Watchtower's New Sales Training Program For Jehovah's Witnesses

Watchtower has released a new training video for Jehovah's Witnesses that walks through how to approach people at the door. Having spent about three years in home remodeling and construction sales before leaving the religion roughly nine years ago, I recognized every move in it instantly — because I sat through the same course, just aimed at selling a different kind of product.

The video is not an isolated curiosity. It's the second part of a series responding to a real problem: the preaching work is barely keeping pace with population growth, and it's losing ground in wealthy countries. This new sales training is aimed at two different customers at once — the person at the door, and the Jehovah's Witness delivering the pitch.

The Problem the New Training Is Meant to Solve

Any organization that starts implementing a structured sales process is usually doing it because its bottom line is in trouble — whether that bottom line is counted in dollars or in people.

The new video, "Love the Ministry, Conversational But Focused," is about five minutes long and was published on JW.org on September 14. It's the second entry in a series meant to revive zeal for the ministry among Jehovah's Witnesses. The first video in that series, "Love the Ministry, Responsibility," came out a few days earlier as part of the September 2026 JW Broadcasting program.

A sister named Sarah, from Switzerland, describes what happened when Watchtower stopped requiring publishers to report their hours in November 2023:

When the adjustment came that we no longer need to report service hours, it actually felt like a real weight had been lifted off my shoulders. I felt a bit more relaxed at home and was able to take things more slowly.

A brother from Korea, in that same first video, admits what happened to his return visits once he no longer had to report them:

I occasionally postponed return visits I should have made.

Take away the hour count and witnesses go out less. That's not speculation — it's Watchtower's own training material saying so. Hours were a gauge of how spiritual a person was in the religion, and privileges were tied to it. Remove the effect on someone's standing in the congregation, and going door to door — something almost nobody actually enjoys, whatever they believe about its purpose — naturally drops off. It's also, as the sales training itself implies, not very effective.

What the Numbers Actually Show

In the first video, a Korean brother says that what really matters isn't the numbers. That's a little rich coming from an organization that, for its entire history, has treated growth numbers as proof that it's the "true religion" — Jehovah speeding up the work, the small one becoming a mighty nation. Watchtower still publishes those numbers, so let's look at them.

In 2019 — the last full year before COVID, so nobody can blame the pandemic — Watchtower reported about 9.6 million Bible studies worldwide. In 2025, that number was 7.6 million. Studies crashed during COVID and have climbed back since, but they're still about 20% below where they were.

That count is also inflated by design: under Watchtower's rules, a publisher can count a Bible study conducted with their own unbaptized children — one per family, not per child. By my estimate, somewhere between one in ten and four in ten of the studies counted worldwide are just the children of witnesses, depending on the country. In the United States, that figure runs around four in ten — roughly 25% of all studies there. Watchtower doesn't break this out, so it can't be known exactly, but across the world that likely means somewhere between 760,000 and almost 2 million of the counted studies are simply witnesses studying with their own kids.

The pioneer numbers tell a different story. In 2019, Watchtower reported close to 1.3 million regular pioneers. By 2025, that was up to 1.7 million — about a third more. That jump likely traces to 2023, when Watchtower dropped the pioneer hour requirement from 70 hours a month to 50. Lower the price of the title, and more people take it on. But do the math: a third more pioneers working 50 hours a month instead of 70 works out to roughly the same total number of required hours as in 2019. Watchtower didn't gain more preaching from all those new pioneers — it gained a third more people holding a title, with something to lose if they let it go. Being a pioneer carries real social standing in the organization, and unlike rank-and-file publishers, pioneers still have to report their hours every month.

Growth in Some Places, Retreat in Others

Watchtower reports net growth of about 1.25% a year over the last decade. With world population growing at roughly 1%, the organization is managing to keep its head above water globally. But that average hides a lot.

Comparing publisher growth against the population figures Watchtower itself prints, country by country, from 2019 to 2025: in four out of ten countries with at least 1,000 publishers, growth trailed population growth. That group includes the United States, Canada, Mexico, Argentina, Nigeria, and South Africa. Where Watchtower is outrunning the population, it's in places like Mozambique, Zambia, Ghana, and the Philippines — countries where the general population itself is booming. The growth is being carried by poorer countries with fast population growth, while the organization loses ground in its biggest market in the Americas.

