A Sign of the Times: Encyclopaedia Britannica to End Its Print Run
One of my first jobs out of college was selling encyclopedias door-to-door in South Florida. The brand was Collier's, not Britannica, and we said euphemistically that we were " .. placing a set of books in a family's home" and not actually selling reference books.
The work was hard, often lonely, and always humbling. Some customer doors we knocked on were swung open wide, and we were invited in to give our spiel .
My first sale was to a single mom in Ft. Lauderdale, raising three kids and holding down a full time job. I thought I was pretty persuasive, but it was the mom who bought from me rather than me selling to the Mom. She felt guilty, I think, that she wasn't spending enough time helping her kids hit the books.
I had the solution: I could assuage her worst fears.
A full library of the Collier's Encyclopedia, bought on easy credit from the publisher, and sold with a reassuring smile by you-know-who, would make my prospect a gold-star mother in no time.
I quit my sales job shortly after earning my first commission check. It was a matter of principle and process, I think I told them. Yet, I leaned so much from that work. And am so glad I don't have to walk the streets at night selling those beastly books today.
For all the stigma associated with how encyclopedias were sold back in those days, the
product quality and promise were never in question.
RIP, Encloypaedia Britannica: you educated a lot of young people (and their parents) and gave a lot of salesmen a start in their careers.
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