Why is Alec Baldwin telling me to Always Be Closing?

You probably know the movie Glengarry Glen Ross, or at least you know the famous “Always Be Closing” scene.

​​But just in case, lemme quickly run through it:

Picture a small, regional office for a team of door-to-door salesmen.

Most of the guys in the office are losers — they are not selling anything, and are making no money.

One rainy evening, a new, different face is waiting there in the office. He has come from the rich and distant headquarters of the company.

The new face is played by a cocky and polished Alec Baldwin, with slicked back hair and a silk suit, looking handsome and deadly.

Baldwin has a Rolex on his wrist. And, as he tells the loser salesmen, he drives an $80,000 BMW, and he makes $900k a year.

Over the course of about five minutes, Baldwin delivers a menacing pep talk to the struggling salesmen.

“ABC,” he tells them. “Always. Be. Closing.”

The gist of Baldwin’s speech is, “Start selling, or you’re fired.” This sets up the necessary chain of reactions that leads to the climax of the movie.

Fine. You probably knew all this. Or if you didn’t, now you do.

But there’s one tiny bit that I omitted in my summary above, and that you may have missed if you ever watched this scene for real.

Because everything I told you, it’s a little bit, I don’t know, too pat?

Why does this slicked-back, cocky salesmen, who makes all this money and who lives in Manhattan, why does he drive down to the suburbs to talk to these losers, and why does he do it exactly tonight, on this stormy night, so that the rest of the movie can develop just as it should?

This is the kind of question that the people in the audience might never ask out loud. But somewhere in their brains, the question is there. And if it’s not answered — well, that’s a problem.

David Mamet, the guy who wrote Glengarry Glen Ross, knew this.

And so he took care of it.

As Baldwin is in the middle of his ABC speech, one of the loser salesman chuckles. And when Baldwin turns his deadly gaze on the guy, we get the following line:

“You’re such a hero. You’re so rich. How come you’re coming down here to waste your time with such a bunch of bums?”

Baldwin’s answer, when it comes, in between more insults to the other salesmen, is not much of an answer at all. The bosses asked him to come, he says, and he did it as a favor to them.

And that’s my point for you for today.

Effective screenwriting — and effective door-to-door sales, and effective copywriting, and pretty much any kind of effective communication — requires suspension of disbelief in your audience, if you have any hope of getting them to go where you want them to go.

That’s the bad news.

The good news is that suspension of disbelief is often easier to achieve than you might ever believe.

Why?

Because while it’s instinctive for us to ask why… it’s also instinctive for us to be satisfied as soon as any kind of answer is provided, and to stop any further questions, at least on that one question.

Of course, it’s not always enough to say, “Because…” and then to give some kind of milquetoast reason.

Sometimes you need more powerful tricks to suspend disbelief in your audience.

And if you want those tricks, you can find them in my 10 Commandments of A-List Copywriters.

Why?

Because in Commandment I, I write about an A-List Copywriter who was a grandmaster of suppressing disbelief. And I tell you how he did it. If you’d like to find out:

https://bejakovic.com/10commandments

How dirty is your underwear right now?

Seriously, how dirty is it? I’m asking because it’s a personal question and borderline insulting. And if my guess is right, it got your attention. Here’s why I need it.

I’ve been thinking about pattern interrupts and how to do them. Here are a few examples, in case you’re not familiar with this term, of what I mean by “pattern interrupt”:

1. Tony Robbins once threw water in a woman’s face. Repeatedly.

​​She was trying to talk through her marriage problems with Tony. But each time she started talking about her husband, she started to get negative. ​​So Tony threw water in her face, shocked her, and got her laughing.

​​”What is wrong with you?” she asked each time he did it. But she stopped being negative when talking about her husband.

2. “Coffee’s for closers only.”

​​You might know this famous scene from Glengarry Glen Ross. Alec Baldwin comes in to give his “Always be closing” speech to a bunch of real estate salesmen… but they aren’t taking him seriously.

​​So when one of them goes to get a cup of coffee, Baldwin stares and says, “Put that coffee down. Coffee’s for closers only. You think I’m fucking with you? I am not fucking with you.” The salesman puts the coffee down and starts to listen.

* Shooting the apple out of the pig’s mouth.

​​In the first Hunger Games movie, Katniss is supposed to show off her archery skills to a bunch of rich sponsors. But she misses the target. The sponsors laugh and start chatting among themselves.

​​Katniss next hits a bullseye… but the sponsors aren’t paying attention any more. ​​So she turns towards the sponsors, takes aim, and shoots an arrow through the apple stuck in a pig’s mouth in the middle of the banquet table. All the sponsors shut up and look at her.

I bet there are a bunch of different ways to create an effective pattern interrupt. The three situations above all do it. And though they might seem very different, I think they share a common element:

They cross private boundaries, whether physical or of personal sovereignty. They are intrusive, threatening, or borderline insulting.

So if you too need to get somebody’s attention, and change their set ways of thinking, try such a “personal sovereignty” pattern interrupt. Just make sure you have a good reason for doing so — otherwise you might get slapped in the face.

Anyways, since I still have your attention:

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