Add to that a Pew Research religious landscape study showing two out of three Americans raised as Jehovah's Witnesses leave the religion as adults, plus the fact that roughly a quarter of Bible studies in the U.S. are just witnesses' own children, and the shape of the problem is clear: the preaching work isn't bringing in outside converts fast enough to replace the people leaving.

The real numbers are worse than even that. When Watchtower introduced its checkbox reporting system — where a publisher no longer counts hours at all, just marks that they shared in some form of ministry — it became much easier to be counted as "active." That produced a surge in the numbers, but it isn't real growth. It's paper growth.

A Familiar Sales Process, Repackaged as Ministry

Here's how the new training video opens:

One time I was at the door ready to deliver my presentation, magazine in hand. A man opens the door. He seemed really friendly, but as soon as he saw the magazine in my hand, he was like, "Oh, no. I don't want that." So, I quickly put the magazine back into my bag and I said, "It's okay. No worries. You don't have to take this." I just really want to talk to you. And to my surprise, he smiled, he relaxed, and we ended up having a really nice conversation. I've realized that people respond better when we are being ourselves and also when they don't sense that we might have some kind of agenda.

That's Maria Hall. Notice what she doesn't say: that her agenda went away. It got concealed. The video admits as much a couple of minutes later, when the goal is stated plainly — "if our goal is to make disciples" — and a couple named Ed and Jenny, from Hawaii, describe the same approach:

And then we just keep practicing. Just talk to everybody as often as you can. We're just trying to connect with people as persons. If our goal is to make disciples, it'll help us to not nitpick or maybe correct. Find common ground and see what they're telling me why they need the kingdom.

I don't have any real issue with Maria having an agenda. My issue is that this video is teaching witnesses how to appear not to have one, so their message gets heard. That's a real sales technique — I was taught something similar, though differently. Showing up at someone's house because they called about a remodel, they already know why you're there. One of the first things I was taught to say was that I was on salary, so it didn't matter to me whether they hired my company or not. It put people at ease because they knew it wasn't going to be a high-pressure pitch. That wasn't my company's style, and it wasn't mine either. Watchtower's approach does the same thing by a different route: put away the magazine, and it doesn't look like a pitch.

A sister named Naine, in the first video of the series, was more honest about the mechanics:

In the past, I was kind of like a Bible machine. You went to the door with everything prepared, ready to share your scripture. And now I wanted to switch to small talk. So I became a small talk machine. There was this tiny neglected garden. And I said, "Oh, it's so nice here." And in that moment, even I didn't believe what I was saying. It was just a way to start some small talk. But I think sometimes it really wasn't the best.

Credit to Watchtower for including that admission of insincerity in its own training material. The intended takeaway is presumably that witnesses should mean it more. What it actually shows is that the small talk was always a technique — and Naine knew it. That's standard sales training too: walk up, look at the yard, the house, the cars, find something for common ground before you ever mention the product.

Watchtower seems aware of how this looks. Naine also says, in the same video:

The love people brochure is not about techniques. It's about qualities. I find it amazing what kind of training we receive and how it helps us to become more sensitive to situations to discern what would really benefit my neighbor at that moment. We practice doing this not as a technique the way sales people might but out of genuine love. I think that it makes the ministry so much more interesting and yeah it brings more joy than just going through the motions.

Every technique demonstrated in the second video has a name in sales training. Watching it, the resemblance to my own sales training was striking — the same process, condensed into five minutes instead of weeks of instruction, in the same order: the setup, the prep, the conversation, the follow-up, the long game, and the close. The only real difference is that Watchtower tells witnesses to defer the close, while I was trained to close on the first appointment.

The Setup

The magazine goes back in the bag — get the thing that screams "salesman" out of sight, because nobody opens up to a pitch. Sergio, another figure in the video, explains the purpose directly:

Only when a person relaxes and feels understood will they tell you about their real needs. Sincerity and kindness cannot be faked.

"Their real needs" could have come straight out of the manual I was issued. Find the need before you present the product, because you can't sell a solution until you know what problem the person thinks they have. Watchtower's product is the kingdom, but a product is still a product.

