9- Making a good presentation

If we succeed to give a good impression in this first phase, the person will become naturally receptive. We can then go to the next stage: presenting the book and giving our mantra. HG Navina Nirada Prabhu teaches that at this point the person will have three questions in mind, which your mantra should be able to answer effectively: 

1. Who are you?

2. What is this book?

3. What’s in it for me? 

The goal is to make the person interested: to make him curious, to give him the feeling that this will improve his life; help him to develop a desire to acquire the book by a short and nice presentation. One point that is crucial at this stage is our conviction on the value of the transcendental knowledge inside the books. Even if one can’t speak so well, if he is convinced, he will be able to speak in a way that will inspire interest in the public. On the other hand, if one is not convinced himself, he will have a hard time convincing other people.

If we can make the person a little convinced, a little desirous to have the book, we can go to the donation part: “This book can be yours, it’s not for sale, we just ask for donations” (or something to that effect). Then, if the person is already interested, it will just click in his head: “Oh, I can take it?” “Yes, we just ask for donations to cover the printing, you can give as much as you can, there is no fixed price“. At this point, it’ll be quite natural for him to take the book, since you’ve already removed most of the obstacles.

If we can cover at least one topic in which a person is really interested, chances are that he is going to take the book, if not out of genuine interest, at least out of curiosity. One time, for example, I was mentioning to a boy how our books help one to control the mind. The boy exclaimed: “Oh! This book teaches how I can control other people’s minds??”. I mentioned that the book teaches how we can control our own minds. He answered that he was not interested, that he wanted to control other people’s minds. I answered: “How you can control other people’s minds if you can’t control your own mind? First, learn how to control your own mind and then you can see about controlling other people’s”. He stopped to think. “Good point…” he said, and decided to take the book.

Usually, we use terms like “spiritual”, “divine” or “transcendental”, instead of the term “God”, since it’s a word that became burned in most western countries due to people misusing religion, because of fanatics, and so on. Similarly, we use terms like “spiritual practice”, “self-realization”, “divine love” or “divine consciousness” instead of the word “religion”. The meaning is similar, but this makes people more receptive to hear our message, which is our goal. As stated right in the first verses of Srimad-Bhagavatam, this is a knowledge that is beyond all mundane religion, therefore, there is nothing wrong in using terms like that. Different approaches are going to be more effective in different places. This is, however, a principle applicable for most. 

There are exceptions, however. Many people are directly searching for God, some may even be wanting to know more about Krsna, therefore we should be sensible. One time, a brahmacari approached a young lady. He offered her “books about yoga and meditation”. She quickly dismissed him saying that she was not interested in reading about meditation. He asked in which she was interested in. She answered: “I’m looking for a book about Krsna, do you have?”.

10- Disarming the mental blocks 

Of course, in most cases, it’s not so easy. Even if someone gets interested, still there may be something with the mind or intelligence preventing him from taking. For example, sometimes a person may think: “I have 10 with me, but it’s too little for this book, probably he will not accept“, or “This book is too big for me, I won’t be able to read it“, or “It’s heavy, I don’t want to carry it all the way“. Different things. 

In such cases, you need to be able to understand what the problem is and be able to disarm this mental block. For example, in a lot of cases, people say “I don’t have money“, but this is just a general excuse. It’s like the blue screen on the old Windows computers. The blue screen could be caused by software problems, hardware problems, or even appear when there was no problem at all. Similarly, “I don’t have money” is just a general excuse which doesn’t have much meaning by itself. It can mean “I’m not interested”, “I have some money but I think it’s not enough for the book“, “I have money but I’ll need it later“, “I have money but I don’t want to give it to you“, “Actually I’m in a hurry, I need to go to the toilet“, “I need to feed my dog!“… almost anything. In a few cases, it can even mean that the person really doesn’t have any money!

Instead of getting discouraged, just use your sensibility to try to see what is the real problem and try to insist in the appropriate way. Naturally, in the beginning, you may not have this kind of experience, but you can try your best guess. If you don’t have any better idea, you can simply insist by presenting a small book, “That’s ok, take at least this small one, you can read it on the way, at the metro. If you find it interesting, you may take the big one another day“. Presenting a smaller book works in many cases, since it reduces the level of commitment a person needs to assume. The book is smaller, quicker to read, lighter, cheaper, etc. making it easier for the mind to accept. 

