Published: April 17, 2008

“You can’t help them if they don’t listen to you, that’s just the way it goes sometimes.  We know we have the best products, the best service and the best company overall, but if they don’t wanna listen to you, then they’re on their own.”  So went the heart-felt apology of my boss as we were walking back from another unsuccessful sales meeting with a Wall Streeter.

I’m not all that financially savvy.  I just thought I’d be able to make some quick coin selling insurance.  Boy, was I wrong.  It’s a tougher sale than most people would think.  Everyone knows they’re going to die, but no one thinks it will be tomorrow.  Young bankers and traders think they’re invincible.  When someone is actually responsible and knows they should buy some insurance to cover their family, it’s still never a quick sale.  They say they’ll think about it and will call us.  They don’t call us. We call them in a couple weeks.  They say they’ll sit down with us in a month or two after they pay their taxes.  Tax season comes around and then they realize they want to pay off their house before they talk insurance again.  I go back to the office and swear between dials.

They call it the business of delayed gratification.  I guess I’ll call it that too.  Since August I’ve dialed 2,346 numbers.  Out of all those dials I’ve reached 468 of them, meaning I got the chance to spit out my whole spiel “Hey this is Brian Stong from Northwestern Mutual, how are you today? Great! I’m doing fine myself.  Hey (insert mispronounced foreign name), I work with a lot of the bankers and traders over at Goldman (lie) on a personal level, and I wanted to get the chance to meet you next time I’m over there.  I’m gonna be there next Tuesday and again on Friday morning, which of those times would work best for you?” Of those 468 reaches, 49 of them didn’t yell at me but said, “Sure you can stop by.”  Out of those nice guys, maybe 10 are interested in buying something sooner or later.  Later seems like the more likely decision at this point.

So at this point I have zero lives—that’s insurance lingo for zero life insurance sales.  The older financial reps always told me not to worry about it.  They said it always starts off slow, that you have to put in a ton of work to see any progress or reward.  I’ve continued to trust them; I don’t see any reason why they would lie to me.

I went to bed Friday night after 9 hours of getting yelled at on the phone followed by around another 9 hours of a kegger at our place.  I wanted people to leave fairly early since I had to wake up at freaking 5:45 in order to get down to Dr. E’s abortion clinic in the South Bronx by 7 a.m.  That’s when they opened and women started coming in for their appointments.  I hit the alarm clock after two hours and 45 minutes of sleep and threw on around 5 layers of clothes.  I walked like Frankenstein across the living room (not only because of my lack of sleep, but because my feet stuck to the floor at each step).  I chugged some coffee and headed out the door, tackily colored “Pregnant? Need help?” pamphlets in hand.

The clinic was a dreadful place.  I had been going there every Saturday morning since August.  Around 30-40 women came 4 days of the week.  Saturdays were usually the busiest.  The most serious women came at 7 am to get it over with.  The ones who were on the fence about it usually came a little later.  It wasn’t something that they exactly hopped out of bed to go do.
I could pick out by now who was going in to the clinic and who was just walking by.  Women walking in usually wore something comfortable.  They never had a drink in hand since they weren’t allowed to have any food or liquid for 12 hours before the surgery.  If there was a man with her, it was either him leading her in or her leading him in.  If there were girls, there were usually two or three to emotionally carry her in like a wounded soldier.  But all those details aside, one thing always gave them away, and it was their eyes. Anyone smiling was definitely not going in.

So what exactly was I doing?  Some mornings I asked myself the same question, being hung over and waking up a half day earlier than any of my roommates.  I was part of a movement of sidewalk counselors who pace in front of abortion clinics and intercept women going in.  After qualifying a woman as someone who was probably walking in, I would walk over to her, hold out the pamphlet, about face, and continue power walking with her towards the entrance.
“Are you going to the doctor’s today Ms.?” I would ask in a non-accusatory tone.  It was either a somber yes or an awkward no.  If it was the former then I quickly entered into the standard language.

“Well I just wanted to let you know that we have resources for crisis pregnancies. We can help you out with housing, counseling, financial assistance, pre-natal care—” and that was usually all I could spit out before the abortion bouncer stepped up and guided the woman in.  The longer conversations were far more interesting and helped justify my early awakening.  Any woman who granted me a longer conversation typically didn’t really want to go through with the operation.  They usually felt that what they were doing wasn’t right but they had no choice.  They were young and the daddy left them, or the daddy beats them, or the daddy would rather pay for a $200 abortion than child support.  I often wondered if the reason why women granted me more conversations than the other women counselors was because I came across as a nice man, and the reason why they were here was typically because of a not-so-nice man.  Regardless, I would always let them know that we’ve helped out plenty of women in their same exact tough situation.  I would tell them that this is a serious day that they are going to remember for the rest of their lives, whether they choose life or not.  Why not have a happy memory rather than a sad anniversary?  I would say anything, just to keep talking to try and hit something that would make them change their mind about what they were about to do to their future.  Time after time though, the woman would decide that this is what she had to do, and would walk through the door feeling just a little guiltier than she did before.

I typically came away from the clinic with the gross feeling that around 40 babies had been killed and around that many women were emotionally scarred.  One thing always made it better though, and that was a turnaround.  When a woman heard what we had to say and said, “You know what, you’re right.”  And through tears of joy she would realize that what she had was a baby, not a piece of tissue, and that she was going to have something beautiful soon to love and care for. We gave her all the information we had to help her out, we cheered her on, we hugged it out, told her we’d pray for her, and that we’d follow up with her regularly to see how she is doing.

The sidewalk counselor general (this older crazy lady named Mary) made us take down numbers for the clinic.  And though I always felt weird marking a woman as a tally mark, it always reminded me of something else.  Each Saturday since August I’ve counted 523 women going in.  Of those 523, we were able to hold a conversation with around 88.  Of those 88 we were able to talk with, we saved around 20.  I myself have yet to get a save.

Mary would say, “Don’t get down on yourself.  Some women will just never listen to you, and it doesn’t matter how good of a talker you are or how genuine you come across as really just wanting to help them.  At the end of the day it is their choice and we just pray that they will listen to us and keep their hearts open to life and love.  And if you can just save one, you know it’s all worth it.”  I knew she was right, and that’s what kept me setting that alarm clock every Friday night after a long day of unsuccessful dialing.