Black Buck(50)

Reader: There’s a difference between saying you’ll do whatever it takes to win and doing whatever it takes to win. The true salesperson is a doer.



“Yeah,” I replied. “I get it.”

Rhett exhaled. “I knew you would. It’s war, Buck. We all gotta play our roles.”

Sandra walked over wearing a sleeveless slim-fitting blue dress, and I was surprised to see that she was even more radiant in person. She also had a commanding presence—she was obviously the HNIC here, which was impressive since everyone else, including the audience, was whiter than the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel.

“Everyone ready?” she asked.

I turned to Rhett. He nodded at me. A chubby guy who smelled like the inside of a high school locker room mic’d me up, and Sandra walked us to three tall chairs behind a curved desk.

“Just relax and be natural,” she said, smiling into the cameras. “I won’t throw any hardballs. Just a few light ones to let the world know everything is under control, okay?”

Rhett and I nodded. The chubby stinker gripped the main camera in front of us, counting down with his grimy fingers.

One.

I glanced at Rhett. Having looked like he was going to throw up a moment ago, he now had a fake smile plastered to his face and appeared as cool as a Klondike bar.

Two.

My hands were sweating, and I really wished I didn’t look like a Mormon. Do Black Mormons even exist?

Three.

“Today we have a Rise and Shine, America exclusive interview with the CEO of Sumwun, Rhett Daniels, and Sales Representative Darren Vender, who will tell their side of this truly tragic story. As you probably know, Sumwun, a New York City tech startup with more than three hundred employees and twenty-eight million dollars invested from some of tech’s biggest players, including Lucien Quartz, has been at the center of controversy since the story broke yesterday.

“To recap, it was Sumwun’s platform that connected young Donesha Clark—also known as Donny—with her therapist, Jiao-long Lee. Lee lured the depressed and unsuspecting Donesha to China to brutally murder her. Donesha’s parents say their little girl had plans to attend college and become a dentist in order to brighten the world with more smiles, but now, she’ll never smile again.”

Damn. This is how she kicks this shit off?

“Gentlemen, many people are saying that you should all be thrown in jail, just like Mr. Lee, for allowing this horrific death to happen. What do you have to say to that?”

So much for no hardballs. I turned to Rhett, who was still wearing that superficial smile.

“Well, Sandra, I first want to say that the entire company is devastated by what happened. Each one of us is someone’s sibling, child, or parent, so we understand how deeply unsettling this is. Second, this is the first time anything like this has ever happened, and more than ninety percent of our assistants, which is what we call the people who users speak with, have five-star ratings.”

“And about these people, Rhett,” Sandra said. “A majority of them aren’t licensed, are they? I mean, they’re not actually certified therapists who have been trained and passed exams in order to be qualified to help anyone, correct?”

This was an ambush.

“Well, I can’t speak for all of our assistants, Sandra. They hail from different countries with different interpretations of what it means to be certified. But truthfully, I’d say that many of the licensed therapists here in America aren’t qualified. The only thing they are qualified to do is charge astronomic prices to vulnerable people in order to get them hooked on useless therapy instead of actually helping them.”

Boom. The audience watched with excitement, and one woman even broke out a box of Milk Duds. Popcorn, no doubt, would be next.

“And,” Rhett continued, “we have a strict vetting process and review system. This means that if a user feels uncomfortable with an assistant they can notify us immediately and we’ll look into it.”

“Got it,” Sandra said. “So you’re blaming the victim.”

“What? No.”

Sandra assumed a menacing smile—her first taste of blood. “Let’s switch gears. I have a question for you, Darren. As a young Black man, how are you able to go into work and sell a product you know has the potential to kill young women, especially young Black women, like Donesha Clark?”

“Um,” I said, coughing so hard and for so long that Sandra handed me a bottle of water. How the hell could they let a twenty-two-year-old wing it on national television? I kept coughing, trying to buy time, but then it hit me like Muhammad Ali knocking out George Foreman in Zaire: this was a role-play. Sandra was playing the role of a tough prospect, and I was playing the role of a salesperson—selling her, the live audience, and everyone watching at home on our side of the story.

Reader: What you are about to see is all of my training put into action in the world beyond Sumwun. If you ever needed proof that what I’m teaching you is more about life than just about sales, this is it. Hold my drink.



“Platforms like Sumwun don’t kill people, Sandra,” I said. “People do. And that’s what happened here. Yes, a man killed someone, but people have done that since the beginning of time and will continue to long after we’re gone.”

Sandra’s smile disappeared. A faint rage flashed in her eyes. “That sounds an awful like what right-wingers say about guns, Darren. Any tool can be turned into a weapon, no?”