ura hello work chapter 6: newspaper sales!
6 – DOOR -TO-DOOR NEWSPAPER SALES (新聞拡張員 SHINBUN KAKUCHOUIN)
RISK:**
SALARY:***
HARD LABOR:***
ILLEGALITY:**
When someone mentions door-to-door shinbun kakuchouin (newspaper salesmen), one thinks of tough-looking guys that use high-pressure tactics to coerce people into signing subscription contracts. But, sometimes it’s a nice-seeming, middle-aged man that sells them. It’s impossible to say they’re all a certain way. This time I’d like to introduce you to a guy, Mr. Spacefield (not his real name) who will tell you about the newspaper-sales system.
THE COLLEGE KID WHO PISSED HIS PANTS
“Well, back in the day, the term "shinbun kakuchou" made people think of well-bred guys from the best schools using low-born, street thugs to sell their newspapers! But nowadays, it’s a bit different. First of all, real Yakuza don’t sell papers! The guys doing it want to be gangsters but didn’t have the heart for it – they are half-assed thugs at best. But being struggling young thugs makes ‘em more desparate, so the newspapers probably get complaints about them. That’s why, recently, newspapers like Asahi tell the guys to wear business suits and take a more soft approach. It’s an imeeji appu (‘image up’) strategy.
But even so, in the kakuchou business, you still have to get people to sign the contract – that’s the only way the can put food on the table. An aquaintance of mine had a guy come and ring his dorbell constantly for an hour the guy wouldn’t go away until my aquaintance gave in and signed the contract. It appears that high-pressure sales is still an essential element of the business.I told Mr. Spacefield about this incident, and he replied:
"We call that techniue KATSUKAN. It’s a contraction of kyoukatsu kanyuu (恐喝 勧誘, literally ‘intimidation inducement’). There’s guys that do that, sure!
“For instance, here’s a basic form: You go to the door, and they answer. You ask them, ‘Did Mr. So-and-so move into this apartment recently?’ It’s a good bet that they don’t know anyone in their damn apartment, so they’ll say, ‘I don’t know.’ Then you say, IWell, he’s a young guy in our ‘organization’ so I came by to make sure he wasn’t causing you any ‘problems.’I That way, they think you’re a Yakuza! Then you happen to mention that an ‘older brother’ in your ‘outfit’ has started his own newspaper, and, well, you’ll be in trouble if you can’t sell a few subscriptions to his paper. Can you help me out with this matter? If they’re weak-hearted, that’s all it will take to seal the deal. Then you start talking in your gangster voice, ‘Allright, don’t waste my time, see! Get that inkan (印鑑： a ‘chop’ or personal seal used by Japanese instead of a signature, to ‘sign’ contracts) out and bring it here, see! I’m not patient with youse mugs!’ If you’re in a really good mood, you can then say, ‘Congratulations! This subscription comes with a free ‘service’ package of floor wax.’ Then you barge into their house and scatter the detergent all over their floor and leave. That is also an option!
“That technique gets used pretty frequently, to tell you the truth! But if you overdo it, the police will come and be annoying.”
“When ‘moving season’ comes, the ranks of part-time newspaper salesmen swell to take advantage of it! Naturally this causes people to get irritated. They look at us like we are cockroaches, human garbage. After getting looked at like that all day, a salesman might say something not so polite! LIke, ‘Say, bro, how long do you intend to live here? Two or three years? Do you want to have a good time or a bad time for the next 2 or 3 years? If you treat me nice this time, and I’ll be nice back. But if you refuse me, I’ll call the office and they’ll send a young guy – really big and full of energy. An energetic salesman, you could call him! And he’ll be round every single day!’”
I mean, you got to start with a very low-key approach. and THEN, when you suddenly flip out and start talking like that, the average person will get all befuddled. Their face turns blue, and they start to stammer. Some people look like they might be pissing in their pants, although those are usually Tokyo University students. But even then, you can’t forget the contract. Threaten them into getting their inkan, give them the paper, tell ‘em ‘Don’t forget what I said, bro!’, then shake their hand and say ‘You’re a good kid!’ and that’s that. Any regular kakuchouin can make the sale, but only a real pro can intimidate them so much they don’t dare cancel afterwards!"
