Life as a bookman

Ok, when i'm talking about selling books, what do i mean?

Selling books is nothing like setting up a book stall in the middle of a shopping mall, waiting people to come and buy your books. When i said i'm selling books, what i meant was selling books door-to-door. I worked like a salesman actually...(but we preferred to call ourselves "bookman")

The books we sold included:
a study bible, an illustrated bilbe in stories, a set of bible reference books (which includes a handbook, dictionary and concordance), a black history set, and a homework handbook set.

So, everyday, i drove 30-80 miles to my county (the distance varies, as i worked in 4 counties in 2 states). Once i had reached my county, i had to look for areas where the african americans stay. Yup, in this job, my main focus was on the african americans, or blacks (some ppl found this word offensive, but most don't). The main reason for my choosing of blacks as my customers was because they were generally more friendly and more religious. The whites were indubitably richer, but most of them, YES, MOST OF THEM (at least most of the whites i had met) were VERY DEFENSIVE, SNOBBISH, COLD and RUDE. (I don't blame them though, coz who would be friendly to a foreigner that knock on your door and try to enter your house??)

Once i reached the area, i would start knocking on doors. To make sure that we could enter the house to show our books, we were taught to do a "set-up" using our "salestalk" (which we were trained over and over again). The key was to make people to like you and trust you. Once they like you and trust you, most of them will let you show the books if they have the need. And whether they buy it or not depends on the closing skill, which i think i seriously lacked it...

Hence, i worked 10 hours a day, 6 days a week (mon-fri). Sunday was my only off-day, but i had to attend a group meeting which normally took place in Cheasepeake, VA. We went to Raleigh, NC twice to have a combined meeting (which 3 organizations met). In such meetings, we called number (an activity which compared the sales of the students) and discussed ways to improve our sales. Of course, before each of the meetings, we had good lunch (either chinese buffet or Golden Coral).

This was my life as a bookman for three months...