Door to Door as Missionaries, Then as Salesmen

[groovedaddy]

(why am I not surprised? - gd)

OAK BROOK, Ill. — Six days a week, in fair weather and foul, two-dozen door-to-door salesmen, all of whom live clustered together in an apartment complex in this suburb west of Chicago, pile into S.U.V.’s and cars and head into the big city, bent on sales of home security systems.

And on Sunday, their one day off, they drive together to the nearest house of worship of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

The salesmen are mostly former Mormon missionaries from Utah who cut their teeth — and learned their people-skill chops — cold-calling for their faith. In Chicago and in its suburbs where their employer, Pinnacle Security of Orem, Utah, has shipped them for the summer sales season, they are doing much the same thing, but as a job.

“It’s missionary work turned into a business,” said Cameron Treu, 30, who served his mission in Chile and was recruited into D2D (that is door-to-door in sales lingo) by another former missionary.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/12/us/12coldcalls.html?_r=1&th&emc=th

[rrneck]

1. My mom lives in an

apartment complex owned by the church. Most religions are little more than media empires today.

The transfer to selling a tangible object from selling an attitude is another step in corporate synergy. It's smart really, if you want to make a ton of money. Who better to sell crap to than someone whose defenses are down through a suspension of rational thought from some religious ecstasy? Who better to sell it than someone trained to create that suspension of rational thought? Just another example of the same business model that has worked for thousands of years; scare the hell out of people and sell them shit...

This must be movie quote day for me. They keep popping into my head.

Se7en

David Mills: I've been trying to figure something in my head, and maybe you can help me out, yeah? When a person is insane, as you clearly are, do you know that you're insane? Maybe you're just sitting around, reading "Guns and Ammo", masturbating in your own feces, do you just stop and go, "Wow! It is amazing how fucking crazy I really am!"? Yeah. Do you guys do that?

The Corporation

To determine the kind of personality that drives the corporation to behave like an externalising machine, we can analyse it like a psychiatrist would a patient. We can even formulate a diagnosis, on the basis of typical case histories of harm it has inflicted on others selected from a universe of corporate activity.

How far do religious organizations have to go before they realize they have gone too far? When does a group of people sharing their experience of the divine become little more than the source of a revenue stream? When will these religious behemoths achieve a moment of clarity?

[onager]

5. Another movie quote for you...and right on topic!

Phil Cooper: "It doesn't matter whether you're selling Jesus or Buddha or civil rights or 'How to Make Money in Real Estate With No Money Down'. That doesn't make you a human being; it makes you a marketing rep.

If you want to talk to somebody honestly, as a human being, ask him about his kids. Find out what his dreams are – just to find out, for no other reason. Because as soon as you lay your hands on a conversation to steer it, it's not a conversation anymore; it's a pitch. And you're not a human being; you're a marketing rep."

From the very strange 2000 movie The Big Kahuna. "Strange" because it's basically a filmed play with 3 characters, set in one room, starring Kevin Spacey and Danny DeVito, who at the time were major stars.

The characters are industrial-lubricant salesmen trying to get an audience with an executive for a major account (the "big kahuna.")

DeVito is "Phil Cooper," in the quote above calling out "Bob" (Peter Facinelli). Bob is a new, young salesman...and devout Baptist.

Spacey gets off a couple of good lines as "Larry:"

Larry Mann: "Well, I'll be a son of a bitch! I don't smoke, you don't drink, and Bob here wouldn't even think about lusting after another woman! Between the three of us, we're practically Jesus!"

And after Bob gets an audience with the Big Kahuna, but spends the time talking about "Jesus:"

Larry: Did you happen to mention what brand of industrial lubricant Jesus would have endorsed?

:rofl:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Big_Kahuna_(film)

[charlie]

6. My library has it!

I just put in a request to have it brought over from another branch. Thanks!

(I love 1-room dramas like Streamers, Dogville, and of course, the mighty, mighty Glengarry Glen Ross)

[dixiegrrrrl]

2. Armed with only 2 skills, they become twice as irritating. What fun.

[heidler1]

4. I wonder what happens to these people when they see the light?

Clever con artists can usually get a job selling anything, like cars.

[blm]

3. Moonies have been doing that for a long time. A 17yo girl was murdered in Charlotte

some years ago when she was dumped off in an inner city neighborhood with cheap necklaces and products to sell door-to-door.

The media would NOT delve very far into the Moonie link, as RevMoon had increased his power at least a hundredfold since the early 90s when his organization was more closely scrutinized.

[SidneyCarton]

7. Maybe it was just my being lousy at door-to-door tracting, but I came home vowing...

to never do door to door sales. Frankly, I see the guys who do this as falling into two categories, the guys who don't know what to do with their lives, and see this as a way of making money, and the guys who always drove me nuts on the mission, because even as missionaries they were into the "hard sell."

I guess I just didn't get the whole idea of pushing it that far, if a person didn't want to hear a discussion, I'd move along, massive arguments just waste time that can be better used talking to someone who is interested. Hence I don't work in sales and never have.