The real boiler rooms that inspired ‘Glengarry Glen Ross’

David Mamet drew on his own experiences in a seedy sales office to write “Glengarry Glen Ross.” The sweaty, treacherous salesmen in his Pulitzer Prize-winning work, however, don’t seem to enjoy their jobs as much as he does.

“It was a wild, wild place, and I loved it,” Mamet told The New York Times when “Glengarry” opened on Broadway in 1984. “I would have done it forever. I would have been very, very rich.”

An unemployed actor in Chicago, Mamet helped run an unscrupulous real estate agency in the late 1960s. He told the Times that “Glengarry” smoothed out the shenanigans of salesmen desperate to make a living.

But the incident that sparked the story isn’t exactly “toned down”: a motivational speaker announces to salespeople that the two worst performers, half the staff, will be fired at the end of the month. Mamet added a new character and inserted a colorful motivational speech by Alec Baldwin when he adapted the play for the big screen in 1992.

If you’re at all familiar with Glengarry Glen Ross, our pick for “Econ Extra Credit” this month, you’ll know this scene. The rest of the film is similarly text-heavy, as we follow the four salesmen as they manipulate potential clients and each other while their devious office manager dangles new leads for the eponymous Florida project.

We hope you’ll join us this month to learn about some of the sales tactics and business models featured in “Glengarry,” every Monday in July. While you’re watching and reading, we want to hear from you too.

What is your motto “Always close”?

The competition is fierce, but “Always Be Closing” is perhaps Baldwin’s most famous line in the film. He follows it up with another, more tortuous mnemonic on how to sell effectively: AIDA, “attention, interest, decision, action!”

Does your industry have a similar saying? A saying, jargon, or acronym that is supposed to inspire better performance? We’d love to hear about it, and we’d especially like to know if it’s good advice. One salesperson told us that “ABC” is a terrible way to sell.

Write to us at [email protected] and we will collect the best responses in an upcoming newsletter.

How to watch “Glengarry Glen Ross”

The film is available to stream for free with ads on YouTube. It is also available to stream for free with select library cards on Hoopla and Kanopy, and with a subscription to Peacock and Netflix.