Selling Bookmarks

   One of the more amazing marketing efforts I've seen was a lady, of 
about nineteen or twenty, selling bookmarks for Muscular Dystrophy on the 
front steps of the Portland City Library.
   "Would you like to buy a bookmark for Muscular Dystrophy?" she'd say to 
passerby's as she presented them with a glittered bookmark.  There was no 
missing the bookmark, or the card, pinned to her shirt, that had '$1' 
printed on it, or the colorful bow in the big boned, but pretty young 
girls hair.
    I was researching the subject of sales and marketing at the time 
trying to up my skill level from the fifteen or twenty dollars a week I 
was making in a telemarketing 'boiler' room selling tickets for the 
Policeman's Ball.  A 'boiler' room is where you make six hundred calls in 
an evening and if you get lucky, make one or two sales and get ten to 
fifteen percent of the sale.  During the days I would do research at the 
beautiful old brick and marble library building, downtown, where hundreds 
or maybe thousands of people walked up the marble steps to the front 
entrance each day.  That's where this young girl was selling her 
bookmarks.
   I couldn't afford the dollar and felt guilty asking how many she had 
sold.  "About a hundred", she replied.
   I quickly did the math in telemarketing rejection units.  "That's 
amazing," I said with all sincerity.
   "Would you like to buy a bookmark for Muscular Dystrophy,"  she went on 
to a passerby working to distance herself from the non-sale, me.
   This twenty year old was no amateur.  She had obviously put a lot of 
thought into her marketing effort.  She was a pro and somehow you knew, 
talking to her, that this was a business woman destined for wealth and 
success.
    Since I had worked in a telemarketing room, I was painfully aware that 
the charity we were calling for only got a small percentage of the 
proceeds.  It was a justification people made, because it was a job, and 
it's just as important that people make a living as raise money for 
charity.  Combining the two seems to make perfect sense in the reality of 
the world, where volunteers could never bring themselves to put up with 
the abuse it takes to raise money.   "What percentage goes to Muscular 
Dystrophy," I asked?
    She stopped selling and said "Twenty percent."  Still trying to shake 
me, I think, but with convincing enthusiasm she went on.  "They only 
require five percent but my costs aren't as high.  Anybody can use their 
name if they tell them, and raise money at five percent."
    It was an artful dodge that went over my head, till later and I was 
still intrigued by her marketing skills.  It was better than reading a 
book so I asked:  "How long have you been selling?"
   "Twenty minutes, and it only took me about an hour to make all these," 
she said pointing to a box with neatly stacked bookmarks.  "I sprinkle the 
glitter on paper and then iron the ribbon and plastic on each side."  
   She once again handed me a bookmark to examine.  This was a nice 
bookmark to boot.  The multiple ribbons would allow a reader to mark 
several pages in a book.  If I had had a dollar I would have bought one.
    "Would you like to buy a bookmark for Muscular Dystrophy,"  she said 
to a passerby who pulled a dollar out of his wallet.
    I watched for several more minutes as she sold bookmark after bookmark 
in an Amazing, American marketing effort, I often think.  We no longer 
have the resources to harvest to make a living, and most of us seek jobs 
in industry or service, and if we get lucky are able to buy a house or 
car.  But the really big money, the highest paid profession, as a matter 
of fact, is sales and marketing.  This must be how, I'm sure, an expert 
got her start.







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