My Door to Door Days

Several years ago, during my search for a summer job, I responded to an ad in an employment newspaper. I ended up working for a marketing company, selling electric service from door to door for a week. For seven days, I went from door to door trying to get people to switch from the major electric company in this area to a greener and "cheaper" provider. Without question, that was the absolute shadiest job I have ever had. When I did my own research, I found that for most people, the switch to a "cheaper" company would actually end up increasing their monthly bill, but that wasn't the worst part. The worst part was that we were trained to manipulate people into making the switch. Every cloud has a silver lining - the worst part was also the best part. Long after I left that job, I retained the lessons learned. I don't aim to be manipulative, but I value everything I learn about how people work and learning the techniques of manipulation has helped me avoid being manipulated. The basic idea was to get people to sign a contract without putting a lot of thought into it. In order to do that, we were supposed to play on their trust, use their reflexes, and encourage rashness.

We approached the door - knock knock/ding dong. "Hi I'm Ahd Child representing Green Mountain. I'm just registering all the PECO customers on this street for the flat rate they can get now."

Our speech was pre-written and very calculated. As we began by saying who we were representing, we quickly pointed to our Green Mountain name badge in the binder we were holding. We said this part very quickly so that the person wouldn't really register it. We wanted them to pay attention to the next part. In our binders, next to the Green Mountain badge, was a stack of PECO bills. As we said the word "PECO" we would point to the company name on the bill with our pen. A pen can control a person's attention. Try this trick that they taught us during training. While you are talking to someone, reference and point to (with your pen) something on a paper. Once the person's eyes are on the paper and as you continue to talk, move the pen to the four corners of the paper in an X pattern. The person's eyes should follow your pen. We'd also slow down as we said the word "PECO." The result was that they would see and hear "PECO" while barely noticing "Green Mountain." We "plainly" stated that we worked for Green Mountain, but people always inevitably ended up thinking we worked for PECO - a company they knew and trusted.

If we had succeeded in getting electric bills from their neighbors, we'd leave those on top and using our pens and gestures, we'd draw attention to the name. If someone sees that their neighbors signed up, they'd be more inclined to go ahead and sign up. As we said "flat rate" we would hold our hand up and flat, illustrating our words. This brought the person's eyes back up from our binders and made the words stick in their minds.

"You see what happened now is the government changed the law so everyone can get the new rate now easily."

I don't quite remember the speech word for word anymore, but this is pretty close to what it was - including the bad grammar. The bad grammar was purposely included to make sure the speech sounded natural. There was no mention that by getting these new rates they'd be switching electric companies.

"All I need is an old electric bill, if you could just go grab that for me."

This was one of the most devious parts. At this point we break eye contact, looking past the person and into the house as we ask them to grab the bill. We'd also point into the house and then we immediately looked down into our binders, making sure not to resume eye contact. Our trainers called this "being assumptive." If we were properly assumptive, even before the person realized what they were doing, they'd turn to grab the bill. Of course some people would think about it and stop, but that was only after they involuntarily started the motion. Try it yourself. Ask someone to get something for you that's already in easy reach. As you say it, look and point at the object. Then, look away from the person. Your body language should show that you assumed that they are already doing what you asked them to do. Despite the fact that you could easily have grabbed the object yourself, the person will move to grab it. They may stop halfway there and tell you get it yourself, but if you do it right, there will be some sign of a reflexive reaction to your words.

I forget the rest of the speech, but once the bill was retrieved, we'd copy the person's info (name, address, etc.) to our form as we talked. As we finished, we'd inform them that we just needed their signature to activate this new rate. We never asked them if they wanted to switch companies, we just filled out the form. Once again we were being assumptive. If, after all our efforts at manipulation, the person refused to sign, we'd leave - with their bill if possible. That way, when we went to the next house, we'd have a neighbor's bill to point at, so even if the neighbor hadn't signed up, it looked like they had. If they did sign, we informed them that the last thing they had to do was vocally confirm that they had been informed of all the conditions. We let them know that we were going to dial a number on our phones and somebody would ask them questions. We told them what the questions would be and how they should answer.

". . . and they'll ask you if you are aware that there will be a one-time charge of $5, and you say yes . . . "

(I think the charge was somewhere around $5, but I'm not sure.) This was the first time during the conversation that a start up charge would mentioned. At this point, we'd be wrapping things up, the person already signed the form, and they should be distracted by the phone call. They should feel too rushed to voice an objection to this small additional fee.