ADT Adopts Northstar Alarm Sneak Tactics

Dear Readers,

Last night, I got a knock on the door. It was a well-groomed young man in a white polo-shirt with an ADT logo.

“Hi, I’m Mike,” he said. “I’m a marketing director for ADT, the home security system company. In a few weeks, my sales team is going to be coming through the area, but before I send them through, I’m trying to do a local little advertising by placing one of my signs in your yard. See, I’m thinking that some of your neighbors and maybe some of the passersby s will see the sign and it will be great grassroots marketing for ADT. We’ll actually compensate you with an alarm system if you just take care of this sign for us. How many exterior doors do you have?”

Wow, this was really crazy, I thought as he stood in the doorway. That was the exact same spiel that I was taught to give on strangers’ doorsteps when I worked for Northstar Alarm Security Systems for a miserable week and a half in Nashville, Tennessee, in the summer of 2007.

(My sister said that the same thing happened to her a while back, a guy came to her door selling alarm systems, she can't remember the name of the company, and the guy used a lot of the same dialogue that Northstar Alarm people are trained to give, like, “How many cars do you think go by here a day? Hmm, I really like your yard because it’s in such a good location, and you keep it looking so nice, and if we could just place our sign in your yard that would be great advertising for our company.”)


Because of my experience working for Northstar, I knew a few things about the sales guy’s pitch:

- Mike was not a marketing director. He was a rank-and-file door-to-door salesman. He looked to be college-aged, but it’s almost October, so if he was a college student, he should have been in class… but then again, if this guy’s good at sales, and he likes it, he doesn’t have much of a reason to go to college.

- Advertising is a cover story. They really just want to sell you an alarm system.

- There would be no sales team coming through the area in the next few weeks. He was the sales guy.

- While it is true that if I bought the ADT security system right then and there, I would have gotten a big discount, ADT makes the real money from monthly monitoring service fees that would have been at least 30 bucks a month. I would have had to sign a contract that lasts for several years.

- Mike didn’t care how many exterior doors I had. The system would cost the same if I had 1 exterior door or 7 exterior doors. And it’s not like if I had too many doors, or too few doors, the system wouldn’t work for my house, or I wouldn’t be a suitable ADT advertiser. I can’t think of any legitimate reason why the sales guy should know how many exterior doors I have! The only reason he asked the question is to get my mind off the price, to get my mind where he wanted it. He wanted to get me answering questions. He wanted to start a conversation that would end with me signing a contract.

Maybe I should have went along with the sales pitch for a little while longer, but that would have been meaner than what I did. When he finally gave me a chance to speak when he asked me how many exterior doors I had, I just said “I’m not interested.” And then I told him that I did the same thing that he was doing a few years ago, and I said it was horrible, and he chuckled. And I told him that we were taught the same dialogue that he was using. He didn’t seem surprised. I don’t know if he was happy or not.

I didn’t mean to be condescending, but I thought I should be honest and forthcoming to the ADT salesguy. I hope I didn't come off as rude. See, I’ve made a vow to myself not to be rude to salespeople who go door to door, because I know how miserable that job can be.

But I’ve also made a vow to myself to never buy anything from a door to door salesperson. If I want something, I’ll research it and then go buy it. Oh, maybe I’d buy Girl Scout cookies or something trivial and tasty like that... but I don’t think Girl Scouts go door to door selling cookies anymore. It’s a different world, you know, what with all the criminals and creeps everywhere.

I wasn’t angry that the ADT salesperson came to my door. I respect Mike. He was just trying to make a living. He was just participating in righteous capitalism.

Sincerely,
Telemoonfa