Word: salesman
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First, we would like to correct the notion that Southwestern salesmen are unethical. A salesman who misrepresents himself or his product could conceivably make a few extra sales--before getting caught and thrown in jail. But whether an individual salesman acts ethically or not is his decision alone. Each Southwestern salesman agrees, in writing, "to operate in his own way, within his designated territory, in selling books published by the company," and that "Dealer shall be free to exercise his own judgement as to time, place, and manner of selling books purchased under this contract, within the territory designated...
...salesmen manipulate people who don't need the product into buying it anyway. If anything becomes clear after an entire summer of selling with Southwestern, it is that even the very best salesmen hear far more rejections than acceptances. Anyone who attends a Southwestern interview learns that the average salesman, who earns over $2,000, hears some 27 rejections per day in the course of hearing just three acceptances. The best salesmen do no more than listen to a person's needs, and then determine if and how the product might help to fill those needs. No "techniques," no lies...
...Each salesman makes his own decisions as to whom he will try to sell to within his neighborhood territory. The statement of one Southwestern worker who quit that, "I had sold three houses in a row that day, and I was selling to people who couldn't afford the dictionaries," is especially noteworthy. If he felt that they could not afford the books, then why did he take their order at all? In the neighborhoods in which we work, there are literally thousands of other families who are financially able to save up the three to seven dollars a week...
From the moment he saw his first big top as a boy, Vargas' obsession was to have one of his own. After marking time as a Fuller Brush salesman and working for the Chicago zoo, in 1972 he bought a small circus that had no tent -a failing he corrected a year later. Says he: "I was starting from virtually nothing, but I knew what I wanted...
...Raymond Kroc, today one of America's 12 richest men, who created the McDonald's monster. Back in 1954, Kroc, a slick-talking paper cup salesman passing through town, saw their operation. On the spot, he offered them a deal: in exchange for the right to use their names, methods, and golden arch insignia in order to establish identical McDonald's franchises around the country, he would give them a small percentage of each store's sales. The brothers, "out-spieled," reluctantlyagreed. Within five years Kroc had bought out their share of the enterprise. And a few months later, annoyed...