Hannah Hecht's Blog

“Hey!” Smile, and make sure it shines through your whole face, especially your eyes. People can tell if you’re faking. Assume a nonthreatening position. Don’t cross your arms or look past the subject as if in a hurry. Relax your muscles. Speak in a high voice, with a bit of a lilt. Your sincere happiness should extend all the way to your tone and diction. Be confident, but approachable. “You want a free Coke?”

About half the respondents will respond with a shrug or a mumbled excuse or just keep on walking, as if you were actually offering to the squirrel scurrying up the tree behind them. Some will narrow their eyes. You will see thoughts race through their heads, maybe looking for a catch or listening to the echoes of their moms’ well-rehearsed speeches about taking candy from strangers.

The other half will respond enthusiastically, “Sure!” or even “Free pop? Hell yeah.” They will grab the fuchsia aluminum can of Cherry Coca-Cola from your hand and their faces will light up. As they walk away, many will turn back, “Are you doing an experiment or something?”

“Kind of.”

“Cool.” And, happy to have found the “catch” they will pop the tab make their way to their next lectures.

As any seasoned retail floor worker will tell you, sales is just as much about selling yourself as it is about selling the product. People like to know where their future belongings are coming from, and shopping is just as much an experience in itself as a means to obtain material things. And, as it turns out, giving stuff away for free is no different.

I spent this past summer working the sales floor team at the Sioux City Greatlands Target on Sunnybrook Drive. To say that my heart wasn’t in it would be a gross understatement. Day in and day out, I folded shirts, unpacked boxes, and rolled my eyes at my supervisors’ oft-repeated Target mantras: “Get to know the guests” (because calling them “customers” would be too formal), “We’re inviting them into our home, so have a real conversation,” “Smile at everyone you see,” “Let them know you are eager and willing to help,” and this above all else: “Keep it fast, fun, and friendly.”

I had my own three F’s that probably wouldn’t help us sell any moderately priced goods. I ignored my instructions from the supervisors and allowed our “guests” to keep to themselves. I decided that I would need to be paid more than $8.25 per hour if I was going to be required to stock shelves, fold shirts, and make friends with unwilling strangers.

When the school year began, I shed the noble uniform of red and khaki, walked to the bottom floor of Lewis Hall, and grabbed a case of Coke to give away to strangers and write this story for News and Feature Writing. I scrawled out a sign (“Free Coke,” very original, I know) and set the case out on a table in the entryway of Roadman Hall, a centrally located dorm on the Morningside campus. Then, I removed the cans from the case, put them on the table, and sat in a blocky and uncomfortable chair to watch people take them as they walked by.

And they didn’t. The cans sat untouched as no fewer than 112 people walked by in a span of about forty-five minutes. Some people stopped and looked at the sign but then kept walking. Two kids raced right by on Razor scooters. Eventually, I gave a couple away, offering them to friends and one of my professors, but no one took a can of his or her own volition. It was time to switch strategies.

I grabbed my Cherry Coke, walked outside, and sat on a bench next to a heavily trafficked sidewalk. I put on my best Target smile, probably a better one that I had ever used while working there, and offered the soda to any and all passers-by. Within ten minutes I had given away all the Coke.

There’s probably a lesson in this experience about being a better employee; I think that I can feel my former supervisor scowling at me from across town. I guess that people won’t even take free things, much less buy them, unless there is some person or entity with a smiling face to associate with the product. People are social creatures, and they crave social interaction just as much as they crave caffeinated, carbonated, sugary beverages. Or maybe people are just still scared of whatever is the free-Coke-sitting-on-a-table equivalent of razor blades in Halloween candy bars.