There’s a particular kind of quiet that settles over a team when everyone wakes up in a different town. This week, Team 7UP wasn’t knocking on doors in a tidy cluster — we were spread across the map like pins on a corkboard. Parvin and Matthias were working Huron. The girls had set up in Watertown. Michael and Gabriel were out in Yankton. Three towns, one team, all of us doing the same thing at the same time: walking up to strangers’ doors and finding out what the day had in store.

It’s strange how that works. You’d think being apart would make the summer feel lonelier, but somehow it does the opposite. Every night, phones light up with stories from three different corners of the state, and you realize the whole team is stretching in the same direction even when nobody’s standing next to each other to see it happen.

The Stretch

Southwestern has a way of taking whatever comfort zone you walked in with and quietly dismantling it, one doorbell at a time. Working solo towns like this week does exactly that. There’s no teammate three doors down to lean on, no one to bounce a joke off between houses. It’s just you, the sidewalk, and whoever answers. And somehow, that’s exactly the kind of pressure that makes people grow. You get better at reading a stranger’s face in the first two seconds. You get better at recovering when a door closes a little too fast. You get better, honestly, at being alone with your own thoughts for long stretches of a hot afternoon — which turns out to be its own kind of skill.

Yankton: Michael, the Dogs, and a Home to Call His Own

Michael’s week in Yankton delivered one of those wins that makes all the walking worth it — he found a host family. Anyone who’s done this kind of summer knows what that means: a bed that’s yours for the stretch, a kitchen table, maybe someone to ask how your day went. It’s a small thing that makes a very large difference.

But if you ask Michael what he’ll remember most about Yankton, there’s a decent chance it won’t be the host family — it’ll be the dogs. For reasons nobody can quite explain, the dogs of Yankton took an immediate and enthusiastic liking to him. Not just a friendly sniff and a wag, either. Multiple dogs decided the best use of their afternoon was to climb into Michael’s lap and sit there, fully committed, as if he’d been personally appointed the town’s dog whisperer. There’s something very on-brand about a summer where the humans are a mixed bag of yeses and no-thank-yous, and the dogs are unanimous.

Gabriel, working alongside Michael in Beresford, had his own version of the door-to-door mental game. Somewhere in the long stretches between houses, Gabriel found himself deep in high-level self-talk — the kind of internal pep talk that keeps your feet moving toward the next door even when your brain would rather sit down in the shade. And when the humans weren’t biting, Gabriel gave the dogs a shot too, trying out a bit of conversation on Beresford’s canine population, with results about as clear as you’d expect from a species that communicates primarily through tail position.

Huron: A Family, a Barbecue, and the Nicest Police Officers in Town

Over in Huron, Matthias had a week that sounds like it could only happen on a door-to-door summer. Going house to house, he found his own host family — that particular relief of knowing where you’ll sleep tonight, found the old-fashioned way, one knock at a time.

Then came the barbecue. A pastor in Huron happened to be hosting one, and rather than send Matthias on his way, invited him in and sent him off with burgers and hot dogs. It’s the kind of unplanned kindness that this job seems to specialize in — you go out expecting doors, and every so often a door opens into a full meal instead.

Not every encounter was quite so warm, though. At some point, someone in Huron called the police on Matthias — which, if you’ve never had it happen, is a genuinely unsettling moment when you’re just a student trying to talk about books. But the officers who showed up were kind about the whole thing, which turned what could have been the low point of the week into just another strange story for the collection.

Meanwhile, the girls kept things moving in Watertown, putting in their own hours on their own streets, before everyone shifted again.

On the Move, Again

Sunday brought the usual reshuffling. Gabriel packed up and headed for North Sioux City. The girls left Watertown behind for Brookings. New towns, new streets, new doors — the map keeps redrawing itself, and the team keeps redrawing itself to match it.

We don’t know exactly how many more weeks of this the summer has left in it (we know). What we do know is that this job was never really about the doors. It’s about what happens after you knock — the dog that decides you’re its new best friend, the pastor who feeds you when you least expect it, the police officers who turn a scary moment into a kind one. Door by door, town by town, we’re getting braver, we’re building friendships that will outlast this summer by years, and we’re collecting stories we’ll be telling for a long time to come.

Team 7UP

There’s a rhythm Team 7UP has settled into by now — knock, talk, laugh, knock again, repeat until the Sioux Falls sky starts doing that long, golden Midwest-summer thing right before dusk. Week 10 had all of that familiar rhythm, but it also had something new humming underneath it: the quiet awareness that the summer is entering its final stretch, and every ordinary day is starting to feel a little more worth remembering.

By now, comfort zones aren’t just being stretched — they’ve been stretched, folded, stretched again, and somewhere in there turned into something closer to confidence. Selling books door to door will do that to a person. You learn to recover fast from a “no,” to actually listen when someone wants to talk about their day, and to find the humor in situations you never would have signed up for on paper. Team 7UP has become noticeably more resilient, more adaptable, and — maybe most importantly — more knit together as a team. Ten weeks in, that shows.

