Jun
12th
2009
The New York Times On Ex-Missionary Salesmen
Interesting article. Old news for anyone who has enjoyed “free pizza and a pitch” at BYU, but interesting nonetheless.
Question for guys/girls who went through the MTC recently: do they teach “mimic and mirror” there now?
The salesmen are mostly former Mormon missionaries from Utah who cut their teeth — and learned their people-skill chops — cold-calling for their faith. In Chicago and in its suburbs where their employer, Pinnacle Security of Orem, Utah, has shipped them for the summer sales season, they are doing much the same thing, but as a job.
As of 4 years ago, they were not teaching any of the sleazy sales techniques used by the lying, dishonest, law-breaking salesmen of the door-to-door industry.
how are d2d salesman dishonest, law breaking etc?
I don’t know about Dr. Kimball’s specific experiences. I went out with a security sales team and quickly learned that the entire premise of successful selling for my company and most others involved a pitch that is meant to deceive people. You’re to make them think that you, the salesman, are somehow involved in marketing and they’re getting in on a sweetheart deal to advertise the system to neighbors. In fact, my official job title was “Marketing Director” or “Marketing Coordinator” or something along those lines…along with the other 20 people in the same office.
More than any other pitch, we were instructed to create the perception that we were either 1) regional something-or-others with a marketing budget to get systems into a few select homes in a neighborhood or 2) an early wave of salesmen, meant to give out free systems before a larger sales force would then sell the rest of the neighborhood at the normal price.
I don’t fault everyone that has gone and done it. But if someone has sold security and did pretty well for themselves, I probably wouldn’t start a business with them.