Job Brief: Lead generation for a will writing firm, only qualifying leads (MUST have a landline) count towards the target.
The shifts for the will writing company were usually entirely solo.
I’d arrive at the shopping centre before 9am to locate my stand, a roll out banner and a branded wheelie bin with the clipboards inside. It’s where I could put away my handbag and my dignity too.
And then I’d just begin. Like a street performer in Covent Garden drumming up a crowd, I’d start addressing people in the shopping centre, often from afar because people knew to avoid me…
“GOOD MORNING SIR, HAVE YOU CONSIDERED MAKING A WILL?”
I spent the day saying that. Outwardly smiling and repeating myself, inwardly urging passers by to set fire to me.
I stuck with this self-persecution because the commission was very good if you met the lead generation target. The target had an absolute hold over me and meant I came back early from my lunch break on a shopping centre bench most days. I never once missed the target.
One day, the lady on the flower stand nearby went and complained to the shopping centre management that I was putting off her customers by ‘shouting around everywhere’. It took the wind right out of my sails because I’d just found the confidence in using more volume. I had a quick cry and carried on, at a lesser volume.
I understood that people did not like me – if I’d popped into town I wouldn’t want to speak to me either, I’d want to get back to the car before the parking runs out. People had different ways of letting me know how they felt:
- The Early Palm towards my face would let me know that a person wouldn’t be responding vocally.
- The ‘you’ve already asked me’ made me feel bad. But not that bad.
- People often physically steered away from me, avoiding eye contact like I was a clipboard-wielding Medusa.
When you have to explain to people that they can’t put their rubbish in that wheelie bin because it is in fact your work desk, it doesn’t do much for the self-esteem.
This job was character building and you couldn’t pay me enough money to do a single hour of it again.
Average Brunette 