You may have heard the expression pound the pavement to describe a sales rep who goes door to door peddling his wares and looking for new customers. Well, you’re hearing from someone right now who actually did pound the pavement when he started his selling career, back in the dark ages before the internet and cell phones.
And I’m here to tell you pounding the pavement is one tough way to earn a living.
In my case, I was selling packaging products, which entailed lugging around samples that were fairly bulky and heavy. Ever try carrying a large, flattened out corrugated box in a strong wind? It’s like you’re attached to the wing of a 747 that’s in the process of taking off. And since my territory was Chicago – the Windy City – keeping my feet on the ground was an every day challenge.
One thing about pounding the pavement – it does put you at one with nature. You become acutely aware of your surrounding, which is the whole point of this What I Learned from a Sidewalk project. However, if you live in Chicago, becoming one with nature when you’re pounding the pavement is bad news – very bad news.
In the winter, I battled snow, sleet, and slush. Every day I faced a choice between wearing dorky boots or letting my wing tips corrode in the salt bath that kept our roads more or less clear.
In the summer, I battled heat and humidity. These were the days when b2b packaging sales people wore ties and sport coats or suits. By my second or third call on a 90 degree, 80% humidity day, I’d be more appropriately dressed in a Speedo. Who’s going to buy corrugated boxes from a guy who looks like he just underwent 12 hours of FBI interrogation?
Out of the Darkness
It didn’t take me long to realize that pounding the pavement was no way to sell. Besides the problems I mentioned, door to door sales (or smokestack chasing, as we also called it) was slow and inefficient.
To escape, I started doing something unheard of in my field – using the telephone to generate leads and even to close sales. Later on we called it telemarketing and it became a very important part of our business, one in which I had a leadership role. From there, my interest in online sales and marketing developed, which many years later led to my enthusiasm for business blogs, which is why you and I wound up here, at this blog post.
You never know where a pavement is going to take you. What unexpected directions has the pavement taken you?
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Brad, I love the way you describe these scenes so vividly, and with such gentle humour.
Glad you found your way off the pavement to the blogging superhighway
Joanna Youngs last blog post..Group Writing Project: Writing Lessons
Thanks, Joaana. It certainly is easier to contend with the elements from behind a keyboard!
Brad Shorrs last blog post..Pounding the Pavement Is One Tough Way to Sell
Don’t take this the wrong way, Brad, I think I need a red-hot poker; I can’t get that image of you in a Speedo outta my head! Augh! My eyes!
Having been there as well, I can tell ya; door-to-door is definitely a “tough row to hoe”, as they say down here in Texas. May those days never come again!
Glad you ended up here, though!
Brad,
They say that great things have humble beginnings, and from your description above, it sounds as though your career was no exception to the rule.
I haven’t been door to door selling, but I did have a job as a door to door collector for a local charity whilst I was fresh out of university and looking for my first job. Personally, well, let’s just say that that’s one job to which I would never, never go back no matter how bad economic conditions become.
Andrews last blog post..Thoughts for a nation in shock
Hi Robert, The nice thing about blogging is you can wear a Speedo and nobody knows. An enormous perk for my readers.
Hi Andrew, I’m with you. Going door to door in b2b can be tough, but knocking on doors of homes – absolutely brutal. In business you have a fairly uniform standard of behavior. With people at home, you never know what you’re going to run into.
Brad Shorrs last blog post..Pounding the Pavement Is One Tough Way to Sell
Hi Brad – I don’t envy you in those extreme temperatures. I haven’t pounded the pavement as such but I’d arrange to visit existing and potential customers to build relationships. Ok – I know that’s a fancy way to say I was there to try and get some work out of them.
But I didn’t do it too often, because – as you say, it’s so time consuming. And most of them lived 50 miles plus away from me.
I didn’t often cold call – usually wrote a couple of times and phoned first. But my husband is a cold calling expert. He’s done it a whole heap and he still does it now. He started out in double glazing and he says once you’ve done that everything else is easy.
Wow, the original telemarketer, eh?
You oughta write a book! Are you?
Jannie Funsters last blog post..Seriously Weird!
Cath, My hat’s off to your husband. In some businesses cold calling still the best way.
Jannie, Not the original, but a very early adapter in my industry. No thoughts of writing a book other than the group project we have going on here, How to Write a Website.
Brad Shorrs last blog post..Pounding the Pavement Is One Tough Way to Sell
My first exposure to ‘pounding the pavement’ was as a Scout selling greens for the holidays. Even at a young age you learn to polish your pitch and how to up-sell. Picking the route and ‘first-mover’ strategies came into play. It was probably my first exposure to rejection. It even provided a first glimpse at who in the troop was going to have a great career in sales…
Hi Fred, Yes, that brings back memories. I feel sorry for the Girl Scouts in our neighborhood. There are so many of them and they’re all selling the same thing! The experience will probably mold some of them into superstar sales people.
Brad Shorrs last blog post..Welcome Bill Welter, New Blogger
The path we pound from past to present passes through pleasant places and produces pain, but life and love and lessons learned along that lane light lives worth living.
Wow, Luke, I did not know you were such a poet. May I reprint that line?
Brad Shorrs last blog post..Welcome Bill Welter, New Blogger
Sure thing, Brad. I hold to the philosophy of “Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike.” Basically, as long as you do not do anything to keep me from publishing my own work, you are free to republish too, and a link-back sure would be appreciated.
How do like that? A whole paragraph when a simple yes, would have worked just as well. I guess that is another way to extend the conversation, right?
Oh yes, Luke, we perfected conversation extension technique in a couple recent 100 comment post conversations, as I’m sure you will recall. Right?
Of course, when I use your brilliant line, I will give you full credit and linkage. Half the fun of collecting these things is attributing them back to the originator!
Brad Shorrs last blog post..Welcome Bill Welter, New Blogger
Knowing your impeccable reputation for attribution, I knew the CCASA statement was not necessary, but since that particular wording occurred to me at the precise moment that I was preparing to type “yes”, I decided to go ahead and type it before I forgot it. I have been meaning to update the license info on my about page for a while and I think that is the way I want to describe it.
Yes, I do recall the 100 comment posts. My visitors will not let me forget it.
I received a new comment this morning (on a different post) requesting a free copy of Office. 
And, your post is still in my “speed-dial” list. As of now, I still have the last word there.
I guess some people talk too much, right?