Ask Dave

Marketing products door to door is a valuable experience. Learning how to talk to people, learning what questions to ask, and learning the right time to ask them are important skills. If people learn these skills when they are young they will benefit for the rest of their lives. Learning when someone says "no", that it is not personal. Learning that each door you knock is an independent variable, that the only connection between the "no" you received at your last door, and the answer that will be given at the next door, is you. Your attitude, your presentation, and your professionalism. Sure you will learn a lot. But most people sell for the money. Doing door to door sales you can make a lot of money. Enough money to buy your books, buy a car, and even graduate college debt free. They say that accounting is the language of business. That may be true, but selling is the mouth of business.

You can expect that the company you choose to work for will treat you with respect. There are rumors floating around that "the marketing companies don't care about their employees", "they don't care how many sales we make." That is simply not true. The only way the companies succeed is if their sales reps succeed. You can expect a lot of rejection, the majority of the doors you knock on will probably say "no", but look at the details of your pay-scale, usually it only takes 75 "yes-es" over a summer for you to be rewarded quite handsomely. You can expect hard work, and a fair amount of frustration, but if you work hard, strive to improve and master the skill of being upbeat. You will succeed in a summer of selling!

Some think that selling is a bed of roses, well it may be, but even a bed of roses has some thorns. Some believe that if they simply show up for work they will make 20,000 dollars during the summer. That is simply not true. In order to have a successful summer you need to show up to work, and then go to work. You need to knock on as many doors as possible, giving as many presentations as possible, getting as many "yes-es" as possible. You have to practice your presentation. Nobody enjoys role-playing but those who consistently role-play often make the most money. To be successful leave your cell phone on silent. Don't reply to every text message, or answer every phone call. When you are on the doors time is money. If you walk slowly between doors, it is impossible to create urgency at the door step, if you are not urgent your potential customer will not be urgent. There are days when even the best salesman will get nothing but "no" all day long. The defining attribute of the best sales representatives is that they just keep on knocking, keep on smiling, keep on presenting, and keep on asking.

Absolutely not. Although a large portion of the recruiting activities are centered in Utah and Idaho, many of the selling opportunites are located in other parts of the nation. Often companies will jump at the opportunity to have local sales representives promote their products. Bottom line, companies are happy to have quality representatives no matter where they come from.

SummerSales.org allows users to browse a large portfolio of the opportunities available to students considering a summer of selling. SummerSales.org provides an opportunity for companies to share the benefits of their unique summer opportunity with our users, we then encourage our users to request additional information from the companies that interest them. It is win-win. The users of our website and the companies who choose to build a profile on our site both benefit. We connect our users with the companies they want to learn more about. SummerSales.org is a passive recruiting resource.

SummerSalesBus.com and RMjobs.com are more aggressive in their approach to connect students with companies. RMjobs.com encourages visitors to their website to register on their site. RMjobs.com then screens and interviews those candidates and places them with a marketing company they represent. SummerSalesBus.com blasts their music around college campuses enticing students to come learn about how the SummerSalesBus.com can connect them high with paying summer sales jobs and according to their website they have a lot of fun doing it.

We don't apologize for not being as flashy or as the hands-on as the other recruiting websites. Its not our style. Our goal at SummerSales.org is to help students get the information they need to make an informed decision regarding summer sales. We will be the first to tell you that summer sales isn't right for everyone, but who knows maybe after you explore our site, read our articles, and ask your questions, you will determine that summer selling just might be for you!

Best of luck in finding your perfect summer selling opportunity.