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See my previous blog about my friend Robert's death.
(Last
week I wrote a couple of blogs about perception of time and here is a
good example--I had commented somewhere else about this article having
been written around 2000--imagine my surprise when I saw the date
1985!!! But every word about Robert would be true if wtittren 2 years
ago!)
Another Day, Another Door Yes, The Fuller Brush Man Is Still Pounding The
Pavement, Offering His Own Blend Of Shoeshine Promises And Solace For Shut-ins.
He Sells Brushes, Too.
The old woman cracks open the door no more than the width of a blade of
grass.
``Who is it?`` she says, timid and cautious, well aware of the riffraff
walking the streets these days.
``It`s the Fuller Brush man,`` replies Robert Schink.
The door opens wider, allowing the morning sunshine to reflect off the
woman`s tired, pale face.
``My goodness, I haven`t seen one of those for a long time,`` she says.
``Step out to my office,`` says Schink, his hand sweeping across the porch.
``I have a free gift for you. We haven`t anything to sell today. We take orders,
if you remember. Do you remember?``
Of course she remembers. Everyone over the age of 25 has heard of the Fuller
Brush man, even if he`s never rapped on their door.
As Schink hooks the woman`s attention with his pleasant patter, he slips from
his worn, brown vinyl case the most recognized product offered by door-to-door
salesmen.
``This is what we`re famous for,`` he says. ``Brushes.``
``I still have one of those I bought I don`t know how many years ago,`` the
woman says, warming to this little man at her door. ``I`ve had it since I came
down here from Kentucky. Been about 30 years.``
In a quick, efficient delivery, Schink retrieves from his case a parade of
products: brushes, hangers, cleansing solvents, room fresheners, scissors. Every
item, he tells her, is ``very popular`` with his regular customers.
Now the door is open wide as Schink hands the woman a toilet bowl scrubber.
She`s enjoying the exchange that must remind her of the days when door-to-door
salesmen were as regular as the mailmao qqparity and as welcome as gentlemen
callers.
``Maybe I`ll think of something I can buy and give you a call,`` she says,
supporting Schink`s belief that people want to be sold.
``I hope so,`` Schink says. ``I live on hopes.``
Robert Schink enjoys similar exchanges with people nearly every day ofthe
year as he walks the streets and knocks on doors as Broward County`s only
full-time residential Fuller Brush salesman. He`s a ``friend of the family``
who`s been pushing mops and other Fuller household products for 26 years. After
24 years in Broward, he`s still ``Fullerizing the county.``
These days, the streets belong to the 63-year-old Schink almost exclusively.
Encyclopedia salesmen have retreated to shopping malls and most vacuum cleaner
salesmen were sucked up years ago by mass media advertising. No one comes to
your home any more, dumps a bag of dirt on the rug and demonstrates the suction
power of a deluxe vacuum. Electrolux is the only vacuum company that still
knocks on doors.
Schink`s customary uniform is a Panama hat to shade his wavy head of gray
hair, a dress shirt open at the collar, and polyester pants. His soft, brown
oxfords are comfortably worn from pounding the pavement. Not exactly a fashion
plate but sensible attire to beat the South Florida heat.
It is mid-morning and the sun already is high. Schink decides that Arizona
Street in the Melrose Park neighborhood is ripe for picking. But the day`s first
house would be enough to discourage a less-determined salesman.As Schink approaches the door, a man somewhere inside unleashes a stream of
curses. A mutt growls from under a beat-up car in the driveway. The doorbell
goes unanswered, and the cursing continues.
Schink cuts briskly across the lawn to the next house. Here his knock is
answered.
``Hi, I have a free gift for you today,`` Schink says.
``I hate to take something when I can`t buy something,`` the woman says.
Schink isn`t discouraged. ``People wish to be sold,`` he says later. ``It`s
human nature.``
``I`m on Social Security, making house payments, and my electric bill is
about a hundred dollars,`` says the woman.
Schink shakes his head in sympathy, looking for the opening to make his
``soft`` pitch.
``I can`t afford a brush,`` the woman continues. ``Got too ugly to use one,
anyway.``
Human nature won`t be sold at this door.
Schink`s spirits remain high. ``I`m very democratic,`` he says. ``I give
everyone a chance.``
Even a No Soliciting sign doesn`t turn him away. ``Many people post those
signs because they can`t stop themselves from buying things,`` he says. ``I
always go up to those doors. That`s what I call turning a negative into a
positive.``
Seven more doors are knocked on, but not so much as a clothes hanger is sold.
