Selling Tupperware helped gain success
When Linda Johnson was growing up in Dartmouth, N.S., a local politician successfully lobbied to scrap a decades-old rule barring girls from wearing trousers at school.
That bit of local activism stuck with Johnson, 53, and the anecdote came up when she mentioned her decision to run for the provincial legislature for the PCS in CalgaryGlenmore.
“I’m a firm believer that one person can make a difference,” Johnson said.
Johnson is a rookie MLA, but no political neophyte: she once worked as an assistant to former Calgary Centre MP Harvie Andre and as a constituency assistant to former Calgary West MP Jim Hawkes.
Although that experience helped hone Johnson’s political instincts, she credits 12 years as a sales manager for Tupperware — a kitchenware brand with a strong emphasis on home sales and parties — with helping her develop a winning formula on the hustings.
Many members of Johnson’s former sales force became campaign workers, and many voters she encountered on their doorsteps were people she sold products to, she said.
“To do Tupperware, you have to be successful in how you speak with people,” she said.
“It takes a lot of trust to let someone in your kitchen.’
Selling Tupperware was a good fit with Johnson’s decision to stay home to raise three children, she said.
Those children are old enough now that Johnson felt the time was right to progress from working for politicians to becoming one herself.
“I see being an MLA as another way of giving back,” she said.