Two Newbies Take on Spokane Valley and Beyond
By Cindy Safronoff
I got to do some actual outreach work! In Spokane, on Wednesday, July 10, while our main outreach team, Lusho and Cindy, were distributing copies of The Christian Science Monitor Weekly downtown, I teamed up with Barb Stimers, the Spokane church representative for the Christian Science Literature Joint Distribution Committee. Barb wanted to give Monitor distribution a try, to learn how this kind of outreach is done. It had been two years since I had really done the outreach myself, so even though I would be showing Barb how to do it, I would also be remembering how and learning more about the practical aspects myself. So we were really two newbies in training together.
During lunch at Arby’s over a classic roast beef sandwich and lemonade, I explained the basic philosophy of the outreach, went through our standard sales script, and shared some “do’s and don’ts.” Then, eager to get started, we headed out.
Meeting up at the Arby’s in Spokane to plan Monitor outreach for the afternoon
Barb suggested we try the Spokane Valley Mall, an indoor shopping mall a few minutes down the freeway. While indoor shopping malls are not generally good areas for placing Monitor gift subscriptions, since the weather forecast was for 104-degrees — a heat advisory! — it seemed like a good idea to start getting comfortable with the outreach in a place with a comfortable temperature.
We were encouraged by several successes early in the afternoon. Our first several visits were to a hotel and several chain restaurants on the periphery of the main mall. All accepted Monitors — with the approval of their managers— either for their customer waiting area or their employee break room.
Inside the covered mall, we found enthusiastic takers and possible interest in gift subscriptions at a barber shop, a cellphone store, and a discount shoe store. There was a news stand for free newspapers outside a cafe that had an empty shelf, but in asking for permission of the workers to put a stack of Monitors there we found we’d need to contact their corporate office. We had some fun engagements with staff at a cosmetics store and volunteers at the sheriff’s office, and took free samples from other sales people, learning things from them (sometimes how NOT to be).
After we walked the whole mall, we left and drove around looking for places that might be receptive in other areas, so for the rest of the day, we were in and out of air conditioned spaces, alternating between mid-afternoon heat and controled cool. The heat wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be — it’s that “dry heat”, they talk about. But the benefit of doing this during a heat advisory was that there weren’t many customers out shopping that day, so we often came in to empty stores and so had the undivided attention of the staff. We also made a positive impression on some because of our dedication. “You must really love this news magazine for you to come out in this heat!” they said — which was a great opportunity to express a burst of raves about the Monitor.
We went to lots of salons, a used book store, cafes, restaurants, a bobba tea shop, and a veterinarian. In all we distributed about 80 copies of the Monitor Weekly at 17 locations, and at our very last stop, a nail salon in an upscale strip mall, we placed our first gift subscriptions for the day! — the grand finale to a great day!
Overall the day was very satisfying. Over the course of the afternoon, my sales and data management skills improved, and I was glad to experience for myself after so long how fun and satisfying this kind of outreach can be — even under uncomfortable conditions of extreme heat.