Deborah, the Vacuum Sales Woman – Part One

Kirby vacuums. Sold all around the world, yet you’ll never see them in Costco. You’ll never see them in the cleaning section of a Walmart. Not even in the most luxury stores will you find a Kirby vacuum.

Why is that?

Kirby has been around for a hundred years, and they have kept their same sales model since their inception.

Door-to-door sales.

This evening, as I came out of my weekly Praxis call, I came out to the sight of my two roommates talking to a lady at our kitchen table. I had no idea who this person was. She was a black lady who looked to be in her early to mid 50’s (I later found out she was 62). She was a little overweight but knew how to carry herself.

My two roommates and this lady seemed to be having some sort of a serious discussion. I still had no clue what she was here for. I thought maybe it had something to do with a loan or something with the house because of the seriousness of the conversation and the lady talking numbers to them.

She was writing on a piece of paper as I came up to the table, and when she looked up, I said hello and introduced myself. And she introduced herself. Deborah. Her first question to me “Are you from england?”

I had never gotten this before, but wanted as much as I could for it to be true for a moment. I realized my initial introduction must have sounded like I had an English accent, because why else would she think I was from England. I put on my best English accent (which by the way is one of the worst ones you will ever hear) and told her that I most certainly was from England and asked how she could tell?

I quickly broke my accent knowing it was terrible anyway and told her I was in fact not from England, but wished that I was.

After a quick glance at the table, I saw what looked like a manual on the table with the words “Kirby” written on it and a picture of a vacuum. I started to put two-and-two together. This lady must be here to sell something.

Deborah and I exchanged a few more pleasantries and talked about her being in the military and having been stationed in Germany for a time. This was brought up because I mentioned that my dad was in the military and my family lived in Germany for a few years while he was stationed there.

As I let Deborah turn back to my roommates and continue with what they were doing, I started to gather who Deborah was and what she was doing sitting at my kitchen table. I should have noticed as I walked out of my room, but in our living room was a big box and several items sitting around it – one of which being the base of a vacuum.

Deborah was here to sell us a vacuum, but I knew this wasn’t just any vacuum. This was the top of the line buy it and it works for the rest of your life vacuum. There are also a lot of other capabilities with what Kirby can do including cleaning mattresses and such, but I, unfortunately, was not out of my call in time to see the demo of how the product worked.

When I came out of the room from my call, I could tell they were talking about numbers, and now I understand what they were talking about.

Deborah: “$64 dollars a/month for 36 months.”

Roommate: “No. I don’t think I could do anything more than $50 a month.”

Deborah: “I could maybe get it down to $48, but are you even interested? Are you actually considering buying?

Anthony my roommate made the confession that he wasnt going to buy it. He just wasn’t in a place to. He asked for her business card and she said that she hasn’t done business cards in 15 years because no one ever looks at them.

After she knew the deal had fizzled out, we were still able to talk with her and ended up talking for another 30-45 minutes.

What a story she had. I hope to share soon more about it, but let’s just say after living in Greece, Turkey, Japan, etc. I think she’s got some pretty cool stories.

Continue tomorrow