Adventures, Big Horns, and a Dog With Zero Boundaries

Some of the best stories this summer haven’t happened at doors at all — they’ve happened in the in-between moments. This week, Liisa, Mari, and Luise decided they wanted to swim in a lake, so, in true 7UP fashion, they simply did. Liisa tracked down a car for the mini road trip, and the group set off — though not before hitting their first real obstacle of the day: which fuel actually goes in the car. There’s now a video circulating of the girls deep in serious debate over this exact question, and it’s exactly as suspenseful as it sounds. Good news for everyone involved — they figured it out, the car survived, and the lake swim happened as planned.

Luise, meanwhile, continued her streak of somehow ending up in the most unusual and wonderful situations. She met a dog this week with absolutely no concept of personal space — a good boy whose favorite move is putting his face directly up against yours, as close as physically possible. She also danced an Estonian national song with a family who welcomed her in, which is the kind of moment that doesn’t show up in a sales pitch training manual but might be one of the realest parts of this whole experience. And in between all that, she tried Ethiopian food made from plantain flour — one more entry in what is turning into a very well-traveled summer palate.

Michael had a day that could’ve gone sideways twice and instead went right both times — two separate bike problems in the same day, and both resolved themselves with almost suspicious speed and good luck. Doors kept opening for him in more ways than one this week, too: he ended up in conversations with people from Eritrea, Ethiopia, Nepal, Bhutan, Thailand, and Taiwan — a reminder that Sioux Falls, South Dakota, of all places, holds an entire world’s worth of stories if you’re willing to knock and ask.

And Parvin? Parvin saw more cows. Specifically, more cows with genuinely impressive horns. South Dakota delivers.

A Flower Power Win for Liisa

This week’s Flower Power recognition goes to Liisa, which means she now has the power to send flowers to anyone, anywhere. It’s a small prize with a nice ripple effect — proof that hard work this week didn’t go unnoticed, and a fun bit of magic to have in her back pocket for whenever the moment feels right.

Taco Bell, Goodbyes, and Three Directions

Sunday looked a little different this time. Instead of gathering in person, the team held their weekly meeting online — because right after, everyone was heading in three different directions: Yankton, Watertown, and Huron. But before the group scattered across South Dakota, all seven of them — Mari, Liisa, Luise, Parvin, Matthias, Gabriel, and Michael — sat down together one more time for breakfast at Taco Bell. There’s a photo of the whole crew from that morning, and it’s the kind of picture that doesn’t need much explanation: seven people, one table, about to head off in separate directions, still finding a reason to laugh before they did.

Looking Ahead

As the final weeks of the summer come into view, Team 7UP is carrying more than sales numbers and mileage logs. They’re carrying lake-swim memories, fuel-debate footage, a dog with no sense of personal space, an Estonian dance shared with strangers who became, for one evening, something like friends. They’re carrying conversations with people from six different countries, cows with big horns, and lucky bike fixes.

Because in the end, this summer was never only about knocking on doors. It’s about becoming a little braver every single day, building friendships that will outlast the summer by years, and quietly collecting a stack of stories that Team 7UP will still be telling — and laughing about — long after the last door has closed.

Team 7UP

Nine weeks in, and the rhythm of this summer has settled into something like muscle memory. Wake up, coffee, turf talk, doors, more doors, dinner, doors again, and somewhere in between, a hundred small moments that no one could have predicted when we packed our bags back in Europe. Week 9 was no exception — it handed us fly encounters, rescued turtles, lookalikes, lemonade ambushes, and a birthday that stretched across an entire week. Sioux Falls, you keep surprising us.

Getting Braver, One Door at a Time

There’s a particular kind of courage that only shows up after you’ve knocked on your five-hundredth door. It’s quieter than the nervous energy of Week 1 — steadier, more grounded. Nine weeks of walking up unfamiliar driveways, introducing ourselves to strangers, and learning to read a “no thank you” from a “tell me more” has changed all of us in ways we’re still discovering. We’ve become more resilient, more adaptable, and honestly, closer to each other than we were even a month ago. Every rejected pitch and every long conversation on a porch step is quietly building something in us that no classroom back home ever could.

The Week’s Cast of Characters

Every week on Team 7UP produces its own small anthology of stories, and Week 9 delivered plenty.

Mari had a genuine double-take moment when she spotted a man who looked exactly like her old history teacher — same face, same presence, completely out of context in the middle of South Dakota. It’s the kind of thing that makes you stop mid-sentence.

Liisa, in the middle of her birthday week, made a discovery that might outlast the summer itself: she loves food. Not just any food — food that, in her words, “alivens” her taste buds. Ribs, specifically, made quite an impression this week.

Parvin had two stories that could not be more different in tone. First, the less glamorous one: he swallowed a fly somewhere in the middle of South Dakota and felt it linger uncomfortably for a while afterward — a reminder that not every surprise on the road is a pleasant one. But he balanced the ledger by rescuing a turtle from the middle of the street and carrying it safely to a nearby river. He also spent meaningful time meeting Native American people this week, adding new perspectives to his summer.

