Monkey Ward salespersons might have made for a good SNL skit.
Yeah, but I’m also seeing he’s totally the type of guy I could see making nearly a million a year and driving an $80K BMW. Those types of personalities seem to gather in certain professions, and I don’t think the motivational speaker personality type is a stretch from the successful hard-edged salesman type. I had a friend with a similar personality who made a killing selling high-end suits and later exotic luxury cars – he was absolutely ruthless like Baldwin’s character – obviously toned down in front of the people he sold to. He eventually made enough to open his own dealerships. I don’t think it’s at all a stretch to believe Baldwin’s braggadocio – people similar enough exist in real life.
That said, I don’t think it’s particularly important whether he is telling the truth or not in the scope of the story.
He can’t tell them what’s wrong with their sales techniques because their problem is that they’re following the law. That motivational speech is designed to convince salespeople to stop obeying the law while maintaining plausible deniability for the corporation. You ratchet up the pressure without giving any direction on how to achieve the goals and let them find their own ways to defraud the customers
One thing apparent from seeing the movie was that all three of them, Moss, Levene and the Alan Arkin character ARE losers, horrible salesmen and should be fired. Roma, played by All Pacino, was the far superior salesman to all three of them.
It’s — interesting? Suggestive? Lazy? — that he’s written as not being there for Baldwin’s speech.
To be honest i dont think manet did much research into how telemarketing really works and what kind of people actually do that for a living
ive went to a telemarketing “interview” they were selling a campground timeshare thing and the speech was pretty much like Baldwins but it looked like dregs selling to other dregs… they got their list from “fill out for more info” things like county fairs and where ever someone let them put up a box … these days its outsourced or newly arrived people selling medical alert bracelets and the like
If I remember one of the discussions from years ago about the story was people thought Lennon’s character’s daughter considered delusional BS…
I don’t think it’s apparent at all. It’s true that the three salesmen have poor results. We can see that on the blackboard.
But they’re selling worthless shit to warmed-over leads. Given the inherently low conversion rate, there’s bound to be random fluctuation. Levine, we’re given to understand, has a proven track record, albeit at some remove in the past. Roma himself tells Levine how great he is after Levine poses as his client to try to save the sale to the schmuck from the bar.
Management brings in Baldwin to berate the three losers. It wouldn’t be the first time management decided that yelling at the employees for something that wasn’t their fault was easier and cheaper than attacking the underlying problems.
For my money, I thought Levine’s sales patter was better than Roma’s incoherent harangue at the bar. (“What is the point of an investment? To make money? Perhaps. To lose money? Perhaps. To find out something about yourself? Do you see what I’m saying?” No dude, I don’t.) Next year Levine might be top of the board while Roma’s at zero.
Okay. I - I - I feel bad about this. You probably already saw this. I’m not sure how real the recipient of this crank call is. Could be a setup. And crank calls are so Nineties. Okay, I’m doing it, and you have been warned.
