Attack of the Vacuum Cleaner Salesmen...

This child is seriously considering buying the Kirby Sentria Vacuum Cleaner, but that is only because she has not yet developed the cognitive skills to make good decisions.

Now, before I get started with this story, I want to reveal something that I am not exactly proud of. Right before my senior year in college, I spent the majority of the summer in Myrtle Beach with my best friend Jon, working as a waiter and writing freelance for the Myrtle Beach Sun-News. When I returned home to Ohio in August, I still had two weeks until school started, so I decided to do whatever I could to earn some money.

One of the things I did, I am not proud of. I entered the direct sales market. For about two weeks, I went door to door and sold vacuum cleaners. Not only vacuum cleaners mind you, but Kirby vacuum cleaners. It was then that I realized I was not a salesman, and never could be.

It had been years since I have thought about Kirby, mainly thanks to counseling. But last Wednesday, I was sitting at home playing choo-choo train with Justus, when I got a knock on my door. It was from the Kirby people. Now, if you have never heard of Kirby Vacuum Cleaners, let me tell you their approach to sales, which I was unfortunately able to witness first-hand.

Kirby Method 1: It’s Tough to Say No to the Nice, Sweet College Girls
First, Kirby sends scouts to go out door-to-door to a neighborhood. Usually they use cute college girls who are very sweet. When you open the door – and I suggest that you don’t – they will tell you, with ribbons in their hair, that they work for a marketing company and that there is no obligation to buy anything, and that they are giving away free carpet cleanings. Who wouldn’t want a free carpet cleaning?

Now I was in a perfect situation. Mere weeks ago, I had a professional carpet cleaner come by and clean my carpet. Not only that, I vacuum once a week in preparation for my men’s bible study on Tuesday nights. My carpet is not just clean. It’s very clean. So you would think that I would be in a perfect position to say, “No thanks. I’m sorry.” Close the door. Done.

Oh, but these girls are as wily as they are sweet. The girl gave me puppy dog eyes and told me that she is working her way through college and that she gets 50 dollars for every single person who signs up for a free carpet cleaning. Could I please help her out?

“Please?” she said. “Come on, you’re the nicest person I’ve met in this whole neighborhood.”

The nicest person in the neighborhood? Really? So I actually thought to myself, “Well, I wouldn’t want to ruin my Christian witness.”

Seeing a hole of opportunity, this girl jumped through it.

“They will be done in like, 10 minutes,” she said.

So I agreed. After all, what’s10 minutes out of my day to help a nice girl go to college? 10 minutes. I would like you to remember that number.

Kirby Method 2: Kill Them With Flattery
A few minutes later, two guys showed up at my door, toting a few large boxes. They were both young. One of them was named Dan and the other was named Mark. Mark did all the talking at first. The first thing he said when Justus opened the door was “Oh my gosh. Your son is the cutest thing ever.” Then he stood up straight and said, “Jared McGuire. The human head weighs 8 pounds.”

I was like, “Jared?” You mean, “Jerry?” But I didn’t feel like correcting him. I looked at the clock. I was 5:21 p.m.

“So, we are here to clean your carpet,” Mark said, marching into my living room with the authority of a marine general. Dan began picking up all the toys off the floor and moving the coffee table. Justus and I sat down on the futon to watch. After all, this was only going to take 10 minutes.

“Are you familiar with Kirby,” Mark asked. I was too ashamed to admit that I used to do exactly what he was doing, so I said, “Yeah, I’ve heard of them.”

“By the way, were you in the military, by any chance?” Mark asked, “Because you’re built like a guy who was in the military.”

Now you would think that this line wouldn’t work, but really it does. I don’t know if Mark learned it listening to girls hit on guys at a bar, or something, but it’s quite effective. It makes you feel kind of good. The only line that would be better might be,

“Was your dad Indiana Jones, because you look like you’d be an excellent whip-wielding swashbuckling archeologist.”

Or perhaps,

“Were you ever in a bathroom at your ex-wife’s Christmas party when terrorists came in to take over Nakatomi Plaza? Because you look like the kind of guy who single-handedly stop that kind of thing, even without your shoes.”

I replied that I used to be a sub-contractor for the Air Force, to which Mark said, “Yeah, I could kind of tell.”

What? You could tell by looking at me that I used to work for a consulting firm and that I wrote thousand-page technical manuals for the US Air Force?

At any rate, Mark continued to pour it on, about how cute my son was, and how lovely my home was, all the while, he is setting up a display of some sort, featuring the attachments of the Kirby vacuum cleaner. He then said, “I’m going to leave Dan with you, and he’ll do a real good job.”

What? Leave Dan with me? Where are you going?

Mark then left the house, closing the door behind him.

It was 5:38.

Kirby Method 3: Insult Your Cleanliness and Make You Feel like a Bad Person

The goal of the Kirby vacuum demonstration it to demonstrate how much dirt has been left within the carpet. A "Dirtmeter" attachment is used in place of a vacuum bag, while "dirt pads" are placed inside the attachment. When the vacuum is turned on, dirt lands on the pad, and is shown to the customer. The salesmen frequently replaces used dirt pads with new ones, leaving evidence of dirt around the vacuumed area.

The second goal of the demonstration is to show you how inferior your vacuum is.

At this point, Dan asked to see my own personal vacuum cleaner. “Oh, he said, the Eureka Boss Upright. Good machine,” he said. “Would you agree that it’s a good machine?”