Michael had a week full of connection. He crossed paths with two different Polish-speaking families, which, for someone far from home, is the kind of small linguistic gift that makes a whole day better. He also met a man named Michael Scott — yes, like the character from The Office — which needs no further commentary. Along the way, he also drove past more than a few remarkably expensive houses, quietly noting just how different neighborhoods can look from one street to the next.

Gabriel spent part of his week at Tea City High School, where he met Principal David Preheim. They talked through the school district — what’s working well and where there’s room to grow — and Gabriel also showed him the Southwestern products along the way. Later in the week, in one of those “did I really just see that” moments, Gabriel spotted African cows with strikingly large horns on the side of the road. Sioux Falls really does keep you guessing.

Matthias had a week full of small, warm surprises. He met a Southwestern alumni who, out of generosity, handed him a Hy-Vee gift card. Someone even chased him down the street just to make sure he didn’t miss out on their lemonade. And he spent time with a woman who was fascinated by Estonia, peppering him with question after question about the country.

7UP Spotlight: Sizzler Sunglasses

This week’s competition was Sizzler Sunglasses, and the winners were Gabriel, Liisa, and Mari. Congratulations to all three — well earned, well deserved, and now proudly worn around the house.

A Birthday, Three Languages, One Cake

Friday was Liisa’s birthday, and the team wasn’t about to let a full day of doors get in the way of celebrating. The girls gathered for a pizza night after work — the kind of low-key, well-earned celebration that hits differently after a long day on turf.

The celebration continued into Sunday, when the team had dinner with one of our host families. There was angel cake, and there was singing — “Happy Birthday” performed in Estonian, English, and Polish, back to back to back. It’s a small thing, three languages wrapped around one cake, but it captured something bigger about this summer: seven different backgrounds, one team, one table.

Giving Back

Also this week, the team visited a senior home, bringing roses for the residents and, more importantly, bringing time — sitting, listening, and talking with people who were glad for the company. It was a good reminder that this summer isn’t only about what we’re building for ourselves. Sometimes the best part of the day isn’t a sale at all — it’s a conversation with someone who just wanted to be heard.

Looking Ahead

Nine weeks down, and the stories keep piling up faster than we can write them. Here’s to the doors still ahead of us — because this summer was never just about knocking on them. It’s about becoming braver, building friendships that will outlast this summer, giving back where we can, and collecting stories we’ll be telling for years to come.

Team 7UP

Eight weeks in, and Sioux Falls has stopped feeling like a place we’re just passing through. The turf is starting to feel like ours — or at least, like a stage we know how to work.

Week 8 had its own rhythm: wake up, review, hit the doors, and keep showing up no matter what the last door taught you. Some days that rhythm felt easy. Other days it felt like dragging yourself uphill in July heat with a demo book under your arm. But that’s the thing about this summer — the rhythm doesn’t ask if you’re tired. It just asks if you’re going to show up anyway. And every single time, we did.

Getting braver, one door at a time

Nobody warns you, before a summer like this, how much a single street can teach you about yourself. Every knock is a tiny referendum on your own nerve. Will you smile through the “not interested”? Will you stay curious when the conversation goes somewhere you didn’t expect? Week 8 asked those questions over and over, and one by one, we’re getting better at answering “yes.”

We’re braver than we were in June. We’re more comfortable improvising, more forgiving of our own bad days, and — maybe most importantly — we’ve gotten a lot better at leaning on each other when the doors aren’t going our way. That’s not something you can fake by Week 8. You either build it or you don’t, and this team is building it.

The stories only this job gives you

If you want proof that no two days on turf are ever the same, just ask Matthias. This week, a man who had served in the Army gave him a medal — the kind of moment you don’t see coming and don’t forget. Later, a family invited him in to show him the travel books they’d made of their own trips, page after page of a life lived on the road. And in a twist that still makes us laugh, one woman asked him — not once, not twice, but five separate times — where exactly he was staying this summer. Some questions just deserve to be asked on repeat, apparently.

Matthias also had one of those full-circle moments this job is famous for: he ran into a man whose parents he’d knocked on the door of earlier this summer, all the way back in Rapid City. Small world, smaller state.

Michael had his own run of fascinating doors — a conversation with someone who works with both NASA and Oracle, a chat with a retired airline pilot who flew for Delta for 33 years, and, almost unbelievably, a man who spent six years of his youth flying F-16s. You knock enough doors in South Dakota and you start to realize everyone has a chapter of their life you’d never guess just from looking at them.

Luise met a man named Yafat this week — one of those names and conversations that just becomes part of the season’s tapestry.

And then there’s Gabriel, who spent his week out in village territory, driving through what felt like an endless sea of corn and soybean fields, and came home with a genuine cowboy hat to show for it. Somewhere in one of those fields, he also found himself trying to convince a horse to get out of his way — a negotiation that, we’re told, took a little longer than expected. We like to imagine the horse won that round.

