Salesmanship

When I was a kid we had a visit from an encyclopedia salesman.  I listened as he gave my parents a very elaborate and (to me) persuasive pitch about how we needed this very expensive set of books.  My entire academic future seemed to hinge on whether I had access to this magical compendium of knowledge, complete with multiple layer maps and illustrations.  Of course the books cost as much the car my parents owned at the time, and of course despite my protests, they let this man walk out the door without placing an order, even though convenient financing was available.
That is my first memory of a sales pitch, and as you can probably imagine, it was not a positive experience.  As an eight year old kid, I had no frame of reference to balance out the fear mongering and urgency that seemed to be attached to getting my parents to by encyclopedias, something they honestly didn't need, because libraries exist.  Eight year old me had no idea about any of that.
Fast forward to my first job out of college: selling office supplies and electronics at Staples (yes, that is very GenX, working retail with a bachelor's degree in your pocket).  I discovered that my own personal sales style was to actually try and figure out what people needed and help them get it.  I was just plain bad at what was called, in the training modules: up-selling, or trying to get people to buy a more expensive thing.  I was lousy at selling extended warranties, which were major sources of bonuses for me and profit margin for the store.
Customers actually liked me, because I was honest about stuff that they were hesitant about.  I could sell things that I thought were good: talk to me about HP laserjet printers from the mid 1990s, those things were amazing and lasted forever, they didn't do color though and so I usually ended up hawking a lot of inkjet printers of various makes, which I knew were fickle and unreliable beasts that would probably crap out in a year or so (I could actually justify the extended warranties on those).
A lot has changed in almost 20 years, but I'm still not much of a salesman. It would probably benefit me professionally if I was better at it.  After all, I'm now "selling" a product in which I actually believe: the redeeming power of Christ and the community of his Church.  I truly believe that Jesus is the way, and the truth, and the life.  I believe that individuals can live more truly and fully in faith.  I believe that the world can be changed by people who authentically follow Jesus.
But I still don't want to sell it.
Honestly, I believe that if it needs to be "sold," it's probably not worth buying (I'm sure many will disagree with that assumption, that's okay).
I have, in my own mind, found the three things that should absolutely sell themselves: faith, hope and love.  So my strategy is to simply let the products speak for themselves.
I am pretty turned off by people who are essentially selling the same thing as me, but who seem to be perfectly okay using fear, false information and even violence to "spread the Good News." I'm just not sure how that works.  I understand that you can "sell" people with those methods, I get that they have been effective in the past, what I don't get is how people square up using those tools in the name of Jesus.
In my mind, if a church grows because it manages to make people fear God's wrath, it is not really growing in the Spirit of Christ.  Likewise, if a church grows because it nurtures it's people in positive thinking and strategies for worldly prosperity, I question the authenticity.  I try not to judge another man's servant, but I'm pretty sure they're not following the Jesus I find in the Gospels.
I see, in current trends, a reflection of how the various "sales techniques" the church has been using are failing.  Fear isn't pushing the numbers the same way it used to, but it can still get some.  Prosperity can still inspire faith that's a mile wide and an inch deep, but there is, I feel, a deep hunger for something more real.
If the problems have come from old sales models, maybe we should look at the newer ones: Carmax and Amazon.  Both emphasize a model where the product takes center stage and the salesman is no longer the driving force.  Don't get me wrong, they both have sales practices, and teams of people working on selling, but there's a crucial difference: it doesn't push people's buttons, it just lets them choose what they really want.  Carmax has become one of the most popular ways to purchase a new vehicle, one that traditional dealerships are starting to emulate (partially out of necessity).  It's popular because you don't have to go through the "let me go talk to my manager" sort of nonsense that everyone who ever bought a car had to sit through.  Amazon is practically taking over the world because you can get exactly what you want, fast with a whole lot less hassle than it used to take to drive to the mall or even a big box store.  When you browse Amazon you have lots of product information and the ability to see what others thought of the same product, you can give feedback of your own and the more people participate in the process, the better the overall thing works for all.
Amazon uses affinity algorithms to put adds and email in your way that are meant to lead you into buying more stuff, but there is never anything like a pushy salesperson or a high pressure sell.
It bears mentioning that Amazon also loses money, but continues to grow, in odd defiance of economic common sense, but that is perhaps what makes it something the church could learn from: it's not necessarily about the bottom line, sometimes it's just about giving people what they need.  Are we serving the poor?  Are we bringing people into closer relationship with God?  Are we challenging people to grow in faith?  Are we giving hope to the hopeless?  Are we loving?
The product and our methods and behavior are not separable.  If Amazon all of the sudden stopped being fast and convenient and out-servicing other retail methods, it would implode with a quickness.
To some extent, I think, the church has let go of the world-changing power of what it has to sell: the love of God, the fellowship of the Spirit and the grace of Jesus Christ, as the old benediction goes.
We need to remember that, honestly, those things sell themselves.