The Skyland post. [volume] (West Jefferson, N.C.) 193?-1988, 1943-12-02
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4 " M%~ 4
TODAY
and
TOMORR row
By DON ROBINSON
statesmen
By DON ROBINSON
doors

O6AAAOAAN WOA
One occupation which seems
almost to have completely disap-
peared with the war is that OF
door to-door craftsmanship.
Before Pearl Harbor, the sales
methods used by some of these
statesmen had reached such fine
point that it took a housewife
with almost super-human powers
of resistance to terminate an in
terview with one of those sales
men without finding herself the
unexpected owner of a set of
children's books (even if she had
no children), the possesor of a
certificate showing she would,
during the coming year, receive
dozens of magazines for which
she had no intention of subscrib-
ing, or holding in her hand a
receipt for the down-payment on
a years supply of soap, a CORE
spondence course in stenoghaphy
or a matched set of brooms and
brushes.
The door-to-door salesman of
1910 was no unframed peddler-
he was trained salesman who
had mastered a tested technique
of practically mesmerizing wo-
men into signing on the dotted
line. Instead of having to put
his foot in the door to tell his
story, he used carefully selected
words and phrases which acted
as an ''Open Sesame" to any wo-
mans interests. He read books
such as "Tested Selling Sentenc-
es'' and was usually coached by
an expert who had knocked, on
thousands of doors and had an
enviable record for preventing
doors from being slammed in his
face.
PENNIES dollars
A man I know, who two years
ago gave up door-to-door selling
to become a parachutist in the
army, used to make as much as
500 a week ringing doorbells to
sell a sample offer" of maya
zines and books.
One day he demonstrated his
line to me. It was easy to see
how he hoodwinked people into
buying enough reading matter to
last them a lifetime
He started in by telling me that
l had been lucky enough to have
my name picked as one Of a few
in town to whom he was permit
ted to give a beautiful set of
classics free and free subscrip-
tons to a number of magazines
his company wanted to popular
ize" in my town.
After making me feel that 1
was the prize winner on a ''Pot
of Gold" radio program, he then
explained, as a sort of an after
thought, that l should give few
pennies a week to a poor little
neWsboy who delivered the mag
azines. He made it sound like a
charity suggestion which had
nothing to do with the sale he
was trying to make. And then
there was the matter Of postage
which he realized he wouldn't
expect his company to assume
but that was just another few
cents. And then there was the
cost price of the special deluxe
binding on the books, since the
cheaper edition had been exhaus-
ted.
When he got through it still
sounded as if, for few cents, l
was going to get the buy of the
century. All had to do was
sign a little card expressing my
appreciation over accepting this
gift from his company-and, in
stead of bothering to pay a few
cents for the neWsboy, postage,
ETC., l could simply send quar-
ter a week to his company.
He showed me that his penny"
talk actually obligated me to pay
$40 over a period of 31a years.
But he said that when he got
through with most people they
still felt as if they were getting
something for nothing.
TRICKERY laws
I imagine when this young
man drops out of the sky in It.
ally he will have little trouble in
disposing of his parachute to the
nearest farmer for at least twice
its original cost.
But when he returns to this