Team 7UP Spotlight

Two shoutouts this week that we’re genuinely proud of. Gabriel took home the win for Dad’s Week — congratulations! And Luise hit the milestone of a 200-unit shirt, a number that represents a whole lot of doors, a whole lot of “no’s” turned into “yes’s,” and a whole lot of grit. We’re so proud of both of you.

A Sunday to breathe

This Sunday looked different than most. Instead of the usual jam-packed, activity-filled gathering, we sat down together for a relaxed movie night. No agenda, no rush, just friends on a couch after a demanding week, laughing at whatever needed laughing at and simply being present with each other. Sometimes the most important thing a team can do is nothing at all, together.

Looking ahead

Week 9 is coming, and if this summer has taught us anything, it’s that we have no idea what stories it will bring — and that’s exactly the point. Because in the end, this summer was never only about knocking on doors. It’s about becoming braver than we were yesterday, building friendships that will outlast the season, and collecting stories we’ll be telling each other for years to come.

Here’s to whatever’s behind the next door.

Team 7UP

Seven weeks in, and Sioux Falls turf still finds new ways to surprise us. You’d think by now we’d have seen it all — but this week alone brought talking parrots, a newspaper debut (two, actually), a new Minnesota Twins fan, and a whipped-cream-based team competition that got a little too enthusiastic in the best way possible.

By now, the rhythm of Southwestern life has settled into our bones: up early, coffee if we’re lucky, hours of walking, knocking, talking, laughing, getting told no, getting told yes, and somewhere in between, growing a little braver than we were the day before. Week 7 didn’t slow that rhythm down one bit. If anything, it reminded us why we keep choosing to knock on one more door, even when our feet are begging us to stop.

Stories from the Turf

Let’s start with Mari, because honestly, nothing this week topped her afternoon with ten parrots. Not one or two — ten, all trained to do tricks, in someone’s home like a tiny feathered circus. One parrot had apparently mastered the art of hospitality, cheerfully saying “hello” to anyone who walked in. The other parrot had… a different vocabulary. Let’s just say it skipped the pleasantries and went straight for a phrase that will not be repeated here, but that had the whole team laughing when Mari told the story. Turf has a way of humbling you, and apparently that includes being told off by a bird.

Parvin, meanwhile, has moved out into the villages, which means his days now involve a lot more driving and a lot less walking between houses. He’s summed up the scenery about as perfectly as anyone could: “To the left, corn; to the right, corn; and behind, soybeans.” If South Dakota ever needs a new slogan, we’ve got one ready. But the real headline — literally — is that Parvin made it into the local newspaper last week. And not to be outdone, Gabriel followed him into print this week, showing up in the Lennox Independent. Two team members, two headlines, one very real possibility that Team 7UP is quietly becoming local celebrities in South Dakota. For all the right reasons, we should add.

Michael made a headline of his own this week, even if it’s only official within our group chat: he’s now the proud owner of a Minnesota Twins hat, which apparently makes him a Minnesota Twins fan. We’ll let the state decide if that counts.

Not every story this week came with laughter attached, though. Luise had her patience and problem-solving tested twice by bike trouble — not exactly convenient when your bike is how you get to your houses. But if you know Luise, you know she didn’t panic. She stayed calm, worked through it, and got back on the road both times. And in the middle of all that, one homeowner left her a note letting her know there was a supper waiting for her — a small, unexpected kindness that showed up exactly when she needed it. It’s easy to talk about resilience in the abstract; it’s another thing to watch a teammate quietly demonstrate it twice in one week, and have the neighborhood look out for her along the way.

What Strangers Keep Teaching Us

Every door really does teach us something, whether it ends in a sale, a genuine conversation, or just a smile and a “not today.” This week reminded us that some of the best moments on turf have nothing to do with the sale at all — they’re the parrot encounters, the corn-field jokes, the newspaper photographers who show up unannounced, the small kindnesses from homeowners who didn’t have to be kind at all. We keep learning that the people of South Dakota are funnier, warmer, and more unpredictable than we ever expected, and we’re grateful for every single one of them.

7UP Spotlight

This week’s spotlight goes to the whole team, because honestly, everyone earned it.

To the one who turned a parrot’s rude outburst into the story of the summer, curiosity and warmth clearly aren’t going anywhere. To the one who keeps showing up with steady, positive energy no matter how long the day runs, thank you for being the glue. To the one who stayed calm through two separate bike breakdowns and just quietly solved both, that’s resilience in its purest, most unglamorous form. To the one adapting to village life, driving past corn fields in every direction and still bringing humor to the long stretches between houses, your work ethic hasn’t slipped one bit. To the one who keeps saying yes to strangers and letting unexpected moments turn into real conversations, that openness is what makes this whole summer worth it. To the one who showed hospitality all summer and is now, quite literally, a local headline, we’re not surprised people want to write about you. And to the one who stays composed and funny no matter what a door throws at them, you make every conversation better just by being in it.

But if we’re being honest, the real spotlight of Week 7 belongs to Pie-in-the-Eye.

