c. 1996 Religion News Service
(UNDATED) I still enjoy the reaction I get when I tell people I once sold Bibles. Most folks give a quick squint of skepticism and an uneasy grin as they replay in their minds Ryan O’Neal and little Tatum flim-flamming their way across America in the movie “Paper Moon.”
I reacted much the same way when a college friend described packing up and going across the country to sell Bibles for the summer. And I probably still would react that way if I hadn’t done it myself.
Not that I really wanted to. What I really wanted was to be as close as possible to that friend, who happened to be my girlfriend. Having sold Bibles and other family reference books for two summers, she made it ever so subtly clear that the future of our relationship hinged on my decision to join her for her third tour of duty in the bookfield, the term used to describe wherever books are sold.
The other motivation, of course, was the promise of money. Lots of money. And sure enough, I made more money in the summer of 1981 than I’d ever seen.
By summer’s end, the girl was gone, lost to some man who was sold on more than the books she showed him. By September, the money was gone, used to pay off a school loan.
But the memories will remain for a lifetime of being a skinny college kid from Alabama, racing down the dirt roads of east Texas in a baby-blue Volkswagen. I emerged with more than just a hefty check and a broken heart. It was there on the doorsteps of about 4,000 families that I got my first hard look at the world _ and myself.
X X X
Honor student, exchange student or barely a student at all, if you are honest and willing to work harder than you ever thought you could, Southwestern Co. wants you to sell their books.
The Rev. J.R. Graves did a pretty good job of selling them himself for a while after he founded the Nashville-based Southwestern Co. in 1855 to publish Bibles and other Christian-related books. Many a Confederate soldier carried his Bibles into battle during the Civil War.
After the war, Graves gave some of those same soldiers more Bibles to carry, only this time with instructions to sell them across the South’s scorched countryside. They did, happy to have a way to pay their way through college, and Southwestern students have been knocking on doors across America every summer since, selling not just Bibles, but a range of religious and non-religious educational reference books.
Last year, Southwestern racked up about $50 million in revenues _ with the help of about 3,500 students representing about 400 colleges and universities from North America and Europe.
The privately held company reports that in the 12-week summer of 1995, first-time student dealers earned an average gross profit of $6,228. Second-summer dealers earned an average of $11,271. Third-summer students averaged $16,170, and fourth-summer workers averaged $20,535.
Most experienced dealers made even more by recruiting and managing a team of students of their own.
But those are only averages. Some have made much more. In 1992, the company’s all-time record for individual sales was broken and broken again, first by Alex Bednar of Dallas, who earned a gross profit of $44,528, then just a couple of weeks later by Kelly Breslin of Stanford University, who ended the summer with a gross profit of $52,042.
Then there are those who made much less money _ or none at all. The company acknowledges that some students who stick it out all summer still don’t make a cent and sometimes even owe money.
Of the more than 5,000 students who arrive in Nashville in the spring with high hopes of a high check three months later, almost 2,000 call it quits, most of those high-tailing it home before the end of the third week.
Why?
Because selling books is probably the hardest thing they’ve ever done in their lives.
Bookmen and bookwomen live and work hundreds of miles from home, most likely in a place they’ve never been, and daily stand alone to face the task of persuading people they’ve never known into buying something they’ve never seen.
That’s where the law of averages comes in.
A financially successful summer requires a student to sell only one book a day. To do at least that, he must show books to at least 30 people a day. To do that, he must knock on at least 60 doors a day. To do that, he must work at least 13 hours a day, six days a week, for 12 weeks in a row.
That all adds up to stepping on the stoop of more than 4,000 strangers’ homes and sitting down in the living room, den, carport or driveway with more than 2,000 of them, all in the course of one summer.
Money typically is the primary motivation. But I and the thousands of others who have come face to face with a few thousand folks in one summer know better than anyone why Southwestern’s motto _ “Building Character in Young People Since 1868” _ makes no mention of money.
X X X
I never knew when it would happen, but there would be times when I’d jump up on the porch of a house I’d never seen and, within seconds, take the role of its lord and master, casually leading Mrs. Jones through a conversation in which she could say nothing but “yes” _ even when I finally asked for her “okey-dokey” by the big X on the order form.
No flim-flamming. No unethical practices. No broken promises. If I did my job right _ whether I sold a book or not _ even the most skeptical of customers would, within 20 minutes, be happy I stopped by.
But I didn’t learn to do it all on my own. No, I prepared for my visit with Mrs. Jones months before my feet hit her doorstep. While studying for school’s spring finals, I also studied my sales talks _ that is, my memorized-to-the-word conversation with Mrs. Jones.
Then, as soon as school was out, I joined the thousands of other Southwestern students on the pilgrimage to Nashville for sales school, a week-long crash course in interpersonal communication, persuasion and emotional control that is the model for many Fortune 500 companies.
We learned how to drop names, get in the door, answer any number of objections, read and speak body language and do whatever else is necessary to “help Mrs. Jones act on her decision to buy the books.”
We learned how to run a business _ file weekly sales reports, manage bank accounts and, perhaps most important, save our money. We’d live with families for cheap or nothing. We’d eat only cookies and peanut butter sandwiches that customers would offer. We’d do only what was absolutely necessary to keep our cars running.
But this was no boring business school. Whether it be a session on deciphering the meaning of Mrs. Jones’ crossed legs or your own remittance forms, each sales school lesson came with its own offbeat brand of entertainment and was sandwiched between what can only be described as pep rallies rollicking with loud music, original bookman songs and inspirational cheers often led by motivational speakers and even Southwestern’s own dark-suited executives.
