Being a Sales Representative

I feel like a leper. As soon as people figure out that I’m not calling from a local location, and I work for a business where my sole job is to ask people if they want to advertise on a Catholic parish’s website, they get cold. Some people have a natural phobia of sales people. Some just don’t want to talk to a stranger. Others, well, I don’t know what to say about them.

There are points in my day where I don’t want to keep calling these businesses, because I am, eighty percent certain I’ll be rejected. Actually, they aren’t rejecting me and I cannot take this personally. They are rejecting the opportunity to advertise on a website. However, I’ve learned that doing what I don’t want to do is good for me and good for business. I have to sift out all the “no’s” to find the “yeses”. Most times that’s about one in sixty at this point, but hey, that’s what makes what I do challenging.

I didn’t like it for the first two weeks, I admit. Cold calling is not fun. But the environment in which I work, the people I get to have lunch with, and ping pong are all great. Being a Sponsorship Sales Representative is growing my mental toughness. I don’t want to call these people, but you know what, I can’t avoid it and there is no point in wasting my time. I’m better off just calling the people, and asking them if they would be interested in supporting a parish in this manner. Sometimes there is a grouch on the other end of the phone, sometimes there’s a little old lady who has squirrels and birds in her attic and a skunk under her house who is still very joyful about life. (I talked with her this morning. She never married and doesn’t have any kids, so there is no one to take care of her home except for her. The alterations lady in Kingman, if anyone is looking for a kind deed to do or an elderly person to go visit and spend time with.)

One of my realizations today, and I’ve been gradually discovering over the last three weeks, is that I can pray for the people I talk to, whether it be the couple who just took over a general store, the insurance man who is venturing out on his own, of just someone who might not be having the best of days, I can pray for these complete strangers. I may never know what comes of them or if my prayers and efforts have any effect on them, but nonetheless, I can pray for them. 

Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.