Getting Ahead – Acceptance

I was in High School in the “60’s” and we had to raise the finances for most of our activities. We started in our Jr. Year doing various things to raise the money we needed for our Sr. trip to Washington DC. One such fund raiser was selling magazine subscriptions. I grew up in a rural area and everyone knew each other. Our class was very small so I had very little competition in getting people to participate. I just went down the road and stopped at every house that did not have a student in my class and they all bought magazine subscriptions. Some would buy two. I sold so many subscriptions that I hit the top prizes given by the magazine company as incentives for reaching certain numbers. In fact, when I got to the top and had every prize offered, I gave the rest of my sales to my best friend so he could get some prizes.

After graduating from High School and going off to college, I decided that I could make a lot of money in my spare time selling encyclopedias. It was as much a failure as the magazine subscriptions had been an overwhelming success. They were both printed material so what was the difference? I started down the road in Columbus, Ohio and stopped at every house just as I did in our little farming community. Could it be that even selling things are built on relationships? Is it all about the sale or the cause? Do we have to build a relationship to truly be accepted?

- John Pfeifer