Direct sales woman-ship

Admin   |   18 February, 2015   |   893   |   3980

Once, it was the domain of men only — and that usually meant door-to-door selling on a commission basis. A salesman would cold-call or knock, and then try to talk his way straight into the living rooms of working-class members of “The Greatest Generation,” the parents of the baby boomers.

Fuller brush salesmen. Vacuum salesmen. Bible salesmen. Encyclopedia salesmen.

That’s mostly gone now, for a lot of reasons.

But now up and down the southwest coast of Florida and indeed from sea to shining sea — from Port Charlotte to Naples and Sarasota to Seattle — direct marketing is in significant part the domain of women.

So of course it’s completely different. Now it’s more intimate, more social and community oriented. Direct sellers are more robust philanthropists, too. They sell their products while also pitching for certain charities, thus doing well by doing good, sometimes.

And now their line of work is also called multi-level marketing, a vocation carried out by saleswomen who say they are helping themselves by helping others.