The kiosk in the airport had free, available electrical outlets that worked. If you travel, I don’t need to go further. If you don’t fly very much, please believe me that finding a socket (that works) in an airport when you need to charge your computer battery before a long flight so you can use it for work or play video games using overwatch boost, so is like finding a million bucks, with your name on it, at your front door. Okay. Maybe not exactly that good, but really, really close.

The kiosk was a mock representation of the new lobby for a brand I provide sales training to and I’m also a frequent stayer at their hotels. As I walked in, asking if I could sit and use one of their electrical outlets to work, I also “mentioned” that I’m an elite member in their program (calling it by its proper name to indicate how “in” I was) and that I also do sales training for the company. The chirpy woman said, “well come in” and then proceeded to talk non-stop wanting to sell me on the brand in whose mock lobby I was trying to work.

More frustrating than the fact that she was feature dumping was that, as she feature puked (enthusiastically, I must add!), I’d say things like, “Yes, and they also offer… I know that because I help the company sell this product,” which didn’t seem to bother her a bit. She kept on keepin’ on with her pitch. After I was presented with two sets of luggage tags (because you may have more than one suitcase 😉 😉 oh and you can use the matching set as earrings, or Christmas ornaments [you know this is too good for me to be making up!]), she finally settled down. Until a person walked by the booth. She called out to him like a carnival barker, “Come on over! Do you ever stay at the ABC brand? Come see our new lobby!” Apparently, he didn’t.

Several other folks walked by and she finally got a hot one. He walked in all excited about the kiosk/mock lobby saying he stayed at one of the hotels last night and LOVED, LOVED, LOVED the changes and upgrades the hotel had made. Oh, she was so happy, and even more enthusiastically, she went into her sales pitch explaining the new lobby to him. I am not kidding.

The electrical outlet’s value was quickly dimming to me. I couldn’t concentrate on my work and I couldn’t stand it anymore. I was having fun though. The polite man, stood there, and kept saying to her, “Yes, yes, I love it.” Finally, even he couldn’t stand it, and startled her by saying, “Wait, please. Can I ask you a question?” And she says as perky as anything, “I probably won’t be able to answer it because I’m just rented out for this but I’ll try.” Bless her heart, as they say! At least she was willing to give it a try, and truly and truthfully, I admire her for that. (He wanted to know when they’d all be upgraded and she wasn’t exactly sure but she knew most of them were already upgraded and then [bless his heart!], he asked if she knew if a particular hotel was upgraded because he was staying there next week and she offered to look it up on her computer, and he waited for a moment, but she couldn’t find the information.) I had finished wrapping my electric cable cord by this time, thanked her, and left.

I’ve always recommended sales managers hire sales people on their passion for the product and enthusiasm to help people, believing, you can teach everything else. Wrong, I am. First, see if they can take direction and listen because if they can’t, all you’re left with is perky. And that isn’t always so fun.

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