``If the law of averages is right, I should start to make some sales about
now,`` Schink says.
And sure enough, at the next house he hooks his first catch of the day. Total
sale: $19.88.
Like a Boy Scout, there`s something trustworthy about a Fuller Brush
salesman, and has been since 1906, when Alfred C. Fuller made his first brush in
the basement of his sister`s home. At night he would walk the streets selling
his product. When he died at age 88 in 1973, the Fuller Brush Company`s sales
were approaching $100 million a year.
He had been bought out some years earlier, in the late 1960s, by Consolidated
Foods, which also owns Electrolux Vacuum. According to Fuller Vice President
Richard Brenner, North American sales are currently topping the $800 million
mark.
Fuller always credited his success to politeness, quality products and
salesmanship. A dash of humor didn`t hurt. His favorite Fuller joke was:
``Fulton gave us the steamboat, Bell gave us the telephone -- and Fuller gave us
the brush.``
Product reliability endures, but the ranks of the door-to-door salesmen have
dwindled. Fuller contracts with more than 14,000 independent salesmen, but more
than half are part-timers. A Fuller Brush representative is seen in most
neighborhoods less frequently than a meter reader.``There`s an old axiom,`` says Schink, pausing on the sidewalk. ``The hardest
door is your front one, to get out of it. I don`t look at the job as a number of
hours I put in; I look at the dollars I bring in.``
It`s a philosophy that many people of Schink`s generation have worn like a
badge of honor since the Depression. A dollar`s pay for a dollar`s work.
``If you want to work a little harder, you can make more,`` he says. ``With
the present generation, when you use the word `commission` you scare them. Not
me. I haven`t made a fortune, but I`ve made a very good living.`` (Schink`s
average sale is $8 to $10, and he receives half of every sale.)
What it comes down to is pure salesmanship. And this spry little man with the
sing-song voice is an expert. Some guys could give away gold bars and people
would still be skeptical of their motives. Not with Schink. He says he received
an ``A`` in only one school subject: public speaking. ``And I didn`t learn that
in class.``
Selling came to him naturally. At age 7 he was selling magazines door-to-
door. ``Even at that age I was able to speak up,`` he says. ``Yet, a few years
ago, I took a woman out into the field for training and she got sick to her
stomach from the tension she felt when talking to people.``
Seven out of every 10 doors Schink knocks on will be answered by an elderly
woman or housewife, an increasingly shrinking market as more and more women
enter the work force. But no matter who answers the door, Schink finds a thread
of interest that he uses to unravel a conversation.
At one door, Schink`s rap is answered by an Indonesian man. He is a friendly
sort, with gold chains dangling from his neck. Schink immediately abandons his
usual sales pitch.
``Do you get correspondence from home?`` Schink inquires. ``I`m a stamp
collector. Would you mind saving stamps for me?``
After they exchange addresses, Schink learns that the man was a prisoner-of-
war in Japan for 3 1/2 years during World War II. Then he sells the former POW
some cleaning solvent he has survived without -- until now.
If he senses a sale, Schink can be as persistent as a ground hog burrowing a
new home, but he stops short of being a pesty guest. ``I`m a soft sell,`` he
says. Indeed, many customers sign the sales sheet and confess, ``To think, when
you came to the door I didn`t want anything.``Schink is successful for at least three reasons: he never invites himself in,
he sticks to his goals, and the Fuller products are as irresistible as Silly
Putty. He`s had many of the same customers for 20 years.
That doesn`t mean people answer their doors with checkbooks in hand. ``We do
get refusals,`` says Schink, the corners of his mouth creeping up in a wry
smile. ``We call them brushoffs.`` Naturally.
Florence Parko is one of those who hesitates before opening the door. But
something vaguely familiar about the little gray-haired man encourages her to
``step out to my office.``
``I was surprised when you said Fuller Brush,`` Parko says. ``I thought you`d
gone out of business.``
Now Schink has her primed. First he pitches the famous brush.
``I haven`t seen one of these in years,`` says Parko, a sure sale if there
ever was one.
A succession of products is paraded in front of her. Sold!
``I get all that for $7.33?`` Parko says. ``What a buy.``
That`s music to the ears of a Fuller Brush man
