Charm and Selling

Charm and Selling

Some people have charm; the rest of us get through life as best we can.  First impressions are important in selling.  You have to get to know the rest of us.  As a charm-challenged chap, I never thrived at selling … perhaps because I come from a long line of shy reticent roots. At a Stubbs cousin’s wedding, she explained to us that her in-laws were shy and backward. Her brother thought a moment, then said what I was thinking: More backward than us?  As a whole, few families lay claim to social awkwardness more convincingly than my extended Stubbs clan. Some have married into more sparkly genes to give some lines some hope, but for the most part, Stubbs are known as quiet, strong, shy, hard-working, hopelessly non-sparkly people. Of course, blaming one’s weaknesses on genes is not recommended by motivational speakers or the mental health industry, but I try to avoid pushy people peddling perfection. 

            As a 10-year-old paper boy in Los Angeles, I delivered the newspapers faithfully every day.  Other than this drive-by biker missing a few throws onto a roof or two, I was doing a good job.  The trainer told me that I could go door to door and sell as many new accounts as I wanted, but he made it sound quite optional.  One Saturday I tried my hand at selling new accounts to the houses between the ones I threw papers at every day.  From a few dozen attempts, I acquired maybe two new customers. That was enough selling to last me a long time.  Months later, a newspaper manager came and spoke with my parents, explaining they were letting me go because I was not selling new accounts.  I was dumbfounded (am often found dumb).  After he left, my parents asked me about it.  My quiet answer was that I didn’t know I had to sell, but only deliver.  I knew I could increase my paper route if I wanted to, but thought that was optional.  My dad offered to go talk to them, explain the misunderstanding, and possibly get the job back, but I said if it involved selling, I wasn’t interested.

            Fourteen years later, I was a poverty-stricken BYU student with a family to support.  I decided that spray-painting addresses on curbs could bring in a decent hourly wage.  At $2 per customer and a “yes” from every 3^rd or 4^th house in a new subdivision, I calculated that I might earn $8 per hour, big money back when $1.60 was the minimum wage, the base for most part-time jobs in Provo.  I spent our last $5 on a set of stencils and a can of spray paint.  I started at my mom’s house, the traditional easy-sale confidence booster.  Mom said, “Oh, I don’t think we need that.”

Undaunted, I then drove 5 miles to a new subdivision on Orem’s east bench and began the door-to-door in the heat of summer. No one was home at the first few houses. Finally a live body appeared and said she’d have her husband do it. Following another empty house or two, a second lovely lady said, “O, that’s a wonderful idea. I’ll have to tell my son. He needs a job, and might go for a good entrepreneurial idea like that.  I’ll have him do it.  I’m so glad you came by.  Thank you sooooooo much for coming!”  Charmed by her effusive response, I might have said, “You’re welcome.”  I can’t remember.  But by now I was far enough from my car that it was time to retrieve it and drive to the middle of the next foot-work section.  I walked back and found that I had locked the keys in the car.  That put a damper on an already dampened dry day.  I walked the miles back to the house to retrieve the spare key.  In the meantime, Silvia was home tallying up the dollars in her head for every hour that I was gone according to the rate I had told her.  Aside from already having plans for all the money I had made at that rate, she couldn’t help but laugh when she learned what filled the hours.  I grabbed the extra key and began the walk back. 

A month or two later, my mom told me about this nice young man who came by with this brilliant idea of spray-painting addresses on curbs for only $4.  I looked at her, then at the curb—sure enough.  I reminded her that I had offered the same thing at half the price.  She had forgotten.  Of course, first impressions with moms are out of the question.  My status as a charm-challenged chap was solidified!  Who can’t sell to his mom?  Only me!  Then a stranger sells her the same thing at twice the price!  I always wondered if it was the kid of the lady whom I had given the idea to.