Cold Caller
(part 2)
I knew how to read from scripts from college theater productions, y'know with feeling (masking the grinding boredom). I did not use grab area phone book and simply call names out of the white pages to generate cards like many of the other broker wannabees; the lanky redneck car mechanic, a stocky blonde haired finance and insurance manager from a local dealership, a former assistant manager at restaurant who looked my mom at 25, and a red headed ex-waiter and some other people who needed a better job, there were others too but I don't remember their former jobs. I swear one guy must have sold kiddie porn or something, he looked like a sleazebag from two blocks away and was usually drunk after dinner. Ugh.
I opened up the yellow pages and did things like called people at Cigarette boat dealerships, Porsche dealerships, Yacht sales and other places where high income salespeople worked, I mailed away to various swanky places asking for information, i.e. contact people. I tried any high end luxury sales place I could research. My contacts were generally of of a better grade than most, and some were very, very good indeed. The VP noticed this after he used a few of them. He came out of his glass box one day and asked "Who cold called the Bentley salesman?". I raised my hand and he gave me an appraising look. "Nice work, Choat-eus." He went back into his office (he had sold the Bentley guy about $15k of one of our stocks). I got a few raised eyebrows from my fellow drones. We went back to cold calling.
Until we became Registered Representative Stockbrokers, our cards went to the extant ones, the branch manager (VP) and the assistant branch manager who had their own real offices with doors. As brokers they could also buy contacts commercially for so many cents a contact, with the better ones being pricier. Some cards were 25 cents apiece and you bought them by the hundreds in these accordion folded 3x2 stacks.
The VP drove a 3 series ice blue BMW, and the assistant manager had a 'vette, I think. It was red, or yellow, I forget which color now. Georgia tags with a Yellowjackets license holder. Yeah, it was yellow.
One night after work we went to the VP's digs nearby and listened to music and drank beer. He had the most amazing stereo system I had ever heard, it even made Peter Gabriel sound good. Since the VP had just moved here from Florida, the place wasn't lavishly furnished, but I still remember that sound system in a barren condo. The ex-waiter, it turned out had been a front man for local band and jesus he had a great voice. The VP pulled out a keyboard and they jammed. It was pretty nice.
Time passed in grueling cold calling land and the time for preparation class for the exam finally arrived, which was essentially five days of 8-hour lectures and quizzes (which I paid for, I think it was $300 bucks). All the material covered was absolutely new to me, except for the letters and numbers part. The concepts were hard going for me but the instructor was very good, which made it tolerable. I thought I studied the material in some depth before the test (three weeks solid weeks of full time roach accompanied studying). I didn't.
The test was brutal. The exam was designed by the government and so was made badly, there were broken questions in it and it was not a cogent piece of work, it was more like a trivia contest for people who had collected odd bits of esoteric knowledge about the securities industry and were drunkenly quizzing each other at 2am.
Oh and it cost me another two hundred and fifty dollars I barely had to take this gauntlet. Ouch. I was making $4.00 an hour as a cold caller, no overtime pay.
The securities industry is rather vast in terms of products and responsibilities and so forth, the test could not hope to cover all of it, it just showed a flashlight into various shadowed areas and asked you a question about it. The next question could be 180 degrees off from it. All of the questions seemed this way, there weren't any overlapping questions, or even a kind of rhyme or reason to them. The proctors were ferocious about people cheating, you had to leave all materials in the exam room and have nothing in your pockets and so on. Some testing companies had people take the test so they could leave with the questions, so they could instruct their students better.
You weren't told which questions you got wrong afterwards, only your score (if you failed). You could not leave with any test materials. A 70 was a passing grade and god help you if you got a 68, because that meant you were four right answers from not taking this bear again.
I saw other people really, really failing this test at the intermission,you could tell by the shell shocked look on their faces. One of them was an attorney who told me the BAR was easier. Wow. I remember sitting outside the testing location somewhere in Bethesda and trying to remember what I had studied while I ate lunch.
One of the up to date companies that trains people for this test stipulates that six to eight weeks of study are necessary for this exam. I left the test feeling like I had done well.
