One of the challenges that I encountered when recruiting college students for the Southwestern Company summer program, was conveying to a non-business major how sales experience would benefit them. Most of us quickly learn once we leave academia that everything is some form of sales. That statement has been validated every time I talk to a [...]
Pounding the pavement as a door-to-door salesman definitely comes with more than its share of rejection. However, if you stick with it long enough you learn how to put that aside and enjoy the rewards. Through my years of selling books with the Southwestern Company I was commonly asked: Does that still work? Even in the [...]
In my years with the Southwestern Company I have heard, as well as told, many tales of some of the famous alumni that have traversed the bookfield. After becoming Southwestern’s alumni specialist, I quickly learned that this is an often requested list of people. Unfortunately, my database of alumni did not come with a “Rich and [...]
On Thursday morning, February 26, 2009, one of the greatest pillars in the history of Southwestern, Dortch Oldham, passed away. He was 89 years old.
Dortch grew up on a farm north of Nashville, and heard about selling books from a friend. As he said in an interview here several years ago, “He told me you [...]
Working in the Southwestern alumni department I thoroughly enjoy amassing stories from alumni, whether the stories are from the bookfield or what alumni have been up to since. I believe this is because I consider Southwestern alumni as my family. That indescribable bond of a summer on the bookfield ties us together. That connection was [...]
For the past 13 years my family and friends have been utterly confused trying to figure out what I do. I have spent nearly half of my life working with the Southwestern Company (no, not the airline). I spent eight of those years selling books and software door-to-door in the summer, as well as, recruiting [...]