Some students get one glimpse of the madness and leave, overwhelmed by what the job demands; others are shocked by what they conclude must be a cult. Even I played along, quietly suspecting that the most enthusiastic of the kids had been badly brainwashed. Weeks later, however, I would know what all the cheering was about.
On the last day of sales school, those who are left find out what they’ve wondered for weeks _ their territory, where they will sell, and their roommates.
We gathered in a motel conference room on the outskirts of Nashville for the big announcements. And for most of us, the names of towns we heard shouted behind our own might as well have been on the other side of the world, names like Denton, Big Spring, Norman and Corsicana.
Finally, the sales manager called my name, the names of my four roommates _ Herb, Bob, Alan and Steve _ and then “Palestine, Texas!”
We cheered at the biblical implications, then furiously flipped through an atlas to see where we would live for the next three months.
Some of us, anyway.
X X X
Bob went to get some gas, and he never came back.
We all arrived in Palestine on that Saturday afternoon with only one thing in mind _ knock on our first door.
Over Cokes at the Pitt Grill diner downtown, we unfolded a crisp, clean map of Anderson County on the Formica tabletop. Herb, Bob and I were drivers, so we each picked a different road aimed out of town. Alan and Steve were walkers, so they chose in-town neighborhoods on the way. It was a ritual that would become as routine as breakfast over the coming weeks.
Four hours after we left, we were back, proud and somewhat amazed that it all actually had worked. As I bragged about my two book orders, I didn’t notice Bob’s quietness. I merely remember him telling me he was going to get some gas. I happened to look out the window as he pulled out of the parking lot and into traffic, his solemn profile framed by his side window, the last I saw of him that summer.
Six weeks later, Steve was gone, too.
X X X
To reach even a few minutes of salesmen’s heaven, you had to go through what anyone who isn’t a bookman would describe as a lot of hell.
Slammed doors. Bad dogs. Angry housewives. Lonely housewives. Naked housewives. Jealous husbands. Suspicious cops.
But what is hell to most is merely opportunity to the bookman, who must laugh in the face of rejection and adversity or be beaten by them. The ever-optimistic, implausibly positive, insanely enthusiastic attitude that started in sales school was nurtured each week at our Sunday meetings, gatherings at some hotel or church or other public building usually within a three-hour drive, where we’d get recharged, compare sales figures and eat what might be the only hot meal of the week.
But the other six days of the week, you were pretty much on your own to stay on schedule and keep your mind right.
We would rise at 5, almost literally run through a cold shower, dress, look over a tattered map of the region and race for the car in time to knock on our first door by 8.
While driving to our territory, we’d read aloud sections of Dale Carnegie’s “How to Stop Worrying and Start Living,” and recite any or all of the sayings, poems and other snippets of photocopied inspiration taped to the dashboard.
But even I did not completely believe the power of such positive thinking until I was faced with what were, to me, the most hellish days in the bookfield: those quiet times, those long afternoons when I had knocked on doors for hours without an answer.
There were several of those afternoons, but the one I remember most came in early July, on a long country road outside of Crockett, Texas. I was five weeks into the summer, and the job had only gotten tougher. While others’ sales steadily climbed, mine had steadily declined.
I could feel my normally happy, relaxed bookman face become contorted with the look of desperation if not wild-eyed fear as I jumped off the porch of yet another unanswered door and ran for my car, where I collapsed in my seat, wrapped my arms around the steering wheel and sobbed. I don’t know how long I sat there, but I still can see the tears splattering on the little wolf-and-castle logo on the steering wheel. And I can see the words, “Don’t quit …” taped above it.
“When the road you’re traveling seems all uphill, don’t quit …” the poem goes. I read it again and again, not really believing and so scared that I shivered in the 100-degree heat. And somehow I mustered the courage to wipe my eyes, turn the ignition and drive to the next house instead of all the way back to Alabama.
X X X
With my last book delivered sometime around the first of September, the day finally came when I could pack my gear with a clear conscience and head for home _ via Nashville _ if the old VW would make it.
Herb waved as I drove away, and about 14 hours later, I pulled into Southwestern’s parking lot south of Nashville and let the engine die.
After the paperwork was done, I found myself with a piece of paper that summed up my summer in four little numbers: $8,435.
I never picked up a bookcase again, opting instead to graduate from the University of Alabama and carry the lessons I learned in the bookfield into the rest of my life.
(OPTIONAL TRIM FOLLOWS)
The financial lessons haven’t been so much about making money as they have been about saving it, and I credit bookfield principles with preparing me to comfortably support a family on one paycheck.
Among the other lessons were commitment and persistence. As a journalist, always one more phone call, one more interview. The same kinds of questions that got Mrs. Jones to say yes have worked time and again in getting information from the toughest of sources.
Meanwhile, as a husband and father, I’ve worked hard to stay on schedule, making time and commitments to my wife and children as much a priority as my time at work.
More than anything else, though, I gained that summer an appreciation for life. Not so much because I saw the depressing poverty and squalor that so many people live in, but because I met so many people who were living happy lives in the face of misfortune. Maybe they had lost a loved one, had health problems, lost a job, whatever _ many maintained a healthy attitude and held on to hope. And they did it without ever having a roomful of college kids to cheer them on.
Those people sometimes come to mind as I walk through the heat and humidity of late summer, and I think back to my time in the bookfield, perhaps the most challenging time of my life. And I wonder what that skinny college kid from Alabama would think if he landed on my front porch today _ and what I would do if I opened the door.
I think we both would be happy he stopped by.
MJP END HYCHE