There’s a lot of salesmen that do this kind of sham extortion. The salesmen are affiliated with the newspaper’s official, full-time sales team, and the team boss’ attitude plays a major role in determining how far the salesmen will go. Some bosses tell the salesmen ‘Absoulutely no KATSUKAN!’, but others are like, ‘Do what you gotta do.’ Mr. Spacefield says that 2 or 3 sales teams out of ten use katsukan all the time.
"There’s lots of ways to do it! If you’re too old to scare ‘em, you can DOGEZA (kneel down and press your head to the floor), can’t you? Or you can do a MANZAI (a form of comedy routine) sales approach, or the NAKIKAN!
“With the MANZAI, you just sort of make them laugh until they sign! Of course you’ve got to have a knack for storytelling, and an affable personality to boot. For instance, they open the door, and you ask, ‘Have you seen the Monday night "LAUGH OUT LOUD" variety show? I was on that last week!’ You tell them you’re a celebrity and everything. Make them laugh with a series of preposterous lies. ‘Yeah, showbiz is a hard gig. The TV network owns this newspaper, and if I want to go back on the show next week, they say I have to sell ten subscriptions!’ They’ll whip out their credit card and inkan right there!
“NAKIKAN, is different. To put it simply, you just fall down and cry! Your daughter has an incurable disease! She can only be saved with a special technique of a famous American surgeon! You bow your head and plead with them to help save your daughter! And if you happen to have a photo of a cute girl to show them, all the better! It helps to speak with a heavy country accent, too, as if you’ve traveled hundreds of miles. Of course this technique doesn’t work in ritzy neighborhoods like Yamanote, where people are less humane. ‘That’s your bad luck, isn’t it?’ they say, ‘I don’t need the newspaper!’. But in ‘shitamachi’ neighborhoods, people have more pity for the working stiff. Especially grandmas! ‘Here, you poor struggling guy, I’ll take three months,’ they’ll say! So you have to tailor your approach to the neighborhood. “
As he explained the techniques, he solved two mysteries that had been on my mind: The salesmen that come to MY apartment had always seemed to have strange accents and ill relatives.
JUST GETTING THE DOOR OPEN IS A VICTORY-OR-DEFEAT BATTLE RIGHT THERE!
“Of course, no matter how many sales techniques you have, you can’t use any of ‘em if they don’t open up! And nobody’s going to open up if you just say ‘Hey, come take this newspaper in my hand!’ That’s why we have to tell all manner of lies. You can tell ‘em you got a delivery from UPS, or say you’re the carpenter. Or maybe you just moved to the neighborhood and wanted to say hi. On the other hand, maybe their washing machine in the front yard got knocked over, and you came to warn them, out of the goodness of your heart. There’s a lot of pretexts, if you think about it!
“When they open up and your lie is exposed, hit them with a compliment before they can ask you any tough questions. If the mark looks like a student, tell him, ‘You look like a cool guy - good at sports, I bet! And what a face. I bet you’re a hit with the ladies, bro!’ If the mark is a housewife, tell her, ‘You look like a kind wife, don’t you! Plus, so beautiful – I bet your kid’s real cute if you’re his mom. Frankly, I’m jealous of your husband!’ That’s how you – oomph! – shove the door open. Compliments make you seem like not-a-bad-guy, so they won’t take the usual precautions. You can evade their anger a bit.
If I can say it, the kakuchouin ’s technique is 80% oomph! – pushing.
“What I usually use is a little gimmick called "HIKKAKE" (引っ掛け：the snare). If a house already is subscribing to a paper, there’s no way they’ll subscribe to another paper – or is there?
For instance, I’m working for the Daily Yomiuri. . .but I’ll SAY I’m from the Asahi (a rival paper). If they’re taking Yomimuri already, then it’s game over for me, but it would have been game over in any case. On the other hand, if they’re already subscribing to Asahi, they’ll mistake me for an Asahi bill collector. That’s how I get the door open. Once it’s open, I make small talk until they get throuroughly confused. Then I finally admit I’m working for the Yomiuri, and try to make the sale that way. Don’t you want to switch? And so on. . . that’s how you get them to open the door, you see!”
WORKING ON COMISSION IS A MERIT SYSTEM.
Next, I asked him about the salary system, and it was just as I had expected.
