OK, I went back to p17 of this thread, looking for a new wild hare to chase on the off chance it might lead somewhere important (or, at least, interesting)...
Decided to check out the Treseders with whom the Susette Heath Black (JW and sister of William Pratt Heath, Jr) and George Black, Jr lived in 1930 (as found by Leolaia). Nothing of any great importance yet, but I did want to share the interesting similarity beween the early Coca-Cola company and the WBTS company around the time when William Heath II and Ross Treseder were both salesmen for the former...
An article at http://www.businessweek.com/chapter/tedlow.htm quotes Ross's remembrance of Asa Briggs Candler (Coke Daddy and devout Methodist) who would have the salesmen sing Onward Christian Soldiers with him at the close of the sales meeting. But here's the words that really stood out, making me wonder how much the Coca-Cola sales methods influenced the development of the JW door-to-door work?...just a thought... [red highlights mine]
The sales force was of critical importance in achieving national distribution for Coca-Cola. Coca-Cola under Candler relied heavily on a personal, face-to-face selling approach. Although there are other ways to reach the customer--such as mass-media or direct-mail advertising-- personal selling has the advantages of high impact on the customer and flexibility. The salesperson can tailor the message to the individual customer, answering questions and responding to objections. At Coca-Cola, management worked to maximize sales force performance in such subtle exchanges. "Sales demonstrations can be staged," explained a Coca-Cola vice-president at a 1923 bottler convention, "one salesman taking the part of a merchant and the other taking the part of a salesman. Questions can be asked, ideas can be brought out, and a general discussion of territories can be gone into."
Sound familiar? All those staged demonstrations at the meetings and assemblies?
--Merry
edited to add, for clarity, that the above quote was from the writer of the article, not from Ross Treseder.