One of the colloquialisms at my work is 'FA'. FA is the acronym for failure analysis. This is where a customer will send in their dead unit and we’ll try to determine why it failed. I do most of these except for the high profile and really obscure problems. In the spirit of looking for simple things blog about i'll apply my meager skills to why dancers fail to get dances, more specifically why the dancer failed to get dances from me. I probably don’t represent the typical customer but I probably have pretty typical reactions to a dancers sales pitch.
Ask for the Dance
The number one reason why I did not buy dances from a girl is she never asked me. Ask for the dance, ask for the dance, and ask for the dance. When you wait for the customer to ask you are putting your fate in his hands. If I’m on the fence about whether to buy dances I’ll probably stay there. I’m not trying to be difficult but it’s my money you want me to spend. I’d rather get dances from somebody interested in selling them. The longer she waits the more likely I’m not going to buy dances. Occupy Wall Street, not my bar tab. Walking away absolutely guarantees that you won’t get dances. It doesn’t matter if he asked you to sit with him or you ask to sit. It doesn’t matter what you are selling dances, mutual funds or diamonds always ask for the dance. Ask for the sale.
It's about me
There are some subjects that will instantly shut down any desire for a dance. The most abhorrent to me is listening about how attractive somebody else is. I’m an unremarkable man with an unremarkable job that drives an unremarkable car to an unremarkable home. There are 168 hours in a week. I’m reminded constantly for the other 166 hours that I’m not an object of desire. I don’t want to hear it when I’m in a strip club and I sure as hell don’t want to pay for the privilege. I’m not asking to hear false platitudes about how handsome I am. Like asking for the sale, this isn’t something particular to stripping. If I were to go into one of my accounts and tell them how cool their competitor’s product was I wouldn’t live to see the end of the week. You are always tap dancing around the customer’s ego in sales. It might feel good to whack some guy’s ego but it’s not going to make you any money.
The customer is not your enemy
The last thing is don’t hate your customer. It always surprises me how often a dancer will plop down next to me with a thinly veiled expression of malice on her face. She’ll plow through a couple minutes of small talk through clinched teeth. Then snarl out some sort of snarky remark when I don’t buy dances from her. I didn’t force you to sit with me. If you’ve already resigned yourself to failing then nothing is going to stop you. Anybody who has sold anything has wanted to strangle their customer. There probably isn’t a week that goes by where I don’t want to beat some idiot engineer to death was his iPhone 4S. Siri, please contact the coroner I’m going to kill this idiot. I like to think myself as a relatively low maintenance customer but I know a few of my dancer friends have wanted to break a chair over my head.
Don't push yourself to far
One of those signs you’ve been hanging around at a strip club too long is when you’re asked to help educate new dancers. There is a piece of advice I always give out but I doubt ever gets followed. As soon as they can they should save two months of living expenses. I know this is a lot easier said than done, but dancing is very taxing both physically and mentally. Having a cushion to take a break can make all the difference. The pressure to make money can be overwhelming when your back is against the wall. This invariably leads to bad decisions.
I agree with you on all counts. I'd like to add one other thing that's kind of an outlier. (Actually I think you mentioned something similar in an earlier post about shit dancers say.) Don't treat a customer like a charity fund! This has only happened to me twice in about 15 years of clubbing, but it's the one sure thing to piss me off: I'm minding my own business at the bar and a dancer I don't know plops down next to me and unloads her tale of woe. Nobody's buying dances, and if I don't pay my rent I'm gonna be evicted (or my child has brain seizures, etc.) When I say sorry for your troubles but no thank you, she doesn't stop there, but asks for a handout. A stripper blatantly panhandling. On both occasions I didn't report them to the club manager, but I think I had every right to. Am I being too callous in my old age?
ReplyDeleteI've found at our titty bar that men like that we don't ask for dances compared to being driven into the ground by hawks at other clubs. I guess I don't know when or how to really ask for the dance. Something I should work with probably.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I think your comment about being in the strip club too long when being asked to help new dancers is incorrect. I've worked at my first and only club for 3.5 months now. And after 3 weeks I was asked to help the new girls out. Never worked anywhere before, and only was a customer to an actual club twice. Which was 6 months and 1.5 years before my actual start time in this bar.
We got rid of bad apples and started with some new girls (again like me, never worked anywhere before) and wanted to train them right from wrong. There was me and one of the original girls (worked 6 months; a drunk; and doesn't know any pole moves) I was the best candidate to help the new girls out I guess.
I don't think it's been time for me to pack up my stuff. I mean I'm just getting started. lol. But I don't think I'm the typical case. We did get rid of the bad apple whom worked for 20+ years - she didn't have any good advice to give obviously. She gave us our "tricks" she uses and look where she ended up.
I like this point of view of the stripper industry. I'm going to def read more.