One thing that works in many “I don’t have money” situations is to insist on the point that there is no minimum for the donation: 

– Actually, there is no minimum, you can really give as much or as little as you can. You can give from one thousand to ten cents. 

Or even better: 

– Actually, there is no minimum, you can give as much or as little as you can. You just need to keep it under one million. Can you do that?

In many cases, the problem is simply that the person thinks that what he has is insufficient for the book. By making clear that you will accept even a small donation, the person “unlocks” and is able to take the book. In many cases, people who say “I don’t have money” end up giving relatively large donations. Naturally, you should be attentive to be able to differentiate people who are nice and open from people who are simply not interested. If someone is not interested, there is no point in insisting about the price, since it will just devalue the book. Insisting in this way should be done only in cases of nice people who show interest, but get somehow stuck in the donation part.

Using this with big books may be risky (since a lot of times you will get less than the BBT price), but you can at least use this when insisting with a smaller book. In any case, by giving something and taking a book, a person gets eternal benefit, starting into the bhakti path. The effect of someone giving even a few coins and taking a book can’t be underestimated. As a general rule, we should give much higher priority into distributing books to interested persons than to collect big donations, since money tends to come automatically when we are doing some valuable preaching work. Srila Prabhupada explains that even a materialistic man will be prepared to spend huge amounts of money to promote himself (like they do during elections, for example), therefore we shouldn’t doubt that Krsna will be prepared to send the needed amount of money for devotees who are spreading His glories. It may be through other persons, or it may be through the same people later, but it will come. 

For example, one time I stopped two nice ladies. They were very interested in the books, but they didn’t have any money, classical case. I ended up giving two small books, one to each, telling them that they could read and come back another day to take more books. They became touched by the gesture and promised to read. Later on the same day, one of the ladies indeed came back. She gave me a donation of R$ 100 (which is a large donation by brazilian standards) and took three small sets, one for her, one for the other lady and one for a friend, 15 books in total!

A variation of the same idea is to insist on the idea of a small donation, but suggest a minimum which covers the amount you need for the book. You can say:

– These books are not expensive. Even if you can give just 10, it’s fine.

It still works, because, even doubling the BBT price, the cost of our books are still much less than what a person would pay for a similar book in a shop, so most people will consider the amount to be quite reasonable and take the book. Most people will not give less than what you suggested, so you can use it even for the maha-big books without fear. 

One last point that is becoming increasingly important is to carry a credit card machine. More and more people are using credit and debit cards and not carrying money with them, so by carrying a machine, we get access to this large section of the public. In my book distribution, I often get 25% or more of the total in card donations, and most of them are people who I would lose without the machine. In addition, many of the big donations come through card: many people want to donate generously but are restricted by the little cash they are carrying. If we accept cards, they can donate the amount they want. Some people may even end up taking a Bhagavatam set. 

There is an interesting pastime that I heard from HG Vijaya Prabhu. Devotees in the United States went to talk to a man in a car. They offered a Gita and he answered that he had it already. They asked if he had a Bhagavatam set, he answered that he didn’t. He asked how much it costs, they answered two hundred dollars. He complained that he didn’t have so much cash and the devotees quickly drew out a card machine. “It fits in the trunk of the car?” the man asked. The devotees quickly confirmed and the man decided to take the set just like that, using his card. The whole interaction took less than a minute!

11- Explaining the process 

The process of distributing a book in the street can generally be broken into three steps: 

1. Stopping a person and getting his attention.
2. Presenting a book and making him interested. 
3. Asking for a donation.

Normally, if we fail in one of these steps, the next ones are not going to work. For example, if a person is not willing to stop and you start to walk alongside him, rushingly trying to present a book, he is not going to really listen to your mantra, nor pay attention to the book, and as a result, he is not going to get interested. You then ask for a donation and he just dismisses you or, at best, gives a few coins just to get rid of this inconvenient person who is chasing him.

Similarly, even if a person stops and listens, if you fail to make him interested, he is again not going to be willing to take a book and to give a donation. He will not see any value in the book, and therefore he will not want it. Even if he eventually ends up taking a book because of your insistence, he will just give a few coins for it. You may think that it’s a success because he took the book in the end, but it’s actually a failure. He will just throw that book somewhere. Unless Krsna has some plan to deliver that book to someone else, it will eventually just end up in the garbage bin.