The results got mailed to the employers a week or two later, so there was this dramatic scene where the VP came out and called out the names of who passed the test and who didn't. Applause. Oh yeah, I failed. Did I mention I got a 68? I laughed when I saw my score but God, I was crushed. That was the hardest test I had ever taken and now I had to do it again, or quit.
continued tomorrow
I knew how to read from scripts from college theater productions, y'know with feeling (masking the grinding boredom). I did not use grab area phone book and simply call names out of the white pages to generate cards like many of the other broker wannabees; the lanky redneck car mechanic, a stocky blonde haired finance and insurance manager from a local dealership, a former assistant manager at restaurant who looked my mom at 25, and a red headed ex-waiter and some other people who needed a better job, there were others too but I don't remember their former jobs. I swear one guy must have sold kiddie porn or something, he looked like a sleazebag from two blocks away and was usually drunk after dinner. Ugh.
I opened up the yellow pages and did things like called people at Cigarette boat dealerships, Porsche dealerships, Yacht sales and other places where high income salespeople worked, I mailed away to various swanky places asking for information, i.e. contact people. I tried any high end luxury sales place I could research. My contacts were generally of of a better grade than most, and some were very, very good indeed. The VP noticed this after he used a few of them. He came out of his glass box one day and asked "Who cold called the Bentley salesman?". I raised my hand and he gave me an appraising look. "Nice work, Choat-eus." He went back into his office (he had sold the Bentley guy about $15k of one of our stocks). I got a few raised eyebrows from my fellow drones. We went back to cold calling.
Until we became Registered Representative Stockbrokers, our cards went to the extant ones, the branch manager (VP) and the assistant branch manager who had their own real offices with doors. As brokers they could also buy contacts commercially for so many cents a contact, with the better ones being pricier. Some cards were 25 cents apiece and you bought them by the hundreds in these accordion folded 3x2 stacks.
The VP drove a 3 series ice blue BMW, and the assistant manager had a 'vette, I think. It was red, or yellow, I forget which color now. Georgia tags with a Yellowjackets license holder. Yeah, it was yellow.
One night after work we went to the VP's digs nearby and listened to music and drank beer. He had the most amazing stereo system I had ever heard, it even made Peter Gabriel sound good. Since the VP had just moved here from Florida, the place wasn't lavishly furnished, but I still remember that sound system in a barren condo. The ex-waiter, it turned out had been a front man for local band and jesus he had a great voice. The VP pulled out a keyboard and they jammed. It was pretty nice.
Time passed in grueling cold calling land and the time for preparation class for the exam finally arrived, which was essentially five days of 8-hour lectures and quizzes (which I paid for, I think it was $300 bucks). All the material covered was absolutely new to me, except for the letters and numbers part. The concepts were hard going for me but the instructor was very good, which made it tolerable. I thought I studied the material in some depth before the test (three weeks solid weeks of full time roach accompanied studying). I didn't.
The test was brutal. The exam was designed by the government and so was made badly, there were broken questions in it and it was not a cogent piece of work, it was more like a trivia contest for people who had collected odd bits of esoteric knowledge about the securities industry and were drunkenly quizzing each other at 2am.
Oh and it cost me another two hundred and fifty dollars I barely had to take this gauntlet. Ouch. I was making $4.00 an hour as a cold caller, no overtime pay.
The securities industry is rather vast in terms of products and responsibilities and so forth, the test could not hope to cover all of it, it just showed a flashlight into various shadowed areas and asked you a question about it. The next question could be 180 degrees off from it. All of the questions seemed this way, there weren't any overlapping questions, or even a kind of rhyme or reason to them. The proctors were ferocious about people cheating, you had to leave all materials in the exam room and have nothing in your pockets and so on. Some testing companies had people take the test so they could leave with the questions, so they could instruct their students better.
You weren't told which questions you got wrong afterwards, only your score (if you failed). You could not leave with any test materials. A 70 was a passing grade and god help you if you got a 68, because that meant you were four right answers from not taking this bear again.
I saw other people really, really failing this test at the intermission,you could tell by the shell shocked look on their faces. One of them was an attorney who told me the BAR was easier. Wow. I remember sitting outside the testing location somewhere in Bethesda and trying to remember what I had studied while I ate lunch.
One of the up to date companies that trains people for this test stipulates that six to eight weeks of study are necessary for this exam. I left the test feeling like I had done well.
The results got mailed to the employers a week or two later, so there was this dramatic scene where the VP came out and called out the names of who passed the test and who didn't. Applause. Oh yeah, I failed. Did I mention I got a 68? I laughed when I saw my score but God, I was crushed. That was the hardest test I had ever taken and now I had to do it again, or quit.
continued tomorrow