I used to go door-to-door selling ideas. I would actually get people to pay me (well, not me personally, but my organization) for these ideas. They were political ideas and I believed they would benefit the nation with all my heart. They taught us to go through three no’s before giving up. We had a rap—at least an opening, anyway—and the point of the rap was to get your foot in the door—sometimes literally.
In the first part of the rap, you introduced yourself, your organization, and why you were at their door. In the second part of the rap, you sketched out the idea and asked them if they had any experience with the issue. If they did, you asked them to explain. This allowed you to tailor your rap to their specific interests.
Often times, you’d get an “I’m not interested” right after the first part, but you’d plunge into the second part, anyway. If, after the second part, they took issue with you, you had to make a judgment as to whether this was an issue you could successfully take on. If not, you thank the person and move on.
If after the second part they were completely uninterested, you’d move on. If they were still neutral, you might try another argument. If, after the second part, they were interested, you’d move onto the third part of the rap: asking for a donation.
If after the third part—the ask—they were willing, you’d ask them to get their check book and suggest an amount. If they were interested, but unwilling to give, you’d try to find out why, and if there was something you could do, propose that. If they gave you the third “no,” you should get out of there.
Except sometimes you had spent a lot of time in part two, and once you’d invested that time, you didn’t want to lose the sale, so to speak. So you might make a high risk move of keeping on. This was when you ran the risk of annoying or insulting your “customer.” There can be a fine line between keeping the idea to yourself and pressing it too hard.
These days, I’m on the other end of that dialogue. Generally, when someone comes to the door, I know exactly what they’re selling, and if I like it, I cut them off and go get my check book. I don’t care about the rap. If I don’t like it, I also cut them off. I know how to say “no” with sufficient gravitas that they know they will get nothing more out of me. If they’ve been trained properly, they’ll move on.
Most canvassers (and telephone sales people, for that matter) rely on a certain level of politeness in the customer. People are generally unwilling to be impolite to a stranger, even if you are stepping over the boundaries of politeness. Sometimes this is a form of blackmail. People will give you a token contribution just to get you out of their doorway.
Canvassing taught me a lot. It taught me how to structure an argument. It taught me how to customize an argument on my feet. It taught me how to know when to drop an argument and leave. It taught me how to be serious when I ask for something. When I became a field manager, it taught me how to train and manage people. It taught me how to be a “company man;” to put on my “organizational head.”
Sometimes in life I have used these lessons, and sometimes I forget them. The last two are particularly troubling to me. I have always preferred to be independent, not toeing the line, but doing what I thought was best. This makes me into a person who sometimes produces stellar work, and who sometimes drags everyone down. It costs a lot to hire me (not in terms of money, but in terms of emotional energy), but it can pay off well.
When I started canvassing, I did not do well. I had a four day window in which I had to make “quota” for the first time. Quota was the set minimum where they could both pay expenses of running a canvas and send some to the organization we were canvassing for. I had not made quota by the fourth day came around. We were canvassing in apartment buildings in NYC, so there was the added complication of getting past the doorman or through the buzzered door (try giving your rap to an anonymous speaker) and of being chased by a doorman when some resident decided they didn’t want you there.
Typically we’d go in pairs. Once we got in, we’d go to the top floor and then take every other floor on the way down. If one of us got kicked out, the other would keep going as long as possible, while the first waited outside the building. It was fun running around the building trying to avoid capture.
I don’t remember that fourth day, but I do remember thinking, in the strongest way I knew how, that I would make quota that day. You know what? I raised exactly as much as I needed and not one dollar more.
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