The Sweeper that Sucks
Notice: There is a little belligerence and moderately foul language in this recording. The two voices are that of me and a Kirby salesman trying to sell us an expensive sweeper; you will notice that my speech is a little scatterbrained... which may have resulted from some alcohol that night.
We’re upstairs and one of the kids says someone is at the door. Jenn goes down and I follow a minute later. Jenn, the sweet, kind, helping person she is tries to defend our guest from me and she quickly takes control of my immediate skepticism and says, “He’s going to do a demonstration for us—ah, ah… don’t say anything… it’s for his tuition.”
I tried to get a protest out but she hushed me immediately with that stare. So I stepped outside to catch lightning bugs with the kids while this dude unloads a Kirby sweeper into my house at 9pm in the evening.
Half an hour rolled by and the kids had caught as many lightning bugs as this guy had made in dollar bills. Every time I walked by the front door Jenn looked at me with a sense of panic—Oh my God, said her look, get this guy out of here! I played with the kids more.
Well eventually I had to put the kids to bed. While I was in the process of rounding them up I got the brilliant idea of planting a tape recorder in the living room to catch this pitch on tape. I planted it and let them chat a while more before finally Jenn’s look said to me, If you don’t get this dude out of my house soon or come down here and endure this with me, you ain’t getting any for the rest of your life!
Well at that point I had to oblige. I walked down and without any foreplay said, “Just curious how long this presentation’s supposed to last.”
“As much time as you guys have,” said the young salesman whom I later learned was named Nate.
Well I guess that he shouldn’t have offered so much of his time because I really don’t like people knocking on my door to sell me sweepers… so listen to the funniest sales pitch for a sweeper you’ll ever hear.
I have to admit that some of my "on-the-fly math" was shaky and I was a jerk (grammar and courtesy were out the door since I had drank a couple beers that night)... but you'll enjoy the conversation.
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Comments
< Lisa Steel > at 2008-01-11 10:30:41 EST 
We had a Kirby sweeper salesman in our house last night. This is our 2nd time around with this type of salesman. They got into our house by a man coming ahead of them who led us to believe he was working for a carpet cleaning co. and would clean one room of carpet completely free, all he asked was if we where happy we spread the word. We thought why not, we where going to have our carpet cleaned soon anyway. He told us to move all our furniture they'd be back in 15 min. later to clean the room. Well guess what, when they arrived, it was a Kirby sweeper man. Right off the bat, I said I'm not buying your sweeper, that didn't get him to go, then, when he was asked to see our sweeper, guess what, I drag out my Kirby, which by the way I bought at a garage sale for $35.00. He was kinda taken back, then he tells us it's about 13 years old and the new ones are so much better, we should replace the one we had. I responded to this if someone pays 1700.00 for a sweeper, don't you think it should last longer then 13 years? This quy was in our house for over 2 hours, knowing we already owned a Kirby trying to convince us we needed a new one, I kept telling him, I'm not buying your sweeper, yet he just kept going. The fact that these people lied to get into my house, wouldn't take no for an answer makes me furious. We did not manage to get these people out of our house until almost 9 at night, both of us work, I had a house that needed cleaned up, 2 kids who needed our attention and still he just wouldn't leave. I don't really care why this guy was working for Kirby, I owned a Kirby already knew the product, basically begged him to leave, yet he wouldn't. I have a no soliciting sign on my door, and still i was harassed, annoyed, had my evening ruined all for something from the very start I informed him I wouldn't buy. And to top it off, after moving a complete room of furniture I never got my carpets cleaned. So after an exhausting evening of listening to this annoying sales pitch we had to put a room back together!
< haywood jablowme > at 2007-11-08 10:59:07 EST
I listened to this audio of the kirby demo. I am a kirby salesman and kirby has a scholarship program where he needs to just show the kirby 3 times daily to earn credit for the program. yes the sales are needed to make money of course. You need both for the scholarship, so all in all the kid was right. He also sounded like a very new dealer I would like to see you with pro, you would have purchased one if only you would have listened in how the kirby would save you money. But it just goes to show that you can't sell every pig a bar of soap! Nate is more of a man than you will ever be. People who sold kirby's. Johnny Carson, ED McMan, Vince Lambardy do I need to continue, all were on the scholarship program! Jerk!
< Stacy Reinhart > at 2007-07-01 21:55:09 EST
Just so you know, the young man was just trying to do his job. You should be a mature enough adult to say hey look we arent interested and its late instead of trying to give him a hard time. There are a lot of young people that have no ambition whatsoever and no work ethic. People that work in Kirby work very hard. Not all salespeople are evil.
< melissa jamhour > at 2007-06-20 18:31:03 EST
I JUST WENT THROUGH THE SAME CRAP WITH THE KIRBY PEOPL AND THEY WERE IN MY HOUSE FOR 6 HOURS TRYING TO SELL AND WE KEPT SAYING NO AND THEY JUST TOLD US OUR HOUSE WAS DIRT AND THEY COULDNT BELIVE WE WOULD KEEP OUR OLD DIRTY SWEEPER AND THAT THEY CANT BELIVE THEY WASTED SOO MUCH TIME ON OS IF WE WERNT GOING TO BUY THE SWEEPER I WANT TO MAKE A COMPLANT ON THE THEY WASTED OUR WHOLE DAY !!!!!
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