Frequently, we fail in the first two stages, and then try to make it up in the end, by begging and insisting in the donation part. Many people are a little pious and give something when one starts to beg, and therefore he ends up distributing a few books, but to just do that repeatedly can easily become a dead-end in one’s book distribution career, making him just specialize in begging instead of becoming more effective in making people interested in our literature, which is our true job. Begging has a negative connotation in most parts of the world. That’s not something that will make people inspired about our message. 

One way to avoid that is to, in the beginning, train each stage individually, progressing to the next stage only with persons where you were successful in the previous stage. In other words, to only show books to persons who stop and give you attention, and only ask for donations to persons who show some interest.

By doing that, you will get lower results in the short term (since you are not going to distribute to the persons who are not interested, but who end up taking a book just because you are begging), but this practice will force you to improve in the two main areas, that is to get people’s attention and convince them about our books, instead of taking the easy route by just hammering people about donations. Once a person is interested, he will quickly take the book when you mention about the donation, and because he will see value in the book, he will tend to donate generously. That is a true success; the book will be read and valued.

After you get more experienced, you can start to do different things, acting according to time, place and circumstance to increase your distribution, but this early training will help to improve in the right way, instead of just hammering people on the donation part.

12- Insisting, in a proper way

The two laws about insisting are to always do it in a polite way, and to know when to stop. To insist too much is really bad, the person gets annoyed and burned. He starts to think: “What’s wrong with this guy, why is he so desperate?“. When presenting a book, we should always make it appear like a special offer: a very nice book for a special person, an opportunity to get access to a very ancient and profound knowledge which has practical application in our modern times. Actually, that’s what we are doing: we are offering the most precious knowledge for a very low price in order to give all intelligent people access to it. We need to be convinced about the importance of the books ourselves, and act in a noble way, so people will be able to understand and also value them. 

Generally speaking, we may insist two times maximum. If a person says “no” for the first time, we insist, if he says “no” again, we may insist for the second time, using a different strategy, but if he says “no” for the third time, then it’s time to stop. Just accept the book back, thank the person and finish the conversation in a nice way, so he leaves with a good impression and maybe takes it on some other day. If the person is generally favourable, give an invitation card, pamphlet or a sweet ball and say some nice words to start cultivating him. 

To insist is usually effective in cases where the person gets a little interested or curious about the book, but not enough to immediately buy. In such cases, by insisting in the appropriate way we can bridge the gap and make him take it. In cases where there is no interest whatsoever, it’s usually pointless to insist, since it will just be a waste of time, and will just make the person more defensive. In such cases, it is usually better to just finish politely, without insisting. This will save time and leave the person with a small doubt deep inside his mind, that will maybe make him take a book on some other day. 

In such cases, it’s important to keep a long-term vision. Many people need to get several positive experiences before they can commit to take a book. Right now, a person may not be prepared to take, but if we can make him leave with a good impression, he may come back to take it another day. Someone who is just a little interested today (not sufficiently to take a book), may take a Bhagavad-Gita tomorrow, and a Bhagavatam set next year. But if we put pressure on him, try to force him to take a book, he will just get burned and nothing good will come out of it.

Sometimes, one may have the idea that book distribution is about insisting and begging, but this is not a good approach. In reality, successful book distribution is more about finding favourable people and speaking to them in a way that increases their interest or curiosity to the point of taking a book. For this, it’s important to keep our interactions with uninterested or hostile people polite, but short, so we have time for the ones who are open. When someone thinks that he knows everything and is all perfect already, it’s very difficult to change his mentality. It’s much more effective to focus on the ripe fruits.

We should also remember that we are few and there are so many people in each city. If we spend too much time speaking with a single person, this is violence to the others, who are deprived of also having a chance of receiving transcendental knowledge. There are a lot of people out there who are looking for spiritual knowledge, just waiting for a chance to start their Krsna consciousness. If we insist one, two times and a person still doesn’t want the book, it’s time to go to the next one. He had his chance, now it’s time to give a chance to someone else. Naturally, when someone is nice and interested, we may spend more time, since then the goal is to make him a devotee, which should have a higher priority than to just distribute a book. The main point is that we should use our time wisely.