Door-to-Door Salesman

In the Summer of 2013, I had the opportunity to become a door-to-door salesman for Southwestern Advantage in northeastern Kentucky, selling early learning, homework help, and college prep books to help kids with their education. I was trained for a week in Nashville with other college kids before I headed out to Kentucky without knowing where I would be staying for the summer. The first week I was there, my roommates and I ended up going door to door, not to sell books but to ask people to rent out rooms to us. We ended up finding the Rileys in Morehead, a welcoming family with genuine Southern hospitality.

Once we got our housing in order, I started my summer with a bang. The first door that I knocked on turned me down, and as I was leaving, I accidentally took my car into a ditch head-first. I couldn’t help but laugh at my situation and was thankful that my car was not damaged. After a quick call to a tow truck, I was back in the saddle and continued on my quest to sell educational books.

Throughout the summer, I had dogs chase me, and guns pulled on me. I also had people open their homes to me. If I didn’t make a sale, it didn’t mean that we didn’t connect as human beings; it just meant that the product wasn’t for them. In my last week, I connected with and delivered the books to the people I sold to throughout the summer. I even got stuck in one more ditch! Sometimes, going fast really does break things.