The Prep

Maria explains her preparation routine:

I still realize that for me to have a good conversation with somebody, I need to be prepared. I check the news and I'll also browse some articles on jw.org just looking for some topics that I think people in my territory might be interested in. And so one of the things we did for our family worship was to take out the appendix A of the Love People brochure just to have some Bible truths ready to go. So whenever somebody comes through the door now, I smile. I warmly greet them and I just simply say that I stop by hoping that we can just have a conversation.

Three techniques in thirty seconds: pre-call research (know something about your territory before you knock), product knowledge (having answers ready in advance), and a scripted opener rehearsed until it sounds unrehearsed. I had versions of all three in my own training, including a binder of prepared answers to almost any objection a homeowner might raise, which I was tested on before being allowed to talk to a customer.

There's something worth noting in the "check the news" line. The same month this training video appeared, the midweek meeting workbook scheduled a replay of a 2019 video featuring a sister who is a finance professor:

When I cut back watching so many news reports and I had to, this helped me to have self-control when I spoke to others at work. When workmates mentioned something that was in the news, I didn't have anything to say since I hadn't seen it. I didn't know about it.

And the December 2026 study edition of The Watchtower tells readers to limit the time spent reviewing news about "socially divisive issues" and preach instead. So the news is treated as a hazard when it's in a witness's head, but a useful tool when it's in a witness's mouth at the door — which is exactly how a sales manager thinks about it. Know just enough about the customer to open the conversation, not enough to get personally invested.

The Conversation

I also noticed that using open-ended questions works really well in the ministry. In this way, it helps me to see what a person is really thinking. I'm going ask a question like, "If you could solve one problem, what would it be?" Then to show them that I'm really listening to them, I might repeat back what they're saying to me. I may also ask, "May I ask why you feel this way?" Just to kind of gently keep the conversation going.

"If you could solve one problem, what would it be?" is a discovery question. Repeating back what someone says is mirroring. "May I ask why you feel this way?" is an objection probe — you don't argue with an objection, you ask about it, because someone explaining their objection is still talking to you, and objections often aren't really about what they seem to be about.

Ed and Jenny's line about talking to "everybody as often as you can" is prospecting — the same logic behind a remodeling company advertising everywhere it can to get as many appointments as possible. It's a numbers game. "Find common ground" is rapport building. And "see what they're telling me why they need the kingdom" gives the whole thing away: whatever problem the person names, the answer is already decided. That's not listening — in my old job we called it mapping the need to the product. The one real difference is that my company would sometimes admit it couldn't solve a customer's problem and walk away. Jehovah's Witnesses are taught they have the answer for everything.

The Follow-Up

I try not to focus on placing literature again, but more on keeping the conversation going by asking thoughtful follow-up questions. I try not to answer everything on the same visit, but I save something for the next time and to also build some anticipation.

Don't push the literature, keep the person talking — that's relationship over transaction. Saving something for next time is a deliberate callback. In my industry, competition meant we were trained to close on the first call, because customers were usually getting quotes from several companies at once. Watchtower doesn't have that kind of competition at the door, and the thing it's selling costs far more than money — an entire lifestyle, a break from non-witness friends and holidays, submission to the governing body. Nobody closes a sale that size on the first visit. You build the relationship first.

The Long Game

Sergio provides a worked example, describing meeting a Chinese university student:

I met a Chinese university student who was a painter. I was studying and I asked him if he could help me pronounce a Chinese word. We began chatting and he showed me his artwork on his phone and explained the meaning behind each piece. After several coffees together, I asked if he would like to learn some Bible accounts since many famous works of art are based on the Bible. He said that reading the Bible was nice, but it seemed difficult to think there was a deeper meaning or a higher mind behind it.

Asking for a small favor — help pronouncing a word — is one of the oldest warm-ups there is; people who help you tend to like you more afterward. Several coffees before any mention of the Bible is a multi-touch relationship build. And when the student pushes back, Sergio doesn't argue with him — he asks a question he already knows the answer to:

So I asked him to imagine how he would feel if one day his paintings were in a museum and admired yet people claimed they had no meaning. Would it not be just as sad to admire the Bible but not acknowledge its meaning? That made him think and we began studying the Bible.

