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| “ | Put that coffee down! Coffee's for closers only. | „ |
| ~ Blake's most famous line. |
| “ | A-B-C. A-Always, B-Be, C-Closing. Always be closing. Always be closing! A-I-D-A. Attention, Interest, Decision, Action. Attention -- do I have your attention? Interest -- are you interested? I know you are, 'cause it's f--k or walk. You close, or you hit the bricks! Decision -- have you made your decision, for Christ?! And action. A-I-D-A. Get out there! You got the prospects coming in; you think they came in to get outta the rain? A guy don't walk on the lot lest he wants to buy. They're sitting out there waiting to give you their money! Are you gonna take it? Are you man enough to take it? | „ |
| ~ Blake "motivating" the salesman. |
Blake is the main antagonist of the 1992 drama film Glengarry Glen Ross. He is a macho, verbally abusive sales trainer for the real estate company Mitch & Murray sent to a failing branch office to unload the worthless Glengarry sales leads onto the branch's salesmen.
The character does not appear in David Mamet's original play, upon which the film is based.
He is portrayed by Alec Baldwin, who also portrayed Jed Hill in Malice, Nick Kudrow in Mercury Rising, Donald Trump in Saturday Night Live, Kennebrew Beauregard in BlaKkKlansman, Makunga in Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa, Larry Quinn in The Cat in the Hat, Fred Frenger Junior in Miami Blues, Dennis in The SpongeBob Squarepants Movie, and Mark Cordell in The Juror.
Overview[]
An abusive bully, Blake is symbolic of the hyper-masculine, unsentimental sales culture in which the play and film are based. He "motivates" people by telling them they are useless, belittling their masculinity with homophobic insults, and threatening to fire them unless they shape up. His ruthlessness and macho swagger have taken him to the top of the corporate ladder, and he brags about the material trappings of his success - the expensive watch, the sports car, the fancy suit - and tells his audience that all of it can be theirs if they follow his salesmanship strategies, particularly the acronyms ABC ("Always Be Closing") and AIDA ("Attention, Interest, Decision, Action").
The irony of his pitch to the salesmen is apparent by the end of the play, when it is revealed that the Glengarry leads he advertised as "gold" are, in fact, completely worthless. The real purpose of Blake's "sales contest" is to get rid of leads the company doesn't want and eliminate two paychecks.
In the film[]
Blake is sent to one of Mitch & Murray's failing sales offices on a "mission of mercy" to motivate the office's four salesmen into selling more real estate. He shows up, unannounced, at an office meeting and tells the salesmen that only two of them will still have their jobs by the end of the week. He taunts them with their failures and tells them to be ruthless in pursuit of a sale, because "it takes brass balls to sell real estate." He also verbally tangles with the office's weakest sellers, Dave Moss and Shelly Levene, and tells them they are worthless unless they can sell: "Nice guy? I don't give a sh-t. Good father? F--k you, go home and play with your kids. You wanna work here? Close!"
Blake dangles the supposedly strong Glengarry leads in front of the salesmen, and then takes them away, saying good leads would be wasted on them. He leaves saying they should all be fired, because "a loser is a loser".
Trivia[]
- Blake has roughly nine minutes of screen time in the film.
- The acronyms "ABC" and "AIDA" Blake uses in the film are in fact widely used in sales.
- In 2005, during an appearance on Saturday Night Live, Baldwin parodied his performance as Blake in a sketch in which he played an elf sales trainer in Santa's Workshop.
- In the first season of the improv game show Make Some Noise, comedian Brennan Lee Mulligan portrayed a parody of Blake in the improvisational prompt "Build-a-Bear-y Glen Ross," where he built on Blake's famous monologue and "ABC" acronym.