The World Of The Door To Door Salesman

Wigglestein said:
Jewel Tea had a coffee cake mix my mom would buy for me to bake on Sundays after church.
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I hadn't thought about Jewel Tea in many, many moons and it brings back a not so good memory.

I was in the 1st or 2nd grade and we were living in a real small town in Kentucky and our next door neighbor was a Jewel Tea driver.

Our kitchen window faced the side of the neighbors house where their driveway was and one Sunday my mom was at the kitchen sink when she screamed out like a banchee and went running outside......the neighbor / Jewel Tea driver was up on a ladder painting the outside of the second story of his house when he fell off the ladder on his face knocking most of his teeth out.

I was young and didn't keep up with his recovery but a month or so later he was back driving his truck route.

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Oh, there were so many back in the day. Club aluminum cookware who even demonstrated by cooking a delicious meal, vacuum cleaner salesmen who cleaned your house, Holy Bible sales people, students selling magazines, college kids selling encyclopedias, and yes the ubiquitous Fuller Brush man.

There were clothing salesmen, jewelry sales people, make up sales ladies, table and kitchen cutlery salesmen and yes, stationary and leather goods salesmen.

Most of all, there were the insurance salesmen who sold every type of insurance known to man.
 
When I was 16 our Fuller Brush salesman was going to go away for a few weeks and had the "bright" idea of asking me to take over his route while he was gone. My mom also thought it was a great idea. So I spent a couple of days with him on his route and then I was let loose. Horrible idea. Introverts do not make good Fuller Brush representatives and 16 years olds should not be trusted to take over a route. Instead of going out calling on his regulars I ended up hanging out at the mall.
 

I just remembered about when a Melmac dish salesman came to the door selling...what else?...dishes.

He was demonstrating the absolute indestructability of Melmac dishes by jumping on a bowl and pounding on a cup with a hammer. With a houseful of small, extremely destructive children, my mom was getting more and more interested. My youngest sister was sitting in a high chair and the salesman handed her a plate and asked, "How do you like THAT, little lady?" She threw the plate up in the air, it landed on the floor and broke into several pieces. Silence. Salesman was red-faced..."well, that never happened before!"

Mom bought a set anyway and we were still using those dishes when I went off to college. To the best of my knowledge, nothing ever broke again.

She also had a set of the Jewel Tea "Autumn Leaf" dishes that she bought piece-by-piece from the Jewel Tea man (you'll see them in antique stores everywhere), but they only got brought out for company and Thanksgiving and never allowed in the vicinity of a small child in a highchair. Grandma had the same set. I think 3/4 of the housewives in the neighborhood had that set.
 
Anyone see the documentary Salesman by the Maysles brothers about the Bible salesmen? It is outstanding. Brought back some memories as I remember my father buying a Bible from just such a salesman around 1962.

There is a parody of it on the Documentary Now series titled Globesman that is hilarious.
 
Anyone familiar with the term "sizzle grinder"? That was what old folks in my area called the guy who came around in a small van to sharpen knives, shears, saws, scythes and other edged tools.
 
As a teen, I sold things door to door.

- Fresh asparagus that I gathered growing wild on the side of irrigation ditches. I kept the locations secret and some people even tried to follow me, which i found very entertaining.

- Donuts, I did not make much money, but I ate a lot of donuts.

- But I made the most money selling composted cow manure. A buddy of mine had an old pickup and we would drive out to the dairy farms and load it up for $1, Then we would drive back into town and i would sell it for $5. For another dollar, we would spread it around. One day I sold 13 loads to a retired Army Officer. (LOL he was fussy, and I had to keep assuring him that the percentage of tumbleweed seeds in mine was very low.)
I made far more money selling sh__ as a kid than anything else. We encountered several girls from our HS class, and I think that being a sh__ salesman didn't exactly impress them. LOL, I was a much, much better salesman than my buddy.
 
oldlongwalker said:
Anyone see the documentary Salesman by the Maysles brothers about the Bible salesmen? It is outstanding. Brought back some memories as I remember my father buying a Bible from just such a salesman around 1962.