Girls versus boys, one simple rule: whoever landed the most sit-downs during the week would get to end it by covering the other team’s faces in whipped cream. What started as a lighthearted little competition turned into a full week of trash talk, strategic scheduling, and everyone suddenly a lot more motivated to book that extra appointment. The girls pulled ahead, and by the end of the week, the boys knew exactly what was coming.

And it delivered. Whipped cream everywhere — on faces, in hair. Nobody was spared, nobody complained, and the photos from that afternoon might be some of our favorites from the entire summer. It was silly, it was messy, and it was exactly the kind of moment that reminds us why this team works so well together: we can grind all week, knock on hundreds of doors, and still find a reason to laugh until we’re crying in someone’s front yard.

That’s the spirit of 7UP. Hard work, real growth, and never taking ourselves too seriously.

Sundays That Recharge Us

All seven of us spent Sunday together, and it turned into one of the best days of the summer. Gabriel took us to visit the family he’d stayed with at the very start of the summer — the only one of us who knew them beforehand — and they welcomed the rest of the team like we’d been friends all along. We played tennis, watched the World Cup final together, celebrated Spain’s win over Argentina, cooled off in the pool, and ended the day with pizza. It wasn’t just a day off. It was generosity, new friendships, and laughter — exactly what we needed to recharge before another week on turf.

Thank You

To our families, friends, and everyone following along back home — thank you for cheering us on from thousands of miles away. Every message means more than you know.

Seven weeks down, and we’re more convinced than ever: this summer was never just about knocking on doors. It’s about becoming braver, building friendships that will outlast this summer, and collecting stories we’ll be telling for years to come.

Onward to Week 8.

Team 7UP

Six weeks in, and if you’d told us back in May that we’d be riding in the backs of trucks, chatting through doorbells, and reading about ourselves in the newspaper, we might have laughed you off the porch. And yet here we are — Team 7UP, slightly sunburnt, thoroughly seasoned, and somehow still finding new ways to be surprised by South Dakota.

Week six had all the ingredients we’ve come to expect from life on turf: long days that stretch out golden and endless, doors that test our nerve, and people who remind us — over and over — that kindness shows up in the most unexpected packages. But it also had a little something extra this week. Local fame. A newspaper feature. A dog with better footwork than most professional athletes. And a Sunday that taught us just as much as any doorstep conversation could.

Another Week, Another Set of Surprises

By now, the rhythm of our days is second nature — up early, out on turf, knock, smile, talk, listen, repeat, until the South Dakota sun finally dips low enough to send us home. But “routine” is a funny word for a job where absolutely nothing is routine. Every door is its own small adventure, and every conversation leaves its mark, whether it ends in a sale, a laugh, or just a genuine human moment on a stranger’s front step.

This week reminded us, once again, that growth doesn’t happen in one big dramatic leap. It happens in the small stuff — the doors we almost didn’t knock on, the conversations we didn’t expect to enjoy, the moments we’ll be telling stories about for years.

This Week’s Highlight Reel

Let’s start with our resident newspaper star: Parvin made it into the local paper this week, and we’ve decided Team 7UP is officially transitioning into local celebrities — making headlines for all the right reasons, thank you very much. Watch out, South Dakota; we’re famous now (in at least one zip code).

Matthias had a week that honestly sounds made up. He watched a man get completely “ankle broken” by his own dog mid-walk — the kind of wipeout that deserves a slow-motion replay. He rode standing in the back of a pickup truck like he was in a movie. A man he’d met weeks ago spotted him, stopped his car in the middle of the road just to say hello, and cheerfully caused a small traffic jam in the process. And in classic Southwestern fashion, a simple lemonade purchase from a young entrepreneur turned into a family dinner invitation the very next day. You really can’t make this stuff up.

Michael met a homeowner who was so committed to a comfortable conversation that she brought out a foldable chair just so she could sit while grilling him with questions about literally everything under the sun. After a thorough interrogation, her final verdict? Barnes & Noble has the best sales strategy in the business. Not the ending Michael expected, but certainly one he won’t forget. Michael, who had just spent ten minutes politely surviving this chair-side inquisition, was not about to go down like that. One glance at the actual numbers of families buying the books, and her confident stare cracked just slightly. Final score: Michael 1, Barnes & Noble 0.

Gabriel, meanwhile, discovered a whole new frontier in door-to-door sales: the Ring doorbell conversation. He sat comfortably on the porch, chatting away with a homeowner who never actually opened the door — pure 2026 sales technique. Later in the week, he watched the city’s mosquito-control truck roll through, trailing its thick cloud of insecticide, and dryly joked it gave off some seriously eerie vibes. Dark humor is just part of surviving the summer heat and the mosquitoes that come with it.

Lessons From the Doorstep

If there’s one thing every one of these stories has in common, it’s this: people will always surprise you. A dog can humble a grown man. A stranger can stop traffic just to say hi. A lemonade stand can turn into a dinner invite. We walk up to hundreds of doors, and every single one holds a tiny, unrepeatable story — we just have to be brave enough to knock.

