SOME ARE MEANT TO BE DOOR-TO-DOOR SALESPEOPLE, SOME ARE NOT
Photo by Eddie Junior on Unsplash
(The following story resulted from a recent Labor Day conversation about worst jobs ever. I won hands down, despite one friend having spent a summer pouring gravel for a road construction crew in rural South Carolina – after which he decided he was college material. This appeared in a Medium memoir publication, and though much longer than anything I usually post here I thought you might enjoy it.)
It was a dark period of my otherwise bright life. Think alcoholic spouse and three children in grades one, four and five. Late 1960s. I was picking up any writing jobs I could find, including more than a few magazine ‘stringer’ deals that paid a penny a word — something guaranteed to ruin your narrative gifts. Those didn’t buy a lot of groceries.
Worst of all, my kids needed academic support. In those olden days when students had to look things up in books, home resources were critical. I had grown up with the Encyclopedia Brittanica in the upstairs hall next to the telephone; the Brittanica cost more than my mortgage. Plus, everybody who was anybody with school-age kids in the last half of the twentieth century had World Book.
The World Book Encyclopedia was the holy grail of pre-internet education. I desperately wanted a set of those cream-colored volumes for my children, and feared they would be through school before I could save up enough money. There was only one answer:
World Book offered free training for new salespeople (who seemed always to be in demand.) After you sold six sets you got your own set free — I think there were about 20 books in all — plus the requisite bookcase in which to house your prize. What’s so hard about selling encyclopedias, I asked myself. I signed up for the training course.
It was, as anyone who has ever taken a sales training course knows, about ten percent information and ninety percent pep talk. The information was a 5-minute spiel we memorized that would pluck every cultural, emotional and educational heartstring of every red-blooded citizen we approached.
As to the approach: we were carefully taught never to call ahead or try to set up an appointment, but to choose a neighborhood, ring doorbells, gain entry, deliver the memorized spiel and write up the order. Easy peasey.
It was the hardest assignment I ever had, before or since.
Some people are born to sell. I am not. Fervently as I actually believed in the value of my product, the idea of confronting a perfect stranger and trying to convince him or her of anything can still cause me to break out in a cold sweat and pull the covers over my head. Decades later, fervently as I believe our democracy is at risk, I still can’t do the door-to-door thing.
But stronger than my terror was my desperation. My beloved children needed the World Book.
On my first try I drove, as recommended, to a new suburban development and parked near a cul de sac. This being before traveling salesladies (or ladies of any sort for that matter) appeared in pants, I put on a crisp white shirt and my swingie wrap-around skirt with the big pockets — #1 morale-booster outfit — and slipped on my lucky red Capezio flats. Spiffy new satchel on my shoulder I marched bravely up to the first front door.
An angry-looking middle-aged woman answered, glared at me and slammed the door before I got the first word out.
I took a very deep breath and approached the next house. That door was opened by a youngish woman with a baby on her hip — and I had an opening spiel for that! Before I got past the ‘Good morning’ she said, “We’re not interested,” and slammed her door. By the time I got no answer at the third house I decided they were all calling each other to warn against the ditsy blond trying to sell them something, and watching my every move from behind the curtains.
I walked back to my car, shoulders straight, smile plastered on my face for all those eyes I could feel upon me. Before I got a block away tears were stinging my eyes. I quickly parked on a side street and wept. Then I summoned the courage to wipe my face, drive to another anonymous subdivision and start over. It was downhill from there. Six houses and five rejections later (the sixth wasn’t home) I was back in the car and in despair.
“How did it go, Mom?” asked the kids, excited to have a mom who dressed up and went off to work — as opposed to sitting at the typewriter in jeans. I did not have the heart to tell them it was torture. I told them I thought business would surely pick up tomorrow.
Tomorrow was worse.
By the third week I was sinking into the depths. But just as I was about to hit bottom, someone opened the door and let me in. She actually listened to my spiel. She said she’d think about it. We were never supposed to settle for less than a signature on the dotted line, but I was so excited not to have had the door slammed in my face that I didn’t even get her name and phone number. I jotted down her address and vowed to return.
There was not one day I set out on this journey without having to give myself a five minute pep talk just to start the car. For one chilly week the car was in the shop and I took to my bicycle. The exercise actually helped work out some of my anxiety and frustration, though I still made no sales during bike week.
We were encouraged to do our presentation thing for the man of the house and the little lady both — women’s lib was just getting off the ground — but we weren’t warned about the predator man of the house. I was early into my fourth week when I met him.
A nice-looking young man in jeans and fraternity sweater (that should’ve been a clue) answered the door with a friendly smile. He said his wife was upstairs but he’d call her, and ushered me into the living room. I settled myself on the sofa as indicated, satchel on my lap. He returned to say the little woman would be right down, and why didn’t I go ahead. I did. Within a few sentences he rose from the chair facing me, called upstairs to the supposed woman and returned. But this time he sat on the sofa, edged swiftly next to me, reached one arm behind me and the other hand up my skirt. I grabbed my satchel, dashed out the door and was in the car driving away in about forty seconds.
That, plus the general humiliation I felt, would have ended my saleslady career but for one happenstance. I got a call from a casual friend in the Junior League — of course, I was in the Junior League, but I had prayed that no one therein would learn of my new job.
“We’ve been meaning to get a World Book set,” she said; “and someone mentioned you were selling them. Can you order a set for me?” I was suddenly back in business.
Bolstered by my first commission check I also got smarter. By then it was November. I printed up several hundred cleverly decorated flyers declaring there was still time to order a set of encyclopedias and have this valuable gift under the family tree! My 10-year-old son and I attacked a new neighborhood in the late afternoon darkness, going house to house tucking flyers into front doors or mailboxes. Child labor laws or those prohibiting such use of mailboxes be damned.
I got two actual responses to that campaign, and sold my second set. I was on a roll.
Being on a roll still didn’t make this job any easier. I knew a little about rejection from the few freelance articles I was also floating into the universe, but those little slips were nothing compared to the cruelty of a stranger’s rude dismissal. Or the slam of a door in one’s face. I still fought tears on a regular basis.
But by New Year’s Day I had miraculously racked up another two sales and had a hot prospect thanks to the teacher of a friend’s kid who actually suggested he might benefit from this resource. I could smell victory.
It was a cold January in Georgia. But with the red Capezio’s traded for boots I could leave at the door I persevered. It never got easier. I never had a day I faced without fear and loathing. I still believed in my product, but cold-calling on perfect strangers who have better things to do than listen to a sales pitch does not boost belief in humankindness. I simply kept my head down, played the percentages as instructed and kept going.
In early February I closed my sixth sale and welcomed the beloved encyclopedia that would get my children safely through high school. The next day, I quit.
