Summer Sales Program
The company recruits between 2,500 and 3,000 college and university students each year to sell educational books, software, and subscription websites during the summer months. Student dealers come from over 300 colleges and universities in North America, South America, Africa and Europe.
The president of Southwestern Advantage admits that selling books door-to-door is "incredibly hard, frustrating work," and not for everyone. Experienced dealers say the program provided them needed funds, boosted their confidence, and taught them to stick with a project despite adversity. Almost a third of the company's first-year dealers quit within 20 days, often with hard feelings. Some of these first-year dealers share stories about losing money, facing upset homeowners, and unfriendly dogs. They call the company everything from a cult to a scam.
Read more about this topic: Southwestern Company
Famous quotes containing the words summer, sales and/or program:
“And a sigh heaves from all the small things on earth,
The books, the papers, the old garters and union-suit buttons
Kept in a white cardboard box somewhere ...
The summer demands and takes away too much,
But night, the reserved, the reticent, gives more than it takes.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)
“Make friends with the angels, who though invisible are always with you.... Often invoke them, constantly praise them, and make good use of their help and assistance in all your temporal and spiritual affairs.”
—St. Francis De Sales (1567–1622)
“Mormon colonization south of this point in early times was characterized as “going over the Rim,” and in colloquial usage the same phrase came to connote violent death.”
—State of Utah, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)