Some of us were just not cut out to be door to door Salesmen

by life is to short 14 Replies latest jw friends

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  life is to short

  I got the movie Walking the line about Johny Cash. I was watching it with my husband and it showed that he was a D2D salesman before he hit it big. As my husband and I were watching the movie it showed the householders being rude and slamming the door in his face, etc. My husband said that would be a hard life to live. I was like OMG.

  I about spit my teeth out. My husband was in the full time service for 18 years a regular pioneer for 12 of those years. I pioneered myself for more years then I wished I had. We have had doors slammed in our face, dog sticked on us, I have been bitten 6 times in service. I have had guns drawn on me you name it it happened.

  Yet he watches this movie and says Johny Cash had it hard. At least Johny Cash did not another salesperson with him that would rip into him as soon as he left the door telling him how he just blew the sale and what an idiot he was for not handling the objection of the householder right. That the householder would have listened if Johny had only just said it this way or that way, the way his partner is telling him too. That Johny might have just caused the householder to loose his life as the systems end is so close the householder might not get another chance to become a JW.

  I could never talk at the door right for most of the JW's I worked with. I was always getting told how horrible I was at the D2D work, my husband was right there with everyone ripping apart what I said.

  I do not think I am alone with being targeted though. One of the last times I went out in service I worked with the CO's wife. She truly seems like a very nice person who just wants to please everyone and I mean everyone. Well we go to this door and the householder just ripes into her, yelling at us and slammed the door in our face. She is just horrified, she apologizes to me over and over saying that she blew it and how horrible she was at the door and she is so sorry. The CO's wife will not stop. I kept telling her it was OK that the householder was not interested and no matter what she said he would not have listened. The CO's wife apologized all morning to me. I was like it is OK. This is their first assignment and her husband is very strong willed it his way or no way and he values being a CO more then life it's self. I just really feel sorry for her, she tries so hard to not offend anyone and in this religion that is all you do is offend people.

  I stepped back and realized OMG the CO's wife is me. I just want to please people too and do the best job I can, I was always offending someone in the hall. I am so the CO's wife. But you cannot do a good job D2D you just can't. You cannot stop the householder from being rude and slamming the door in your face. Some people can talk to anyone and make them not be mad. They can talk to sheet rock and have a good time. They are just born salesmen. But there are those like myself and the CO's wife who just come across as different I guess like doormats and nothing we do is going to change the anger of the householder from us bugging them, waking them up or whatever we are doing to tick them off by banging on their door uninvited.

  For those of us field service really sucked peer hell. That is one of the huge problems with this religion is some of us are just not cut out to be salesmen but we had no choose.

  LITS
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  acolytes

  This is why the J.W is so unsuccessful.

  A real salesman is aware failure is the pillor to success.

  Rejection is water off a ducks back to a salesman. A decent salesman has initiative and cares about his product and customer.

  A real salesman finds his market.

  A successful salesman does not sell his product. The product sells itself(. It is not result orintated). Ask Budda or Jesus. Even ask the owner of this board. A real salesman does not sell anything.

  Acolytes
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  BluesBrother

  You are so right....Most of the Witnesses dislike the Ministry, for obvious reasons. I just about coped with it, seeing it as an unavoidable part of the whole package of the religion that I was following. Was I any good? No..

  Females are usually better than men at this activity, they have the propensity to chat and open conversations easier than we do, but not all by any means enjoy knocking on a stranger's door. A lot comes down to motivation. If one really believed that the poor so and so in this house was going to die unless he took the action you told him...then I think that people would try harder. Instead Witnesses (me once included) just trot out the same introduction and hope the person will say No.

  Your C/O's wife was a rarity (poor girl, she does not seem cut out for it) Most of them were tough old birds who would blame anybody but themselves if the call went badly. I remember one whom our "Sisters" nicknamed "The Terminator" because of her tactlessness and rudeness resulted in so many studies being terminated.

  Thank God we had the sense to stop doing it
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  Gayle

  Maybe most of us were not cut out for that. But we were mind-controlled to do it for God, to save people, to save ourselves (now most it is just to save themselves) .

  Then, when there is no obvious 'results' then it is especially uninspiring over time. Most seem to be 'knocking' more softly now-a-days. I don't answer and I suspect many like it that way. Door to door sales of anything is not too productive now-a-days in any form.
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  LongHairGal

  LITS: I relate to what you say and now believe the door to door work is simply a yardstick the religion uses to measure how 'spiritual' the rank and file JWs are. I experienced having an elder's wife have the audacity to criticize my presentation at a door. No two people do a door the same anyway. I never worked with her again. Then there was the nutty sister who felt that if I didn't 'pray enough' before each door, then that is why the householder wouldn't respond! The bottom line: people weren't interested and we were wasting our time in this sham of a so-called religion.
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  WTWizard

  There are people that couldn't sell physical silver in a silver shortage. There are people that couldn't sell water in a desert. Yet, the Washtowel Slaveholdery requires those people to sell the Washtowel message and excel in it, despite that there is no value in it.
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  Black Sheep

  I can't even sell something I do believe in.

  It's just as well I never got dunked.
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  Band on the Run

  Has anyone written about d2d with young children preaching to adult householders? No one took me seriously at ten or eleven. I felt shame for being disrespectful. After countless hours. I would not sell one item. Watchtowers on streetcorners were easier to place. Only relatively, though. The entire dialogue written by the Society was so stiled and very unnatural. It had to be memorized. I was critcized with no regard for my age. No one ever praised my determination. Ministry school was awkward for me being female. Rather than doing school work, I would spend hours memorizing my lines. My brother could just deliver a talk.

  He received high praise for his genatalia. I received harsh criticism. The fear was so great I would be ready to vomit. Wanting love, I pressed on. After the ordeal, some illiterate brother tore into me. Some of it may have been warranted if I were an adult. Sometimes I wonder whether I left the Witnesses or they booted me out with their actions.
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  Ding

  With regard to children, isn't the idea that it's harder for a HH to slam the door in the face of a little kid?

  If nothing else, some HHs will have sympathy for a kid who's forced to dress up like an adult and spend his childhood hawking magazines d2d.
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  Reality79

  Believe me, this D2D work was one of MANY things I couldn't bear when I was still active in the Jehovah Wickedness organisation - and I used to be a regular pioneer! I always felt uneasy knocking on total stranger's doors and I used to dread Saturdays especially. Usually, after an hour or so I'd say I wanted to do return visits or street witnessing - basically anything else but the horrendous D2D work. Thankfully, I wasn't physically assaulted, but the amount of verbal abuse and apathy chips away at your spirit all the time.

  You would think the Head Dubs in Crooklyn would at least attempt to modernise their efforts, but no, they force their members including young children to go out in public with their monkey suits and expose them to all kinds of mistreatment from the public.....not to mention disturbing people at ridiculous hours with a fake message. It's pointless bullshit, not to mention totally arrogant and presumpteous.

  But I guess it's alright for the GB - after all, they don't have to do it, do they? They get to stay in their luxury apartments at Beth-hell and fly all around the world in comfort while the regular brainwashed folk have to stay on the frontlines.