I agree with Blondie / Blondie' husband, and would further add:
The "Theo-Crap-ic Ministry Skule" is a public speaking skills training workshop, with the skills learned useful for those in face-to-face sales, such as door-to-door(tm) book selling... whoops, I mean door-to-door(tm) book "placements(tm)". While some have suggested they found this extremely beneficial, my opinion is it is very weak and rudimentary; better than no training at all, but you could learn much more, and learn faster, by reading a few books, joining Toastmasters, or taking a night school class.
The "Service Meeting(tm)" is mostly a "tactical sales training" seminar:
- what we are selling this month
- how we will sell it
- how to best present the features/benefits of our product to the sales prospect
- how to create and manage repeat sales
- how to overcome objections presented by prospects
- how to overcome objections presented by prospects peer group who are already familiar with the problems with our product
- perhaps most important: how to beg for money and get paid *AFTER* you have closed the deal and have the product in the prospect's hands
Active JW lurkers won't have a problem with the above as long as they (incorrectly) think that the product is the "Message of Good News". Unfortunately, the product is
actually books and magazines. The "good news" is merely a device used to categorize/label the product. This device could, just as easily, be about about vitamins or make-up or losing weight or how to become rich or how to meet people or whatever; in all these cases, the product could still be the same: books and magazines. Only the *subject* or *topic* of the product changes.
~Quotes, of the "Professional Salesman" class