Hi cc.
Thank's for the kind words, but when I was selling for Kirby, it was a group effort. There were 3 ways to get in the home. 1. The old fashioned knocking on doors and asking if they wanted to see the Kirby. 2. The appointment booked in the office based on a lead. 3. The person who called requesting a demo. Even when I was selling Kirby's, door knocking was on it's way out. That really bugged people, so we simply told them about our product, rarely did we get in. The bread and butter was the referal, commonly called the lead. John and Mary in my demo were so impressed that I got names. Her sister, hairdresser, several friends from her bridge club, John's boss, his golf buddies, their parish Priest, and so on.
Part of it was that I was polite in the home, but friendly. I told them what was true, backed it up with test pads, and was honest. If I needed it, there was my 'proof book' with documentation that what I said was true. I was porfessional and they knew it. They had already had a call from the branch office, knew who would be there, and that I was represented by our company. As I said, the person setting that appointment screened the customer. A couple who were not working, or lived in an unsavory neighborhood, the appointment was not booked. Thanks to the office there was rarely a wild goose chase, and the "I can't afford that" was usually a line. Financing was available, ranging from 90 days same as cash, to a 36 month plan. Add to this, Kirby is a popular brand, so if Mary had talked to the lady across the street and said over coffee "I'm going to have a salesman from Kirby here tomorrow night" the responce might well be "my mother has one and they're fantastic!"
Doing a thread of my demo was anything but easy. The reason I did it in installments was to let me talk it out before writing. As I said I did this from memory and missed a few minor points that I fit in at the end, like the cord being 32 feet long, that should have been part of the power plant.
Certain feedback from the prospects altered it somewhat, but gennerally it was a canned speach, and yet, the top brass at Kirby wanted all of us to personalize it so it didn't sound canned. And that was the reason for my training the sales staff. They needed to learn the machine, how one part fed into the other. Every salesman began the same way, showing it to their parents, brother, neighbor and so on. That was their break in weekend, and it was known that they were expected to try to sell it if possible.
For me, it was far more than a job. I was showing a product I believed in, and was able to make the love of vacuum cleaners the center of that. The icing on the cake was when I got a trade-in like Mary's Filtex, my manager let me keep it.
If I was not living deep in the back woods of Pa. I very well might get back into Kirby, however, I've had my day in the sun.
Alex Taber.
