Message for those who sell door-to-door in NJ

Full disclaimer here, I have nothing against anyone coming to my door and willing to talk to me regarding something they're selling. Sometimes it might be something I need, or something new I'm not aware of.

However, I do have a problem when you start insulting and badmouthing existing plans we already have if it goes against what you're trying to sell me. That's not only crossing a line, that's hitting a point where you deserve to be thrown off the property.

With that said, here's one story of not one, but two door-to-door salesmen who were at my house by no choice of mine. My wife ended up agreeing with the initial person who came to our door to set up a meeting.

It was a roofing company and I wasn't home at the time when he came. But since she agreed to hear them out at a later date and made an appointment, I wanted to make sure I was home for that.

So the day came and we figured it would be maybe an hour tops. After all, we knew a sales pitch was coming.

Only one of the salesmen did the speaking while the other just sat there. The silent one was introduced as a military vet, but nothing more. I'll point out my theory on that one in just a bit.

The salesperson who did the talking was cool, calm, and collected. He was also very knowledgeable when it came to roofs in general, so I didn't mind hearing him out.

After he finished his presentation, he offered to have someone do an inspection of our roof. It was all part of the courtesy pitch I suppose, but we allowed it (conveniently, this inspector was in the area at that very moment).

Truth be told, we do need a new roof in the near future as it is around its expiration point so we figured it couldn't hurt. We had it looked at about a year ago after a tree fell on our house but didn't puncture the roof at all, which is how we learned about it's overall condition.

But we also knew we still had about five years to go before we had to really start thinking about it, so we weren't in any rush to get it done just yet (plus, we were also considering a second story addition which would make replacing pointless). However, this salesman tried to tell us otherwise.

Again, I'm sure it was all part of the sales strategy, but he was trying to tell us that the results showed we needed to replace it as soon as possible. In other words, we had no time to wait.

We're now over three hours into this visit and quite honestly, it's starting to get tiring. But he made his pitch and offer, of which we politely declined it at the moment.

It wasn't that we didn't need it, we weren't ready to do it yet and were still weighing our decision of a second-story addition. But because of how good the presentation was, we said we'd be more than happy to move forward with him in about a year, regardless if we did the addition or not.

A year's time was our original plan to begin tackling all this, and we told them that upfront before they even started the sales pitch. However, he wasn't having it.

He then asked again why we were not looking to do it at this time, and we again told him why. He and his silent partner then went to his car out front and got on the phone.

When he came back, he offered us a lower price. But once again, we repeated what I told him twice already about not doing it this year. Then it was back to the car.

Then it was yet another offer. This time an exclusive low price that was only valid for that day. Are you beginning to see the pattern here?

Once again it was no, then he once again asked the reason why. It's almost as if we're stuck on a New Jersey traffic circle with no way out.

And wouldn't you know it, he then went back to the car and once again got on the phone. We eventually learned that it was his supervisor he was calling each time.

But this time was a little different. When he came back again, he was no longer cool, calm, and collected. He was now shaken and sweating a bit, with more of a tremble in his voice.

He then told us about an offer that was so low, that they would actually be losing money on the deal. It was some sort of exclusive friends and family deal that only employees are allowed to use maybe once every few years, but he'd be willing to do that for us.

And he was quite nervous this time. shaking, sweating, and looking like his spirit had been broken. I'm sure his supervisor ripped him a new one for not closing the deal yet, but oh well.

Once again I told him if we did this now, we'd just be ripping it off in the future if we did our addition so it wouldn't make sense. It's at this point where he got insulting.

He told us we should just do the roof anyway and not bother with the addition, and instead told us we should just convert our basement if we needed more rooms. Excuse me, but we already have the architectural drawings for the addition, which again, we told him about, and were serious about going forward with that.

This thought of an addition isn't anything new, it's something we want to do. It's just a matter of timing or if we stick with the original plans (we also have alternatives should we go in another direction).

But the very notion to tell us not to do it and scrap what we've already done just so you can make your sale is a slap in the face. That's when I politely told him we're done here and need to go.

I really hope they don't do that to other homeowners just to make a sale, but I'm almost certain they do. He went from earning our business in the future to never being welcomed at our house again.

As for that silent partner of his? He pretty much just stared at us the entire time. And I wonder if pointing out he's a military vet was also part of their tactic to make us feel obligated to go with them.

And with him just staring at us and not saying a word, it was almost like he was trying to send an intimidating signal that we needed to go forward with this. I'm not saying that this was the case, but that's definitely the vibe it gave.

Now, months later, my wife is still dealing with phone calls with offers from them. Everyone from the supervisor on down gave her a ring at some point.

The latest is that they'd like to come back to go do the sales presentation again. When she told them we already heard it, they said it was different now and the info had changed.

But zeroing back on the original salesperson telling us to scrap all our other home improvement plans so they could make their sale. I'm sure the supervisor played a hand in that telling him to go that route, but that doesn't matter.

If you're going door-to-door, do not, and I mean DO NOT try and belittle your potential customers like that. If a homeowner has plans to do something that interferes with your sale, don't tell them or try to make them feel they must cancel that so you can make a commission.

As for the company that keeps trying to sell us their product? You did earn it initially, but then you lost it by being overly aggressive and insulting. Have a nice day.

The above post reflects the thoughts and observations of New Jersey 101.5 Sunday morning host Mike Brant. Any opinions expressed are his own.