I last covered the idea of bottle service when I showed you guys how to skip the line to get into the club. But today I want to cover a pitfall to bottle service that I just recently noticed. You’d think that the minor celebrity-status that bottle services gives you would be a good thing. After all, bottle service is a big indicator of social proof and status and also guarantees you fast admission and good logistics. But there’s a problem with it that you don’t notice at first. Hell, I buy bottles so rarely that it took me several years to notice the trend. What is the trend?

Bottle Service is Counter Productive to Cold Approach Pick Up.

Nowadays much of the nightlife industry is funded by revenue from bottle service. In many of the vegas clubs, the architecture is specifically setup for it, and there are often more people buying bottles than there are ‘regular’ people in the club. All of a sudden, the extraordinary prices you’re paying to be “VIP” now sometimes gets you something more like, “Somewhat Important Person.”

But that’s only the tip of the iceberg.

The Illusion of Compliance

The real reason that bottle service is counter-productive is because it gives you a false sense of compliance. Make no mistake about it, the status is definitely there when everyone in the venue knows you just dropped a few thousand dollars on that table (or you’re important enough to get it free). In either case, people look at you and see power, status, influence, and respect. Deserved or not, those traits (or the illusion of them) are definitely present.

And therein lies the problem.

A few weeks ago, I was partying in Las Vegas with Kamouflage (who now runs his own company, Smaxter Inc). Kamo is my long-time wing and one of the few gurus in this industry (roughly 4 total) that I consider to be exceptionally skilled at both pickup and coaching — enough so that they serve from time to time as co-instructors at my boot camps and live events. In fact, I’d venture to say that Kamo is probably the most talented pickup artist I’ve EVER seen. Anyone can pickup a girl that likes them. Kamo can pickup a girl who absolutely despises him. Which is great because he tends to piss girls off a lot (I have a hunch that it’s intentional).

Back to the story. So we’re in Vegas with his very well-connected friends and we end up getting comped (e.g., free) bottle service in one of the newest and most exclusive clubs on the strip. That sounds fantastic to me — free bottle service, no need to pay for drinks, a place to sit, good logistics, social proof… it’s looking like a great night. I even randomly run into the always-hilarious Future and the whole Love Systems gang who are running their annual SuperConference Program. (Coincidentally, Future and I served together in the United States Marine Corps at 29 Palms — great guy with great game.)

I return to our table with girls in tow but our friend Jason has beaten me to the punch. There’s already a dozen girls partying with us and we just got here. Not to be outdone, the rest of us head out to sarge and pull more girls. Before you know it we’re hammered from all the free alcohol and we’re having a blast partying with the VIP hosts and a ton of girls. We’re outnumbered by about 4:1 girls:guys but of course we don’t mind. We look and feel like kings. And it’s becoming a self-perpetuating machine. Guys are coming up to us, some who recognize us and some who just want to know what our secret is. Girls are approaching us wanting to know if we’re famous (Sidenote: Ricky likes to tell girls at the table that I’m a Japanese Pop Star so that I’m forced to fake a bad Japanese accent the whole night… not funny. Especially because I don’t speak Japanese. If you’re reading this, Ricky — and I know you are — knock it off).

It sounds like the perfect setup, right? We’re having a blast, making out with girls left and right, partying like rockstars. We even have a multi-million dollar penthouse suite overlooking the strip to pull girls back to. If you looked up “DHV” in the dictionary, there’d be a picture of us. We’ve got insane amounts of status, tons of social proof, pre-selection through the roof…

And none of us pull.

None. Zero. Zip.

A half dozen naturals, instructors, and “gurus” — the best of the best. And with all of the odds stacked in our favor, we come home empty-handed. In LAS VEGAS.

“Must be a fluke.”

“Yeah, definitely a fluke. No worries, though, we had a blast and we’re doing it all over again the next night.”

***

The next night is even crazier. More bottles. More girls. Hotter girls.

…and not a single pull. Again.

Whiskey. Tango. Foxtrot.

It’s like groundhog’s day. And we’re too trashed to even care.

Monday rolls around and I’m nursing a hangover but trying to think straight.

“How could NONE of us pull two nights in a row like that?”

I start rolling over some stats in my head. Calculating averages over the past few months. You know, ’cause I’m Asian and we’re down with math like that.

It suddenly dawns on me that there’s a trend to the madness but I hadn’t noticed it until now. We literally haven’t pulled (cold approach) the last 4 or 5 times we got bottle service. But between those times, when we were just out doing our thing, pulls were everywhere. We didn’t even keep track of them anymore.