7UP Spotlight

This week was also Mom’s Week, and we want to give a huge, heartfelt congratulations to Parvin, Gabriel, and Liisa for their outstanding results. You three made your moms proud this week, and honestly, you made all of us proud too.

But recognition isn’t just about numbers — it’s about who we are as a team. So here’s a little spotlight for every single one of us:

• Mari — steady, thoughtful, and always the calm in the storm when the week gets hard.
• Liisa — collector of gifts, hearts, and good stories, and a reminder that warmth opens doors.
• Luise — quietly resilient, showing up with the same determination every single day and a contagious laugh.
• Parvin — now officially newspaper-famous, and still humble about it.
• Matthias — our magnet for the unbelievable, turning ordinary days into main character energy.
• Gabriel — quick wit, quicker comebacks, and somehow always finding the funny side of a hard day.
• Michael — dependable, hardworking, and always ready with an “Do you wanna guess?” that echoes down the street.

A Sunday to Recharge

After a week like that, we did something a little different this Sunday: nothing. No road trips, no new towns, no adventures to chase. Just us, the house, and the pool. We floated, we laughed, we ordered food and ate it together, soaking in the simple joy of each other’s company.

These slower days matter just as much as the exciting ones. They’re the glue that holds a team together, the quiet recharge that gets us ready to knock on a hundred more doors next week.

Looking Ahead

As we close the book on week six, we’re already turning our attention to something a little different for the week ahead — and it has nothing to do with turf strategy or sales numbers. Our focus for next week is simple, but honestly harder than any door: talk to yourself like you talk to your best friend.

Anyone who’s spent a summer knocking on doors knows the voice in your head can get loud — and not always kind. After a slow morning or a string of “not interested”s, it’s easy to slip into self-criticism instead of self-support. So next week, we’re flipping the script. If a friend had a rough morning on turf, we wouldn’t tell them they’re failing — we’d remind them they’re doing something incredibly brave, that one hard hour doesn’t define the day, and that they should probably grab some water and shake it off. We’re going to try extending ourselves that same grace.

It sounds small, but we have a feeling this one might end up teaching us just as much as any doorstep ever has.

Onward and upward — Team 7UP.

Five weeks in, and Team 7UP has officially stopped flinching at thunder. If week one taught us that growth doesn’t knock politely, week five taught us that neither does South Dakota weather. Somewhere on turf this week, a teammate got caught in a full hour of rain. Somewhere else, another got a short but sharp burst of rain and hail that had them sprinting for the nearest porch. And on the very same days, in the very same state, someone else was melting in genuinely brutal heat. Same team, wildly different weather realities — that’s just how this summer works now.

Life on Turf: Long Days and Doors That Teach You Something

The rhythm is fully set at this point. Wake up, drive to eat breakfast, execs, drive until your legs stop asking questions, and somewhere in there have a conversation with a total stranger that either goes beautifully or goes nowhere — and you’ve got about four seconds to figure out which before the next door. Comfort zones don’t really exist for us anymore. We just call it Tuesday.

And the truth is, every door still teaches you something, win or lose. That was never more obvious than this week.

The Souvenir King

Matthias had one of those weeks where America just kept handing him things. He crossed paths with not one but two different salesmen named Austin, both — in his words — “super cool guys.” Somewhere along the way he also picked up an unofficial alias of his own, getting called “Mateo” more than once, and on the 4th of July itself he came agonizingly close to selling a family on fireworks, which feels almost too perfectly on-theme to be true. By the end of it all he’d also collected an entire bag full of souvenirs, because apparently that’s just what happens to Matthias now.

Flat Earth and a Mustang Burnout

Luise added another entry to the team’s growing collection of things people have earnestly explained to her, this time during a sit-down inside a family’s living room, when the homeowner spent the rest of the demo walking her through why the earth is actually flat. She stayed for the whole thing, nodding along and quietly questioning everything, and walked out with a story that is now permanently part of team lore. She also debuted an outfit for the 4th of July that the rest of us are still talking about.

Parvin, meanwhile, had maybe the wildest afternoon of anyone’s summer so far. After a good sit-down, the dad of the house offered him a ride in his old Mustang — and what started as a polite spin around the block turned into fifteen minutes cruising through town, capped off with an actual burnout. “It was crazy,” he said, and honestly, we believe every word.

Gifts, Tattoos, and a Very Diplomatic Husband

Liisa kept up her legendary reputation for unlikely cargo, hauling a waffle machine, a table lamp, and — in a “bigger or better” showdown for the ages — an entire hammock down the street, all while adding yet another Bible to her already impressive collection.

MMichael finally had his own gift-week moment, walking away with a fancy water bottle, a set of firecrackers, and a 12-in-1 tool he is already treating like a prized possession. He also came face to face with a dog that looked like it had lost track of its own size — eight months old, 125 pounds, and built like a small horse. He survived. The dog, presumably, did not even notice.

Gabriel, meanwhile, ended up talking to a high school principal — and after just five minutes, the principal was the one singing the praises of College Entrance Advantage and the rest of our products, unprompted. Turns out even the person running the school thinks what we’re selling is worth having.

