Letters to pitch

I found this picture on Smashing Apps. I think it is from the Autralian post office...



















Hand written is always so much better! Geoff often leaves me little 'love' or 'appreciation' notes around the house..I read them over and over because it makes me feel like a goddess who is so loved.

I received a really special hand-written letter from my beautiful actress-friend, Jennifer Reinfrank aka: Jennifer Karen.

We worked together in one of the most potentially soul-destroying jobs I have ever had the displeasure of being employed to do: Street Pitching.

There are companies in London (such as make-over photography studios) that employ a 'direct marketing agency' to bring people in so that they can rip them off by making them buy expensive photographs of themself.... I'm not saying it's a total waste of time: these companies provide a very worth-while service to those who are in need of professional photographs of themselves (actors, omodels and such)... but the bill you may have to fit for falling in love with the pictures of yourself may be a little more than daunting & will probably prevent you from buying that new pair of sunglasses you've been wanting for the last year...or from going on that much-needed holiday! :)

I was too naive - didn't apply the common sense that what I was doing was actually illegal: Street trading is defined as the selling or offering for sale of any article in the street.Traders who use the public highway to sell goods or services must have a street trading licence to carry out trade from a designated site/pitch and display of goods in front of a shop. [www.ealing.gov.uk]

In the time I worked for two of these [illegal-operation-promoting] marketing companies - owned by a seedy gambling addict who led us to believe he spent most of his time in LA or Miami or thereabouts (!) - I saw a lot of girls & guys, men & women...people desperate to possess glameroso photos of themselves.
They'd smelled a rat all along...and then, at photo-buying point, they would look quite uncomfortable parting with their hard-earned (or Dad-given) cash. These people were trapped into a tight corner by the cute photography sales consultant's smooth tongue & easy compliments...as well as by their compulsive need to possess the shots...They would have no choice (for they had been snared) to pay the price of their vanity.

I only paid for one shoot's photos - The first one:
I was conned ( like all the people I had & would pitch ). Mine was under the false pretence of a free shoot & photos: they wanted me to experience the package so that I could do my sales pitch from experience - then they hit me with a choice - money for photos or no photos. I was enraged...but I admit: I liked the look of myself in the photos...& the photographic sales' person pitch was 'right on the money': my money - of which there was not a lot between the room I shared in a hostel with 7 other people, and the need for basic sustinance.

Pics from photoshoot 1:















The company I worked for changed studios and, when I had made friends with the studio staff & photographers, I participated on 'quiet day fun shoots' with the rest of the studio & sales staff. Here are some of the results:

Pics from photoshoot 2:









Pic from photoshoot 3 (left)

I was curious to see what could be done - to get a glimpse of how [if I was kwashi enough to be a model / actress / some kind of photographed star] I may have looked as a magazine-standard glamorous woman... Clearly I was not yet aware of the joys of what Photoshop can achieve. Curiosity is why many of these girls part with their cash so reluctantly yet abundantly: They get a view through the window of possibility... Cinderella looking in the mirror & recognising, for the first time, that she is not all rags & handy-andy... Maybe there is a glimmer of promise...of a dream-come-true...a prince (?)

I had lured a lot of business in...& suddenly the direct marketing business became really saturated, especially with pitching women... Direct Marketing Agents (such as myself) had no choice but to opt for rather dodgy methods of getting people's attention to make a simple living - literally: the man on the street.
"Hello, Mr.Yellow Tie..." might be an opening line on the corner of Great Portland and Oxford streets... or "Excuse me....Do you like getting pampered?" - cheeky smile catching the poor bloke off-guard before he gets pitched the 'your-wife/girlfriend-will-love-this...it's what every girl wants' story...these metrosexual (or at least metro-aware), often gorgeously shy men in suits & ties would realise that they were not actually being propositioned on a street corner in the middle of the day [they had felt strangely flattered], but that they had been accosted by someone trying to suck them dry of their hard-earned cash...the embarrassment of the previous assumption still ringing in their head & bringing wallet to hand.

Sometimes they were metro enough to want the package for themselves!

Isn't that just what the world seems be like:
People selling you stuff you actually really don't need.

The sad thing for me is that it was often those with the least that were the most vulnerable to my sales-pitch.

The "Pro's":

• I got onto club guest-lists [with all the boring, coked up rich-kids]
  
• I got to work out-doors [Even in Winter]
  
• I had the freedom to go to any town / street in England that I could get to within an hour or so [Sunny day - let's hit Brighton!]
• I got to work 'for myself' [with 80% of my hard-earned cash going into Mr.K's pocket]
• I got to have conversations with strangers & find out what they did for a living [which helped me shape ideas on what I wanted to do on my return to South Africa]

and in all the months I subjected myself to all of this, I:

• worried constantly if I would have enough money for rent / my travel ticket / food
• felt guilty when I had to twist my sales pitch to suit my pocket, when I could see that the person I was pitching shouldn't be buying my product [I even mistakenly pitched a homeless person wearing leather pants - felt so bad that I offered to buy him something at Burger King & he ordered the most expensive thing on the menu!!]
  
• felt sad for women who fell for the guy-pitcher's gigolo charms
  
• learned what it was like to be ignored - to become invisible in the eyes of the passing public - I cannot even explain what it is like to have my existence repeatedly not be acknowledged by a simple nod or 'no thank you' for most of a day. This causes a feeling of loneliness that can only be understood by those who have experienced it.
  [I urge you to at least acknowledge even beggars - people can deal with rejection if they still feel human]
  

learned:

• a lot about marketing bullshit
  
• that a positive attitude is something one needs to work at to survive
• to pull myself through a long, unsuccessful day / week - with a smile
  
• what women & some men are vulnerable to falling for
• that hair and make-up and glamor are not even skin deep (!)
  
• that in London, you can get away with pretty wacky personal styling without looking like a freak!