Somehow, we managed to chalk up each bottle-service-based-screw-up to ‘random fluke.’

I started to question how it was possible that excessive social proof could be hurting our game so much. My head was starting to clear and I began to go over our interactions to analyze where we were going wrong.

Suddenly the truth hit me like a freight train.

Bottle Service was making us lazy.

With everything stacked in our favor, we got lazy and complacent. We weren’t running tight game. We were gaming drunk, sloppy, and borderline incoherently. Sure, we had enough of the skills naturalized to still be somewhat effective, but we managed to self-sabotage ourselves enough to counteract every bit of social proof and status we had that night. We made stupid mistakes. We ignored our girls at times (not intentionally). We got drunk enough to unravel even our most naturalized skill sets. We even waited until closing to try to pull (big mistake).

I got up and found Kamo lying down trying not to barf. His face was so blue, he looked like a character from Avatar.

“Yo… you all right?”

“Yeah… man last night was a blast. It was insane.”

“It sure was.”

I told him what I had discovered. He didn’t believe it at first.

“Nah man, that was just a fluke.”

“Think about the last 5 times we got a bottle. What happened?”

I saw the glimmer of realization in his eyes. He knew I was right. We didn’t get bottles often enough to pick up the trend and when we did, the hangovers didn’t help matters.

But the fact was, bottle service was HURTING our results. Sure, it doesn’t hurt to get trashed once in a while and go all out with your best guy friends. But at least know in advance that you’re going to throw away the night in terms of pick up or pulling.

On the normal, average night out, Kamouflage and I still work by the book. We walk into the club, split up, and immediately open our warm up sets to shake off the approach anxiety. We’re dead sober. No time for excuses or stalling. It’s all business in the club. Sometimes friends come up and say hi and we mingle for a minute until we can politely excuse ourselves to continue with the task at hand. We eventually merge our sets or wing for each other when needed. Our wingmanship at this point is near-psychic — we can predict and anticipate each other’s every move. An hour before closing, we seed the pull. Our sets are solid by this point and have already been screened for logistics. Thirty to 45 minutes before closing, we pull. It’s all planned out and it executes like a well-oiled machine.

And then you throw the bottle into the mix. From the start of the night, things are working against us. Perhaps those with better tolerance can make it work, but for us, the first pre-liquor before we head out is the beginning of the end. We walk into the club already a bit tipsy and instead of immediately opening, we wait until the hostess can seat us and take our drink orders. We’re stalling. It’s not our fault, but it doesn’t matter. Stalling is stalling. The bottle finally arrives and we take another drink. By now the anxiety is gone but so is that killer instinct. The alcohol has dulled our calibration. Not enough to blow us out, but enough to reduce our effectiveness.

The temporary social proof of our environment makes us lazy because the status gives us more compliance than we’d normally get with sub-standard execution. It’s all an illusion. Girls will come to the table even when you’ve run somewhat sloppy game because free drinks, VIP status behind the velvet ropes, and hanging out with the ‘popular kids’ definitely sounds appealing to them.  But it effectively becomes our crutch for the night. A crutch which we lean heavily on until it’s too late.

It’s no wonder we didn’t pull that weekend.

A lot of guys get bottles thinking it’s going to help them. That the social proof will make them more attractive to girls and will get them better results. And you know what? Sometimes it does. Especially at the more beginner skill levels, bottle service gives you the illusion of results. But understand that within the realm of pickup and seduction, the table is unlikely to help you in the bigger picture.

At least for us, it made us lazy, complacent, and perhaps worst of all, too drunk to be effective.

That’s why I no longer do bottle service if I’m there to pick up. Free or not.

——————————

P.S. A lot of you guys who have trained with Kamouflage and I know how effective our coaching is. But up until recently, Kamouflage has been mostly inaccessible due to prior commitments. That’s about to change. Kamo has just launched his new blog smaxter.com with tons of content and ideas. And he’s currently working on some stuff that will revolutionize how you learn pickup. Stay tuned. In the mean time, check out his site.

The other day I got a really good question from “Mike” who commented on The 21 Convention Footage. Which, by the way, is going insane with comments. 72 comments and building lol. It was such a good question and so commonly asked that I figured I’d answer it here.

Mike said:

I just saw this talk and Ratisse’ talk and I have a question about ejecting from conversations, because I see a method conflict.

Fuji makes the point that you should maximize your interactions by staying in them until you are asked to leave but not just when your audience shows disinterest.

On the other hand Ratisse describes a strategy for working bars/clubs/parties where you have short conversations with a good chunk of the people you are not ‘targeting’ . Then while the groups are comfortable, you try and pull away your target. AFC Adam describes something similar, except Ratisse even tries to treat individuals as groups as well. That’s a subtlety.