There is a parody of it on the Documentary Now series titled Globesman that is hilarious.
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No, but I loved the doc the Maysles did on "Grey Gardens"! I've watched it several times.
I'll have to look for Salesman. Thanks.
 
Meanderer said:
Door-to-Door Salesmen
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My first "jobs" were door to door sales, Burpee Seeds, Grit Newspapers, even tried fruit cake. Never made much money, in fact I think I lost money on the fruit cakes. I would have been 12 to 14 years old and could not get any other job.

Looking back it was good experience, kind of a first lesson in the hard knocks of business.
 
Alligatorob said:
My first "jobs" were door to door sales, Burpee Seeds, Grit Newspapers, even tried fruit cake. Never made much money, in fact I think I lost money on the fruit cakes. I would have been 12 to 14 years old and could not get any other job.

Looking back it was good experience, kind of a first lesson in the hard knocks of business.
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Fruitcake would be a hard sell. Now if you had teamed up with me, we might’ve gotten somewhere.

“Buy a load of my cow dung and get a free fruitcake.”
 
MarkinPhx said:
When I was 16 our Fuller Brush salesman was going to go away for a few weeks and had the "bright" idea of asking me to take over his route while he was gone. My mom also thought it was a great idea. So I spent a couple of days with him on his route and then I was let loose. Horrible idea. Introverts do not make good Fuller Brush representatives and 16 years olds should not be trusted to take over a route. Instead of going out calling on his regulars I ended up hanging out at the mall.
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Yeah, I had a paper route and my supervisor told me "You got to sell more papers" I then spent a Saturday going to the neighbors who weren't taking the paper to sign them up.

After 10 verbally abusive rejections, I went home. The next time my supervisor mentioned me selling more papers, I handed him my delivery bag and said "I quit"
 
Alligatorob said:
My first "jobs" were door to door sales, Burpee Seeds, Grit Newspapers, even tried fruit cake. Never made much money, in fact I think I lost money on the fruit cakes. I would have been 12 to 14 years old and could not get any other job.

Looking back it was good experience, kind of a first lesson in the hard knocks of business.
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Same here! With me it was selling magazine subscriptions door to door because I was too young to get any other job. They drilled the sales pitch into us for a couple of hours then drove us to a neighborhood and let us loose. It was horrible! Dog bites, slamming doors, getting yelled at and chased off properties. What a nightmare :oops:
I finally came across a rather feeble old lady on day 2 and talked her into signing up for the subscription. As she was starting to sign the paperwork, I started feeling sorry for her cuz I knew this was pretty much a scam and they would keep trying to sell her more and more stuff so I ended up talking her out of completing the paper work. I left without the sale and got fired at the end of that day. Never took another sales job after that 😄
 
I sold Kirby Vacuums briefly when I was desperate for a job. I learned quickly that I wasn't cut out for it. I think I sold 3 in the course of about 3 weeks. Anyone seen the movie Glengarry Glen Ross? Watching that, after having sold Kirby's, was almost painful. The scene with Alex Baldwin when he give the sales contest speech was spot on. "Second prize--a set of steak knives," could have been taken from our sales manager.
 
There were lots of door to door salesmen when I was a kid, but the two I remember best were Jewel Tea and the old man with the horse and wagon. We got our first "real" living room rug from Jewel Tea. 9x12 and it covered from within about a foot one way and 2 feet the other. Before that, we had a braided rag rug...made by my mother from things out of the rag bag.

The other didn't really go from door to door. He had a wagon and a horse and came down our road about once a week. Had everything you could think of and sharpened knives, too.

The others were just the regular ones, milk man and such.
 
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hearlady said:
My dad was also a Tool and Die maker!
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These skills are in short supply today. Especially in our manufacturing sectors. Most of the American manufacturing plants have dated or very old production lines. Parts to keep these lines running are in short supply as many of the original manufactures are long gone. Therefore, only skilled tool and die people can make from scratch the parts necessary to keep these plants running. All manufactures, except very high-tech electronic shops, are struggling with shortages in tool and die people.
 

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