That's a tie-down: frame the question so the only comfortable answer is yes, then carry that yes over to what you actually wanted. It only works because the earlier coffees established how much the student's art mattered to him.

The Close

Even the pep talk at the end of the video is familiar:

The principle in Ecclesiastes 11:6 about just sewing your seeds. The results might not be the best. We might not even know when the result comes and we just keep trying it. So the more we talk to people, the more we get comfortable with it, the easier it becomes.

That's the same kind of talk given on a sales floor after a slow week — it comes in waves, just keep at it, it's a numbers game.

What Watchtower Stopped Counting

The training isn't just aimed at converting the person at the door. In November 2023, Watchtower stopped having publishers report hours, and stopped reporting the number of placements, video showings, or return visits. What replaced all of it was a single checkbox for having shared in any form of ministry.

No organization trains a sales force and then stops counting the sales — unless the sale isn't the whole point. What's still being measured is whether the witness shows up. And the training defines success not as a study started, but as a conversation that felt good. Naine again:

In the short time since we've adjusted our approach, so many more people have told me at the end of a conversation, "Oh, that was really nice." Or, "That really did me good." And I thought, "Wow, that's so amazing that it's reaching people and that it's genuinely benefiting them."

Maria's magazine story ends the same way — not with a study started, but with a nice conversation. Out of the entire second video, there's exactly one conversion shown: Sergio's student, after several coffees. The win these videos celebrate is a pleasant interaction at the door.

The Ministry as Medicine for the Witness

Sales technique here doubles as an anesthetic. Sarah, from earlier, connects going out with how she feels:

I realized that when I go in the ministry more, I also receive more joy. And that motivated me to actually try pioneering. I would tell myself, "Hey Sarah, pull yourself together. Get up. Go in the ministry. You know for a fact that tonight you'll feel much better than if you stayed on the couch all day."

That's not evangelism, it's a prescription — and it's the same prescription Watchtower issues elsewhere. A brother in a 2025 Watchtower video describes struggling with the news:

When you watch the news, you see many pictures that simply haunt you. I noticed that this was not good for me. And it bothered me more and more. Besides, it was too time consuming. After a while, you begin to realize that you are somehow consumed by your thoughts. I realized that it was not simply information that I was processing, but my feelings were stirred. And how easily you can lose focus. You don't notice it straight away, but I realized that for me, it was simply too much news. The only solution was to be occupied with Jehovah's news. The news which is good for me, Jehovah's promises. What really helped me was to focus on strengthening my trust in Jehovah and concentrating more on the preaching work. It brought me closer to Jehovah and gave me inner peace and calm.

A witness who's rattled, bored, or drifting is told the cure is more time in the ministry — and in Sarah's case, that led directly to pioneering.

The Other Sale: Turning Witnesses Into Pioneers

Two days after the new training video went up, an account on Reddit called Larchington — with a long track record of leaking Watchtower material before it's public — posted the outline for an elders' meeting with pioneers and field missionaries, scheduled for December or January. Its theme is "pioneering helps us remain steadfast in uncertain times," with section headings including "why stability matters," "people need the truth," "pioneering stabilizes us spiritually," and "pioneering stabilizes us in practical ways." Three of those four headings are about what pioneering does for the pioneer, not the householder. It reads like a sixty-minute meeting built to keep pioneers pioneering because it's good for them — and for Watchtower.

Recall the earlier math: a third more pioneers, working fewer hours each, adding up to roughly the same total preaching hours as before, against a fifth fewer Bible studies. The title of pioneer functions as its own product, and the witness holding it is the customer. Once someone takes on a title like that — with the social standing attached, and the guilt that comes with giving it up — it becomes a much harder thing to walk away from than plain, replaceable door-to-door work.

There's one more line worth sitting with. Sergio, describing how he thinks about the people he meets:

I often imagine what this person might be like if they become a servant of Jehovah. I realize they could be someone I would enjoy serving with in the congregation. Thinking this way helps me respect them and become their friend. Hopefully forever.

Hopefully forever — but only if they convert. In the meantime, the friendship depends on the study continuing.

Every technique in this training video has a name and a purpose in a sales manual somewhere, and Watchtower borrowed all of them for a product it insists isn't being sold at all.