So is premature ejecltion so bad? You leave so you go on talking to other people. I was at a club last night practicing these quick conversations, but it was before seeing either of the talks and I ended up feeling I didn’t build enough rapport/comfort with them. The groups were too cohesive for me to just break people out of them. I admit I didn’t try to pull them away; instead I just found opportunities where there were 3-sets so I could just get the 3rd person into a conversation alone.

I feel there is a wide rift between these two strategies. I see the pros/cons in each ( differences in rapport and differences in whether you look too needy ) , but could someone shed some light on unifying them with a common principle ?

Hey Mike,

This is a great question. You’re definitely paying attention. Here’s how to reconcile these two seemingly-different strategies.

Ratisse is describing a variation on short-set theory. That is, a specific tactic used to create social proof and oftentimes jealousy plotlines. I use something like this fairly often.

What I was advocating in my speech is focusing on the skill set and pushing every set as far as it will go. The two are not mutually exclusive. They just focus on different goals and different skill sets.

At the risk of oversimplifying things, Here’s a quick flow chart to see which one you should GENERALLY use. For each question, if the answer is yes, go to the next step. If the answer is no, default to staying in set the way I described in my speech.

1. Do you open at least 5 sets per night?

2. Are you in set at least 75% of your night? In other words, if you’re in field for 3 hours, you should be “in set” talking for at least 2:15 of the 3:00 hours.

3. Can you start conversation that lasts at least 5 minutes with at least 50% of your sets?

4. Do you stay in set even when they shows you disinterest?

5. Do you have over a handful of lays (5+) within the last year from cold approach?

6. If you’ve answered yes to all 5 previous questions, try out short set theory and Ratisse’s strategies. Just don’t eject from sets because you’re afraid of rejection. Make ejecting a STRATEGY and not a REACTION. The best time to eject from a set (aside from after orgasm) is, ironically, when things are going really, really well.

If you guys haven’t seen the footage, it’s a nearly 2 hour lecture on “Getting Good at Game,” streamed FREE, courtesy of Dream. Take a look. Comments and questions always welcome.

Do you wait in line at the club? It surprises me how many regular club goers wait because they don’t know any better. Sometimes for hours at a time. Club Pure at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas, for example, has a 4-hour line for those people who can’t afford bottle service and don’t know how the system works. I used to be one of those guys. I remember waiting in line for 3 hours at Body English in 2004. And then 2 hours for Tryst a few years later. Didn’t get into either of them. Now sure, if you live in a small city there’s never a line. But there’s probably also not a club. But for those of us who live in large metropolises, lines and waiting are a regular part of our Friday-and-Saturday-nights.

Except that you don’t have to.

When it comes to being in the field, nothing kills your state more than waiting around for an hour or more trying to get in. And nothing is more of a waste of time than spending 25% or more of your usual 4-hour-night in the line outside.

And for what? To save a few bucks?

My stance is, what is an hour or more of your precious, 2-days-a-week, primetime field training time worth? Is it worth $10 or $20? If not, then you need to re-evaluate your priorities. Waiting in line is a colossal waste of time.

Here’s how to never have to do it again.

The cheap way to do this is to show up a half hour to an hour before the club opens (9:30PM is a safe bet in California) with a bunch of girls and wait around until the club opens. You’ll among be the first in line which should get you a fighting chance of getting in. If you are severely low on cash, this is your best bet. There’s two problems though. First, you still have to wait in line — you’re just getting there earlier to do it. Even after the club opens, you still may find yourself waiting for all the bottle service reservations. And second, unless you’re very popular or very good at pickup (or both)…AND you’re very persuasive, it’s not the easiest thing in the world to get a half dozen hot girls to finish getting dressed and putting on make up in time to get to the club an hour before opening.

Another way to do this is preparation. Find and befriend someone who works the door or has some power within the venue. Don’t be conned into thinking that the ‘promoter’ you met on the plane who promises to ‘put you on the list’ has any sway over things. You’ll need to go much higher up in the chain to get into the higher-end clubs.

But let’s say for the sake of example that you don’t have access to dozens of hot girls, tons of cash, or mob-style connections. Let’s say you’re an average group of 3 guys who just want to get into the club without a ton of hassle or without waiting forever in line. Here’s how to do it.

I’d say in about 90% of clubs and bars (Europe -London especially- may be slightly lower since y’all are cheap bastards and no one tips there), the doormen make the majority of their income on tips. But unlike waitresses and bar tenders, tipping doorman is often frowned upon by management because it tends to promote preferential treatment–and with it–hostility from those who aren’t in the know.