"The pay is entirely in comissions. Our slang term for it is ‘Europe’ (a pun, because ‘europa’ sounds like the Japanese pronunciation of the numbers 4,6,8) A three month subscripton nets the salesman 4000 yen, 6 months is 6000 yen, and a year is 8000 yen. The method for disbursal is different from squad to squad, but at my job, we’d get 50% of our wages at the end of the day and the other 50% in a lump sum at the end of the month.
“A guy at the top of his game can clear 8,000 dollars a month. Out of a team of 50 people, there might be 2 or 3 guys at that level. A competent person can pay rent and bills; it’s a pretty cool way to make a living. But if you can’t get those commissions, you’re screwed. You have to have a certain amount of chutspah and daring to tell lies so casually! If you think like, ‘What if my lie is exposed? What if I get a scolding?’ then you shouldn’t even try this job. That’s why the turnover rate is so high – if 50 guys start in January, by June there’ll be 3 left! In my case, my first month was a big failure! In an average day, I could only sell 3 subscriptions – If I gave it my all! Then I started following a more experienced salesman around, and learned many tricks from him. Everything moved quickly after that. If you have the knack, it’s a heavenly job. In a single day , I can sell around five 6-month subscriptions, and that’s 300 dollars in my pocket! The ‘total comission’ system isn’t like the regular job where you get paid more the longer hours you work. It’s all results that count!
“What’s more, there’s some thrills that happen when you knock on so many doors. Since you’re working during the day, most of the people who answer are ladeez. What I’m about to tell you next happens pretty often: Going from opening the door, to beddo in ‘bed in’ in less than an hour. Especially my co-worker, who is pretty handsome: snaring the ladies is his specialty. He’s also a stunt-man, but he couldn’t make a living at it so he does sales part-time . So
one day, we were hitting up these one-room row apartments together. We’d planned for me start on the right, and him to start on the left, and we’d meet in the middle. I worked my way all the way from one side to the other – no sign of him. Halfway through, he’d managed to get a girl! Myself, being a rotten guy, learned a lot of tricks from him, and put them into practice! You might think I’m lying, but some of his techniques are fantastic. They really work!”
(I’d like to reveal one of the secret ‘so-good-you-might-think-I’m-lying’ techniques that Mr. Spacefield told me: Once the lady lets you in, remark that you have not showered since yesterday. If she is nice enough to let you use her shower, get to work stroking and give yourself a nice erection. Then exit the shower devoid of towels, and tell her, ‘Well, I’m clean now, so why don’t you give me a hug?’ According to Spacefield, this is an alarmingly effective method).
I asked him what kind of guy chooses this line of work;
"Well, guys who embezzled from work and are on the run, guys burdened with gambling debts. That’s most of us! They just respond to a recruiting ad in the paper, and get hired on sight. They’re put up in a dormitory, and garunteed some food, but that’s all you get. Your social status doesn’t matter here. The background checks are half-hearted – you give a false name, and there you go! But of course you get some real bad guys too – robbers and the like. Because they can go around all day and case the houses. Find out who has money lying around in the entryway. They can come back at their leisure, at night, and snatch it all up! But those guys are rare. Most of us are honest, hard-working guys, right! They do the work without intimidation or fraud.”
I interviewed him for an hour and a half, and really admired Mr. Spacefield’s knack for story-telling. He’s retired now but he said that his former boss is always asking him to come back to work. I told Mr. Spacefield if we meet again, I’ll buy a subscription. He was really amused by this, and replied, “Sure, next time!”
POSTSCRIPT: お詫び （owabi : AN APOLOGY）
It seems I’ve received a complaint from newspaper salesmen who read the first edition of this book. They especially disagreed with the parts about picking up women and stealing things. “We never do anything like that!”, they said. I would like to apologize for any misunderstanding relating to those parts of the article.
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Another great translation.
I have to say the only one I ever met was a Yomiuri saleswomen, that shied away as soon as I said we were not interested.
Well I’m sure my white face told her straight there was little chances I’d be interested, but it’s probably cause she was new to the business too.
She also kept looking at my wife behind me, like “it’s you there that I want to convince” !
Sounds like the “magazine girls” in the States who ride around the country in vans with weird older guys like some kind of magazine pushing Manson family.
Dude, these translations are awesome. When I was a kid in California Id go door to door selling subscriptions. If I got like 10 or something Id get a box of baseball cards. One summer I got a trophy, like a for reals sportsman trophy. I like this system better though.