Rhetorical Analysis 6: Encounter

I went to the new "Throwdown" gym on State Street for my encounter. In all fairness, I have a feeling that the girl trying to sell me a membership was new and had never signed anyone up before, based on the way the girl at the desk got her to talk to me and her obvious nervousness.

It is difficult to tell what sort of audience she thought she had. The pitch felt more like it was rehearsed for a different audience, such as young men. She extolled the virtues of the MMA classes with an apology in her expression as though she knew I wouldn't like it. Almost as I was leaving, she remembered that they also had Pilates and Yoga classes, which I was more interested in. Basically, it seems that she could tell that I wouldn't be interested in hardcore fighting classes, but she didn't find a way to use that to her advantage until the very end.

Her main argument was that I should join their gym, and especially that I should sign up for a one year contract. Though I had to continually prompt her to find out the information I wanted (hours open, cost per month, classes offered, machines available) she was knowledgable. She did a good job of comparing their gym to others and showing why they were better by using logic. For instance, she pointed out the Gold's Gym doesn't offer classes in how to really fight, their classes are mostly just cardio. Also, with a membership, all of the classes are free and you can take as many as you want whenever you want. And she pointed out that the jiu-jitsu place up the street only taught one form of martial arts, and it was more expensive with fewer classes. She tried to use pathos to pressure me into giving me my information to come to a free class, but I just told her I'd rather not and she dropped it.

If I were looking for a gym, the argument might be sufficient. The pricing and the unlimited classes is appealing. But it was not enough to convince me to join when I'm not interested in a gym. The argument was typical, comparing their good points to the bad points of other gyms. I know parts of the argument were accurate, such as the pricing, but I don't know for sure if Gold's Gym has classes that really teaching fighting or not. The argument was relevant, because she referenced all the things that I would be most interested in if I were looking for a gym.

Overall, the argument was about as effective as it could be considering the salesperson. There was nothing wrong with the argument itself, but the salesperson seemed so uncertain of herself that I wasn't convinced. She needed to be more assertive and confident, and to be able to adapt her memorized script to the individual.