Mari, true to form, brought full effort and full laughter to every conversation this week, and by Friday had apparently earned herself a slightly unusual walk as a badge of honor.

Fireworks, Freedom, and a Waterpark

The 4th of July hit different out here. We sat down together for a real team dinner, watched the sky light up with fireworks, and got a genuine, unfiltered taste of American independence spirit — loud, warm, and unapologetically proud. As you can see in the photos, it’s a night none of us are going to forget anytime soon. We also snuck in a well-earned trip to a waterpark, because even the most determined salespeople need a day to just be kids again.

By the Numbers

Behind the Mustang burnouts, the flat-earth theories, and Liisa’s ever-expanding gift collection, there’s still a mountain of actual work holding this whole summer together. Here’s how week five shook out:

Metric	Last Week
Doors Knocked	3 965
Calls Made	1 956
Demos Done	1 275
Sitdowns	489

Week Six, We’re Ready For You

Bring on the next storm, the next stranger with a wild theory about the planet, the next Mustang idling at the curb with the engine still warm. Team 7UP didn’t come this far to slow down now — we came to get louder, braver, and a little more unstoppable with every door. Let’s go. 🚪🔥✨

— Team 7UP

Week four. We are four weeks in, and if the first week taught us that growth doesn’t knock politely, week four taught us that neither do the strangers. Or the dogs. Or the men trying to recruit us into the automotive industry.

But let’s start from the beginning.

Life on Turf: People, Surprises, and the Full Spectrum of Dogs

There’s something that happens after a few weeks on the turf — you stop being surprised that people are surprising. You tell yourself you expect the unexpected, right up until a man gets dragged past you down a residential street by a dog the size of a small car, and you realize that no, actually, you were not prepared for that. Michael stood there, watched it happen, and moved on — because at this point in the summer, that’s just a Tuesday.

What made it better was what came later: the smallest dog any of us have ever seen. Confident. Unbothered. Living its best life. He thought about both dogs for a while. Somewhere between those two animals is probably a decent metaphor for this summer, though we haven’t quite worked out what it is yet. Michael also spotted two gorgeous vintage cars — a Buick and a Chevelle — parked at the curb like they’d driven in from another decade. On a day like that, you take the beauty where you find it.

The Bag, the House, and the Walk of Mild Shame

Parvin had a solid interaction at a house this week, said his goodbyes, and walked away with the confident stride of someone who had just nailed it. He got halfway down the block before realizing his book bag was still inside — the family had taken it in. Which meant turning around, walking back up the same driveway, and knocking the same door to ask for his own bag back. The family was gracious. Parvin was humble. The bag was retrieved. We have been informed this will never happen again, and we have chosen to believe him.

Hugs, Beards, and a Career Pivot Nobody Asked For

Matthias, meanwhile, was having what can only be described as a variety show of a day. It started with a Ukrainian woman opening her door and, before he had much of a chance to say anything, pulling him into a real hug. The kind that comes from genuine warmth, from someone who perhaps recognized something in the face of a young person far from home, still showing up, still knocking. He said it was one of those moments that just stays with you, and we believe him completely.

Later, a man offered him a job at a car dealership on the spot — no interview, no process, just a sincere offer extended on a residential doorstep in South Dakota. Matthias said no, though the alternate timeline where he said yes has kept us entertained for days. And then, as if the day needed one final chapter, he met a man with the biggest beard any of us have ever seen. Not big in a casual way. Big in a way that suggests a decision was made years ago and has never once been reconsidered. There’s something almost inspiring about that, if you think about it long enough.

The Gifts That Keep Coming

And then there is Liisa. We have to talk about Liisa, because at this point it would be irresponsible not to. Week after week, at door after door, something happens that simply does not happen for the rest of us. This week, a family gave her a fancy water bottle. A good one. Unprompted, unearned in any technical sense, just offered — because apparently that is what Americans do when Liisa shows up at their door.

The rest of the team is out here running every technique we know, and Liisa is out here being gifted quality hydration equipment by strangers who met her four minutes ago. We have stopped trying to explain it. We have accepted it as one of the fixed truths of this summer, like the heat, and the long drives, and the fact that Parvin will probably leave something behind at least one more time before August.

Sunday at the Falls

Every week needs a moment where you step away from the doors and just breathe, and this week that moment came on Sunday at Falls Park. Sioux Falls, as it turns out, is named after something genuinely worth naming a city after. The waterfall sits right in the middle of the park, loud and completely unbothered by everything around it — the kind of thing that makes you stop mid-sentence and just look.

What It’s Really About

What week four gave us, more than anything, was a reminder that this summer keeps feeling bigger than it looked on paper. We came here thinking the job was about what happens at the door. Turns out the door is just the beginning — it’s everything behind it that matters. A hug you didn’t see coming. A bag retrieved with a smile. A man and his dog going somewhere urgent. A water bottle handed over for no reason other than kindness. And a waterfall on a Sunday afternoon, reminding you that some things are just beautiful, simply and completely, without needing to mean anything more than that.