In most major U.S. cities, the tip is the same as the cover charge for the venue. If there’s no cover, $10-20 per guy usually works. This almost always gets you past the line, although it doesn’t necessarily free you from having to pay the cover charge.

In cities like Las Vegas where the club scene and tourism is enormous, bouncers and doormen will tell you how much to tip to get “walked in,” although discretion is still very much appreciated. At some exclusive clubs on busy weekends, a walk-in can run as much as $40 or $50 per head. There are even rare occasions when walk-ins are unavailable and your only other option is to pony up $500/bottle for “bottle service.”

For those unfamiliar with the concept, it’s basically the equivalent of buying celebrity VIP status for the night. You’ll find it mostly in upscale clubs and lounges in larger cities. After taxes and tips, expect to pay $500+ for a bottle of medium-grade vodka or rum. But you’re not really paying for the bottle. You’re paying for the social proof. You’re paying for the status. Bottle service rents you a booth or table behind the red velvet VIP ropes and usually includes no-line entry for at least 3 men per bottle. For heavier drinkers, splitting a bottle with friends isn’t much more expensive than buying 5 drinks at the bar, paying cover, and tipping to get in, and that’s assuming the social proof has no monetary value. Still, I’m generally not a fan of bottle service. Well, let me rephrase that. I’m not a fan of paying for bottle service. I’ll show you guys how to get free bottle service in a future article.

Getting back on track. Now that you know what and where to tip, let’s look at the how and when in step-by-step fashion.

Step 1: Figure out who the doorman is and how many men are in your party. Depending on the city, culture, environment, etc., figure out how much you want to tip. A good general rule for major U.S. cities is: Cover Charge x Number of Men in Group = Tip. The higher-end the venue is, the more you’ll want to add to that and vice versa. If you’re at a brand new, super-exclusive club in Hollywood, $20 ain’t gonna cut it.

Step 2: Fold the bills (as few bills as possible; better to hand him a $100 than five $20 bills) in half length-wise. Then fold them in half again until it makes a nice little rectangle that will fit in a small money clip or in this case, in your palm. Palm the bills in the center of your palm so that you can’t see them from the other side. You can use your thumb to keep them there.

Step 3: Walk up to the doorman as if you know him (don’t bother with the line, just walk to the front). “Hey man, how’s it going?” If you know his name, even better. Put your hand out to shake his hand. When he shakes, he’ll feel the bills in your palm. Let him know how many guys and girls there are in the group (they should be waiting nearby). Most of the time he’ll smile, greet you, and usher you and your friends in. Sometimes he’ll tell you if you need more (particularly when there’s a lot of guys in your group). If he does, ask how much and tell him you’ll be right back. Go palm the new amount in a discreet location and repeat the process. Every once in a while you’ll run into a new guy or a venue that just doesn’t take tips. In that case either try with a different doorman or pick a new venue (or buy a bottle).

Step 4: Once you get in, get the doorman’s name and give him yours. Sometimes I buy him a drink later on in the night too. Write his name down in your phone or somewhere so that you will remember it later.

Notes:

-If you’re law enforcement (especially local law enforcement), military, or an industry person, let them know in advance, especially if your group isn’t particularly guy-heavy. Show your ID and ask the doorman if he’ll take care of you. It’s still a good idea to tip him at least periodically if you frequent that venue.

-If you’re on a tight budget and you want to bargain with the doorman, you can sometimes get away with a lesser tip, although this is better for being in foreign cities where it’s less important to establish a good reputation with the staff. Approach the doorman and discreetly ask what it will take to get (describe your group, e.g., “four guys, 1 girl”) in past the line. He’ll probably say something like “$100 should do it.” You can try to bargain by saying “I only have $80 on me, will that do it?” Like anything else, it’s a gamble and you may piss him off, but I’ve done it successfully in the past. Just remember that if you’re going to be a regular at this particular venue, you don’t want to come off as cheap to the guy who will potentially be your future hook up guy.

-In my experience, female staff tend to take tips/bribes much less than their male counterparts.

-In huge cities like vegas, sometimes you can’t even get to the doorman because he’s surrounded by a wall of people trying to talk their way in. If you can’t get to the front, look for other bouncers or security guys hanging around the area. Talk to them and see what you can do. A lot of times they’ll be able to walk you through. I once had a security guy get my friend and I in via the backdoor staff elevator for free… because I asked. Of course I tipped him and got his name.

This is how you own the nightlife in your city.