I was taken aback by his question. Then I remembered my Kirby training from years and years ago. I was taught to ask questions – dozens and dozens of simple questions – that the customer would have to respond “yes” to. The idea is to get the customer to agree with your sales pitch internally, and then they would buy the vacuum cleaner. I knew that the goal of Dan was to get me to say the word “Yes” so I purposely avoided saying it.

Here are some of the questions Dan asked and I have included my responses:

“Have I vacuumed this with your machine about the way that you would have?”
It is acceptable what you have done.

“Now that I have used the Kirby, do you see all this dirt that was left in your carpet.”
I have the ocular proof.

“If you had a chance to get this remaining dirt out of your carpet, would that be something you’d be interested in doing.”
The remaining dirt is upsetting to me and its removal would be most welcome.

“Wouldn’t you feel better if your son wasn’t crawling around near all this dirt?”
That’s an affirmative.

“If your machine is missing this much dirt, and you bought it to do precisely that very job, to remove dirt, then don’t you think it’s time you fired it and got something that will do the job.”
Can one really fire an inanimate object?

Dan got frustrated with me at this point.

“You know what I mean. Get rid of it.”

Dan then leaned in for the final sales pitch. “Look, your machine isn’t getting the job done.” He then went on to talk about “superior suction power” and how the dirt in my carpet was going to destroy it by midnight unless I made some drastic changes, and that if I really, really loved my children, I would do this. For them. For their future.

Frankly, Dan had a point. I wondered "How much does this thing cost?"

It was now 6:29

Kirby Method 4: A substantial time investment + massive guilt trips = diminished sales resistance.

“Would you like this Kirby in your home,” Dan asked.

“It depends,” I said. “How much does it cost.”

Now I knew that Kirbys were expensive. But when Dan handed me the flyer telling me the price, I honestly had to keep myself from laughing out loud. Want to know what the price was?

$1,899.99

Almost nineteen hundred dollars. It was at this point that I knew I was going to have to turn rude on Dan.

Kirby Method 5: Tag Team the Potential Customer, again using guilt

The doorbell then rang. It was Mark. He was true to his word. He was back to get Dan.

“Did Dan do a good job for you,” he asked.

“Oh yeah,” I said.

“Did you like the Kirby machine?” he asked.

“Oh yeah. And believe me, if it were one-sixth the price, I would seriously consider not buying one.”

“But I thought you said that you liked the Kirby?” Mark said, confused.

“Look, I don’t mean to be a snob, but about a year ago, I was at Bed, bath and Beyond and I saw a display model of a vacuum cleaner manufactured by Dyson. And it was cool. And it seemed to really pick up the dirt. And it cost 600 dollars, and I started laughing out loud. 600 dollars for a vacuum? Are you kidding me? I got a baby on the way, and taxes due in April and I got to get my backyard toddler ready. It would be fiscally and morally irresponsible for me to spend that much on a vacuum cleaner.”

It was now 6:41

Kirby Method 6: Make you realize that by not buying a Kirby, you’re choosing to sacrifice your family’s health and safety because you’re a cheapskate.”

That’s when Mark started to get desperate.

“Well, let me see if I can do something for you. Dan is in a sales contest right now, and he needs to sell 12 of these things do go on a weekend getaway to San Francisco. That contest means a lot to him, so what if we took his commission off the top, and passed that savings along to you.”

So let me get this right. You’re trying to make me feel good about buying this $1900 machine by letting me know that I’d be the one responsible for Dan not getting paid anything.

“At least you’d have the Kirby,” Dan said, like a true vacuum martyr.

Meanwhile, I had to get to FCC because I had a class I had to teach starting at 7. So I shook Mark and Dan’s hand and said, “I am sorry to disappoint you, but I simply cannot afford to pay that kind of money for a vacuum cleaner. I’m sorry to have wasted your time.”

They were nice enough, and I packed up my things and left Nicole to deal with them.

She was far less polite than me.

“I can’t believe you’re still here,” I heard her say as I walked out of the door.

This is when Mark tried one last sales pitch. These were his actual words, as reported to me by my wife.

“Ma’am, I understand, but you have to understand where I’m coming from. I saw your cute little boy and I could not allow him to continue to live in all this filth.”

To which Nicole said,

“Quick bit of advice. It’s not good to come to a woman’s home and tell her you are concerned about how filthy it is.”

To which Mark said,

“What I meant was…”

To which Nicole said,

“Yeah, we’re done here.”

So Mark and Dan, the Kirby guys packed up their things and left.

It was now 7:01.

Lessons Learned

So I want all of you to learn from my mistakes. So I put together a brief list of things I learned from this experience.

First of all, I will never open the front door of my house ever again. If I have to be rude, I will be rude. I will pretend I am deaf. I am even willing to pretend that I am an overgrown grade school kid with a pituitary disorder and that mom and dad told me not to open the door for strangers. But I simply cannot be allowed to open the door for sales calls.

Second of all, never trust sweet, pretty college girls. The next day after the cleaning debacle, I was walking around our neighborhood with Justus in the wagon, and I saw the same nice, sweet girl canvassing the houses around the bend. She got into a van with a guy and lit up a cigarette and began cussing.

Third of all, Kirby is a fine product. But $1900 is worth more than my car. So. Yeah.