AT&T sales strategy

[ThomCat]

It seems to me that AT&T is absolutely using breasts as a strategy to try to get more corporate business.

I just met with our Corporate Sales Rep. We do a few million $ per year in business with them so they're in here periodically trolling for more. This rep is a very attractive, young, well proportioned and was wearing a thin clingy top with a low neck-line.

The prior sales rep is also young, beautiful, well proportioned, and tended to wear clothing that highlighted her breasts. Before her we would sometimes see teams of women sent to cold-call us looking to get our business. I've never seen a sales team that didn't include at least one gorgeous women in revealing clothes.

This current sales rep is very intelligent. The prior one had as mercenary an attitude as any male sales rep I've ever met. Neither one of them needs to use her appearance to sell. So, what do you think AT&T is thinking?

[kay1864]

1. Other.

This Thread is Useless Without Pictures

Cell phone camera, hello?















:P

[ThomCat]

2. I don't think it's an accident

that my boss has the only gay man on staff (me) managing our AT&T accounts. He likes to attend the meetings though. :P

No pictures. Sorry. Even if I had one, I wouldn't post it. I like this sales rep, and regardless of what AT&T thinks, women are not just a pair of breasts to post on the internet. :)

[kay1864]

3. You're probably right

Your boss figures you can think with your upper brain instead of your lower one.

I'm guessing part of it is that a lot of beautiful women (and men, for that matter) end up in sales.

OTOH AT&T itself probably steers its most attractive reps to the high dollar accounts.

[ThomCat]

4. I think that the sales strategy implies both 1 and 2.

I think that AT&T really doesn't value their female sales reps very much except as beautiful women. If they did do them I'd expect to see them retain more of those reps as they get older. I've been in this business for 15 years and the women don't seem to reach beyond a certain age. So that would be 1.

They wouldn't do this if it wasn't effective. It must be working, so that would be 2.

It's kind of sad either way.

[kay1864]

5. Maybe.

Or it could be that sales reps start young, and as they get older, they either get promoted (with less customer contact) or find more lucrative jobs elsewhere. It's not necessarily that AT&T cans them or hides them as they get older.

[ThomCat]

6. Sales reps tend to be among the highest paid

non-executive possitions. The only ones I think might have been straight out of college are the teams they use for cold-calling.

I'd love to believe that as they get older they get promoted upward. I haven't seen that. I've seen sales reps move to other companies, but only two moved to management (and both of those two were guys).

[kay1864]

7. So then...

the ones that moved to other companies, did they ever say why?

It's all new to me, since I've only worked with vendor reps for a year or less, never long-term.

[ThomCat]

8. The sales industry tends to be kind of in-bred.

I see the same reps over and over again at various companies. I think it's just the nature of the industry to move every few years.

I know of two that moved to entirely different industries, out of sales entirely. They just got tired of selling I guess.

Sales is one job I have always known I could not do. Though, I'm very good at picking apart sales proposals and playing "torment the rep." :evilgrin:

[Madspirit]

9. I picked OTHER

...because I think it is more than one of the above. I think it's flagrant sexism and they think men are all pigs and ergo it will be the better way to sell to them. This in turn requires using women as walking sex toys to sell stuff and that's misogynistic.

I don't know if they really think women are too stupid to sell stuff without using their bodies. I think they just don't care because they know the sex sells. They are counting on all male customers being so stupid and vacuous this is what they will respond to. ...and they don't care if they misuse and abuse their female employees...for the mighty buck.

It's bad from every perspective.

...and I will k&r this.

Lee

[ThomCat]

11. "walking sex toys"

That was pretty much my opinion of the image the sales rep was trying to present today.

[Morgana LaFey]

14. Not really all that respectful of the men clients, either, huh?

You basically said that, I'm just making a bigger point of it. Shame.

Equally shameful that so few men can disengage their own senses to BE insulted by it.

[doggyboy]

10. Let's put it this way

Many companies recruit their sales team from college cheerleading squads

I'm series!!

[ThomCat]

12. I would not be the least surprised.

None of the reps at this level are fresh out of school, but I owuld not be surprised if that is how they got started.

[JVS]

13. when you're in sales, you never sell the product, you sell yourself!

At a dinner recently with coworkers and the boss, the topic of telemarketing came up. Having experience in the field, I thought I'd demonstrate my "sales rap". The sales rap is like putting on an act, my voice is deeper, I sound more confident, I'm amicable, all that shit. My coworkers were amused at the affectation that I put on in order to sell. A salesperson is going to use his or her assets.

[Morgana LaFey]

15. "A salesperson is going to use his or her assets."

No matter how it cheapens them, I take it.

What a shame.

[JVS]

16. Who knows, she may cry all the way to the bank to use the words of Liberace

[Morgana LaFey]

21. Oh, sure. Lotta people console themselves that selling out is

worth the money they're being paid. It rarely is. But they can live with that illusion for a very long time, perhaps even forever.

[JVS]

22. Isn't it her decision to decide how to use her body?

[Morgana LaFey]

24. Yes and no. It's her decision, but hardly a "free" decision

in a society where women are oppressed, and a big part of that oppression is sexualized.

Here's a better explanation than I can give. It starts out talking about porn, which is actually only the extreme of sexualized images and depictions meant for consumer consumption, and goes on from there to make a point that fits the objectification of all women quite well:

Porn — gay, straight, bi, live-action, animated, or ‘feminist’ — is the graphic representation of the oppression of the sex class.

snip

Or, if you prefer, in order for porn to be politically neutral, it can’t be porn.

When you’re already oppressed, it is, in fact, impossible to volunteer for oppression. A woman is a member of the sex class whether she “chooses” it or not. This pre-existing condition forms the backdrop to any fun feminist’s conclusion that her compliance with the patriarchal sexbot mandate is voluntary. She may believe otherwise, but her belief does not alter the fact that patriarchy — a social order predicated on an oppression to which she is already subject — is real and in effect and entirely beyond any unrestricted control she may wish to exert and only too glad to welcome her as a team player and sign her up for the rewards program.

It goes on to say the "rewards program" -- which the woman of your inquiry is heavily involved in taking advantage of -- ain't all it's cracked up to be. But ya'll knew that. Very good piece. I encourage people to go read it.

http://blog.iblamethepatriarchy.com/2007/04/28/reader-actually-asks-spinster-aunts-opinion

[Orsino]

17. Attractive people tend to do well in sales.

Folks making sales calls tend to be young, as well. Put those factors together with most budgets being in male hands, and the resulting generalization shouldn't surprise us.

[wildhorses]

18. all of the above ---

sorry, don't have a lot of respect for the typical corporate white male:shrug:

[ThomCat]

19. As an atypical corporate white male

I'll agree with you.

[wildhorses]

20. one of the many reasons why i loves me some thomcat

;)

:hug:

:hi:

[La Lioness Priyanka]

23. my company for a long time used handsome frat boys on their sales team

same difference.

[Morgana LaFey]

25. Not at all

Very different. Handsome frat boys aren't, and will never be (unless they're men of color), members of an oppressed group.

Objectification, while still a shame and in fact a humiliation for them to participate in (whether they realize it or not), will NEVER make any of them or any other man a second class citizen. True, they're kinda pathetic while in that "objectified" mode, but they can shirk that off at a moment's notice, while no woman EVER can. Ever.

Say, didja ever hear of feminism? You might want to look it up some time. Google it. Read up a bit. Might do you some good.