Eric Edmeades recounts his experience in door-to-door sales selling Kirby vacuums and extracts practical lessons: building rapport, trusting rapid conversational instincts, and reading customer defenses. He illustrates with an anecdote where disarming humor dissolves a defensive homeowner’s resistance and leads to a $1,500 sale.
Chapters
You know, I did door to door sales. So were you a good door to do sales? I was. I was really good. I sold Kirby vacuums. What did you learn from doing that? I learned rapport skills. I learned quickness of thought to trust my speech engine. I remember, for example, knocking on this one door once, and this woman says, don't you do any other neighborhoods? You're like the sixth guy from your company to knock on my door in the last four months. Like, why do you guys. I never let anybody in. Why do you keep coming? And one thing I can tell you about sales is that everybody has defense mechanisms against sales. But the stronger your defense is at the outer level, the easier it is to pillage on the inside. If somebody is very firmly won't leave, let you in the door, that's because they're really easy to sell to. It's just the way it is. If somebody lets you in easily, you're gonna have a tough go of it. Is that right? This woman, she. That's a very sneaky thing to know. Oh, it's very, very powerful to know. This woman, she's got the fortress walls up, the drawbridges up. And she goes, so what makes you any different? And I went, I'm cute. And she busted out laughing. And of course, laughter, the orgasm of the brain, you know. And she opens the door, muscular tension all disappears. John. She invites me in for a coffee, and, you know, an hour and a half later, she's spending $1,500 on a vacuum she didn't know she needed.
