Approaches...Ready, Set…Ready, Set…Ready…Set…..

Tu-duh.

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In case it wasn’t clear: that’s the Jaws theme music. You know, the movie about a terrifying shark that swam around prey, making smaller and smaller circles until….

TU-DUH

A lethal strike!

Hold on, that’s not an ‘80s horror blockbuster…it’s you!...approaching your customers…sort of. And I say sort of, because after you circle them for twenty minutes on your walk to nowhere, instead of a lethal strike what your customers probably hear is:

“Hey, do you mind if I sit here?”

“uh- hi- my name is Rosie.”

“Are you guys...um…looking for some company?”

It’s horrifying, but in a completely different way. It’s horrifying because an entertainer that’s doing laps around the club is dealing with some really intense emotions keeping her from her money:

- Fear of sounding “stupid” or “rude.”

- Fear of approaching the wrong customer and wasting time

- Fear of wasting time doing laps around the club

- Fear of hearing “no” or “I’m good.”

- Fear of the conversation stalling out.

- Fear of hopping laps or of being seen as “just there for the money.”

- Fear of staying stuck in this feeling indefinitely.

So, instead of facing the fear head on, most dancers do what they’ve gotta do. Some of them decide they “have to drink” to approach customers. Others spend their shifts between the locker room, the bar, and occasionally get enough courage to approach a few stragglers on their long and unproductive shifts- after the killer whales and the sharks have gotten all the big fishes. Others play on their phones and scroll around while their colleagues stack up on the floor. And the complaints, excuses, and reasons they can’t go up to customers come out of the locker-room brigade every night at clubs across the world:

“These guys are so cheap tonight!”

“A few years ago it was so easy to make money at this club. Things have changed.”

“He just got a drink, I can’t go up to him.”

“He’s talking to someone now, I can’t go up to him.”

“He went to the back with her, now I really can’t go up to him.”

“He said he spent all his cash already. What an asshole.”

This would be really comical, if this failure to get in the game wasn’t costing so many entertainers untold amounts of money, happiness, and inner peace. Because these bad habits, myths, and beliefs around approaching customers don’t come from nowhere—and the feelings of inadequacy or insecurity that come out of this failure to land often don’t stay in the club.

Many entertainers may lose self-esteem over the responses of their customers and go home believing they’re less beautiful, capable, or worthy than their co-workers. They may blame their results on their presentation and overspend on outfits, makeup, augmentations, and other cosmetic band-aid fixes that don’t get down to the real problem. Some resort to shady or dangerous techniques (“we’ll do more in the back!” “come on baby, if you want to party you’ll have to pay for us to get a room), while others resort to pushing customers to buy with so much force that only the most drunk or push-over clients will buy from them.

And plenty of them just keep doing laps.

How did it get like this?

Well, we know that we can all learn by taking in information, putting it to work, and getting results. When we have access to knowledge, we will use it to make smarter decisions faster.

When we don’t get offered information (question: how much sales training did your club give you?) we’re forced to learn by observation and trial and error. At the club, most of us had to learn by watching others...and many of us got stuck watching the wrong people at work. Because the MVPs are approaching quickly, getting booked all night, and aren’t out on the floor or giving free lessons. And because information in our industry is often guarded by those who have it. Too many of us have been taught to believe that if someone else can win, it means we will lose.[1]

So, who’s left over to learn from are other people who are floundering through the industry too. New generations of entertainers are connecting with the nothing-doers, so-so performers, and the Board of Excuse-makers by the bar and the locker room. Because the MVPs are on the floor, making money, and interacting with their customers. And the MVPs are (rightfully) reluctant to spend their precious work hours giving out free tutorials—after all, they had to go out there are mess up sales for years to pick up the skills they have now!

This observation by the way, is not here to diminish just how many amazing people of every skill level work at the strip club. That someone doesn’t understand how to sell more at the club is not a judgement about their value as a person- it’s just an assessment of their skill level as a stripper. Without resources and clear information about what to do right, we are all just trying to do our best. Some entertainers are naturally gifted, others make a habit of studying and growing their business, a few may have a background in a sales or marketing job that give them an advantage, and many more are just…sort of trying things...which may or may not work.

Dancers without a plan of attack are stuck relying on their mood, their feelings, and on rituals and beliefs to guide their money: “it’s Tuesday, there’s no money here on Tuesdays!” “it’s slow season, might as well stay home,” “Mercury is in retrograde, no wonder they’re not buying, “this outfit always makes me money,” “I have to drink two vodkas before talking to them, otherwise it’s a mess,” “you can’t approach before he gets a drink/before he’s here for 20 minutes/because he looks annoyed/because he didn’t buy from someone else,” and the list goes on and on.

Mercury is fine.

Your approaches need your attention, though.

Art by Exotic Cancer: www.exoticcancer.com

When we walk into the club, what we’re seeing other entertainers do is usually a combination of all of these. A little bit of trial and error and self-taught skills. A bit of mentoring or tutelage from a friend or colleague. A dash of “it’s the outfit!” A sprinkling of “it’s the spinning of the galaxies!” Some people are doing a better job than others and seeing more results. Some are doing worse and getting frustrated. Either way, no one is really sure why or how money is landing on palms.

And it gets extra confusing, because for every entertainer there are days where everything seems to go right! Approaches are easy and smooth, customers go to VIP all night, and life is grand. But the very next day is more of the frustration, the fear, or the uncertainty. There is no consistency and no strategy- so dancers stay stuck wondering what they did right and what they did wrong. One day they’re closing sale after sale, and the next they’re bombing. So, dancers assume it's the hair. Or the makeup. Or a little extra luck. This instinct is actually really understandable. Our brains want to see patterns, and they’re trying really hard to figure out which way is up, and which way is down.

…with this emotional rollercoaster, it’s no surprise that many entertainers spend their entire careers wondering what’s going wrong and blaming themselves at every turn.

Luckily for us, we are not the only industry in need of great sales skills. There’s a whole world of knowledge built over centuries about the way people think, buy, connect with, and persuade each other.

And there are tons of skills that can help you get substantially better at approaching. Not just at feeling better about it (although we’ll do some of that, too) but actually better at the techniques and the small differences in behavior that get customers to respond positively and to spend quickly.

These tools don’t rely on overpowering customers, or on waiting until they’re so drunk they’ll agree to any purchase. They’re not copy-paste approaches that work for one person but fail for another. Because they’re based on very fundamental things about the way people relate to each other.

And just in case you were wondering—

they have nothing to do with the color of your outfit.

[1] Malarkey! There is not a shortage of money in this world. There is a shortage of strippers armed with the knowledge and resources to grow their businesses, and a shortage of educators passing on quality information. Thankfully, strippers are educating themselves and each other at an unprecedented rate to go out there and get it. And hopefully, that means less jealousy and unproductive competition, and more collaboration and mutual growth.

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Approaches...Ready, Set…Ready, Set…Ready…Set…..

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Diagnosing Common Approach Issues

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