This was a very interesting post and extremely insightful as well. I have had similar experiences with business professionals in the past.

When someone calls you and asks if they can have a few minutes of your time, or if they have caught you at a good time, and you tell them you are really busy at the moment, this should not be seen as an opportunity to say, “I understand I’ll be brief”.

Just say I understand and ask when it would be best to call back!

Christian, I still think you’re looking at this from the “salesman’s” vantage point rather than the customer’s. Yes, as a salesman, if you work the numbers, play the odds, and stay consistent, a fraction of those seeds you plant will sprout. I understand that you’re just trying to get one “no” closer to a “yes.”

But the soil is the absolute least fertile during the 4th quarter on Super Bowl Sunday. A good salesman knows that the best time to sell is when you’re customer is looking for what you’ve got.

Like I mentioned in the original post, the analogy wears down. I actually think we too often link religion to sales, and that often scares too many people away. We’ve grown up thinking that “sharing our faith” resembles cold-calling a neighborhood and hanging door knockers. If I recall, Jesus spoke to and taught those who were attracted (shall I daresay called?) to Him. He really didn’t cold call. The crowds came to Him, and he made it well worth their search.

Let’s rewrite the story: If a vacuum salesman showed up on Brett’s door during the third quarter, his response would’ve been the same: go away. It’s still the 3rd quarter of the SuperBowl, and Brett probably has a vacuum. Brett doesn’t care if they signed a 2-year contract with Hoover.

Three issues:
The first is that dedication (i.e. faith/passion) alone doesn’t produce results. No vacuum cleaner salesman makes money for loving how much Hoovers suck (insert laugh track).

The second issue is how success is defined. You shouldn’t define success by your labor or passion, but by the sales and profit(there’s a pun in there). You count vacuums sold, not doors knocked. If your definition of success isn’t customer-driven, you’re not getting any more of them.

That leads to the third issue: ROI = Sell to your buyer first. Yield the most profit with the least cost; use your resources wisely. So you sell a solution to the person that has a problem and wants a solution. A vacuum salesman is going to make money from those with broken vacuums and dirty floors. Door-to-door sales was effective in the days prior to Kinkos making flyers, Google, and Facebook Ads. Why focus the majority of your energy on anything else? Especially during The Big Game.

I applaud these guys’ dedication to their faith and their commitment to sharing it with others. They’re dedication is admirable, just not effective. I would exhort them to be both dedicated AND effective in sharing their faith. I know many teachers, musicians, graphic designers and video producers who see their faith as a product to be sold. They believe they’re selling the most valuable product in the world and they won’t risk losing a single sale. Because of that view, they develop detailed and effective strategies for making believers.

Be dedicated to being effective. James 2:14-26

Very nice point, and certainly worthy of a hearty “Amen!” I guess it comes down to which perspective you care to take. If you take the missionaries’ perspective, then yes, knocking on my door may be their mighty yelp and battle cry, and that might’ve been just the thing they need. From my perspective (in this case, the customer’s), it was probably the worst time to approach me with the message, and it actually gave me a bad experience.

Don’t get me wrong here; while often tempting, I think you certainly have to draw a line between marketing and religion fairly early on in any comparisons. While it’s easy to treat the message of eternity and salvation as “a product,” let’s face it: it’s a lot more than that.

But since I write a blog about marketing, that’s the angle I took. And thanks for taking it as such, given you’ve obviously got a different vantage point than mine.

And as for the dating analogy, I would take it a step further: how far would I get with any woman if I asked for a date while she was watching the volleyball scene from Top Gun. It really wouldn’t matter what I did. My “prey” would not want to take her eye off of Maverick’s and Iceman’s bare chests in the blazing sun. I’d be better off waiting for a different time.

Harris – you’re pushing it. But way to squeeze in “underwear” into your comment.