The books are the reason we knock. The people — and the occasional waterfall — are the reason we remember.

By the Numbers

Behind the retrieved book bags, the enormous beards, and the mysterious gift-giving tendencies of the American public, there is an unyielding mountain of hard work. A few strange encounters on the turf have never once stopped Team 7UP from putting in the numbers — and this week was no different.

Here is exactly how the raw data from Week 4 shook out compared to our cumulative, all-time stats so far:

Metric	Last Week
Doors Knocked	4 409
Calls Made	1 953
Demos Done	1 284
Sitdowns	479

Let’s keep growing

Week five is already here. The doors are already waiting. Somewhere out there is another Ukrainian woman, another man with a beard, another family who is going to hand Liisa something wonderful for no reason, and another dog — large or small, we genuinely cannot predict — who is going to make someone’s afternoon very interesting.

We wouldn’t have it any other way. Here’s to week five, and to Team 7UP, still standing. 🚪✨

— Team 7UP

Goodbye, Rapid City

They say true growth happens when you leave your comfort zone. They also say that if you spend more than three weeks knocking on doors in one place, the locals start recognizing you and inviting you to their barbecues – which is terrible for our sales metrics.

Sunday officially marked the arrival of The Great Migration. We spent the early morning hours packing up our entire lives, our massive boxes of books, and whatever lingering fragments of sanity we had left. It was a morning soundtracked by emotional, deeply grateful goodbyes to our absolutely saintly host families in Rapid City. These wonderful people took us in, tolerated our erratic direct-sales schedules, and treated us like their own. Saying goodbye was genuinely tough.

Leaving them felt less like a standard moving day and more like Christopher McCandless heading Into the Wild – except, you know, we had air conditioning, a fleet of sedans, and a trunk full of educational literature instead of a tragic lack of preparation. We traded the rocky peaks of Rapid City for the uncharted territory of Sioux Falls. The trek across South Dakota wasn’t just a drive; it was a transition into a wild safari of the weird, the wonderful, and the flat-out baffling.

Tales from the Turf: Cats, Roof Dogs, and Collapsing Bicycles

Matthias had the kind of week that belongs in a book. It opened with him rounding a corner and finding a cat in the middle of eating a squirrel – calmly, on a front lawn, in broad daylight. He stood there for a moment, recalibrated his understanding of American suburbia, and knocked the next door anyway. Later, a group of Native Americans stopped him on the street and asked for a photo, telling him he was simply too cute to walk past without documentation. He is not handling this memory modestly, and we fully support that. Somewhere in between, he found his favorite car – a vintage beauty in someone’s driveway that looked like it had been waiting specifically for him – and climbed right in.

While Matthias was discovering his modeling potential, Gabriel was capturing the true “Duality of Man” on the turf. He balanced his poetic side – taking breathtaking, cinematic photos of the South Dakota sunset – with his chaotic side, pairing those pristine skies with high-sass selfies and a hilarious photo pointing his backside directly at the camera to summarize his feelings on a tough rejection.

Liisa’s week produced the quote of the summer. She was walking her route when she looked up and saw two dogs standing on a roof. Not the porch. The actual roof. Just up there, watching the street, completely unbothered. Her reaction was immediate: “I knew that in the States things are different, but I did not know that they were this different.”

Luise, meanwhile, encountered a doorbell that sounds like the opening of a horror film – not a chime, not a friendly ding, that sound – and then had her bicycle fall completely apart under a well-meaning prospect who had confidently offered to fix it, declared it repaired, and taken it out for a test ride to prove his work. Full structural collapse, mid-ride, while Luise watched from the driveway. There is no photo of the exact moment, which is the only real tragedy.

Michael’s week had a quieter energy – good sky, a squirrel on a fence that looked like it owned the whole street, and a selfie with a talking parrot at someone’s door. Not a parrot making vague noise. One that made eye contact and spoke. As someone on the team put it: we came to sell books and ended up making friends with a bird.

And then, as if to bring everything back to earth – leadership arrived and filmed themselves dancing to “Wiggle.” Full commitment. Zero irony. Every single second of it.

By the Numbers

Behind the talking parrots, the imploding bicycles, and the roof-dwelling canine security guards, there is an unyielding mountain of hard work. We absolutely refused to let the anticipation of a 350-mile relocation slow down our momentum during our final days in Rapid City.

Here is exactly how the raw data from Week 3 shook out compared to our cumulative, all-time stats so far:

Metric	Last Week (Week 3)	All Time So Far
Doors Knocked	5 130	11 247
Calls Made	2 251	5 028
Demos Done	1 465	3 244
Sitdowns	551	1 139

Sioux Falls: Your Turn

New city, new doors, new stories already forming at the edges. Week 3 reminded us that growth doesn’t always happen at the destination – sometimes it happens on the drive, in the goodbye, in the first night somewhere new where you’re figuring it out anyway. Mari, Liisa, Luise, Parvin, Matthias, Gabriel, Michael – seven different versions of the same summer, happening inside one team of independent leaders.

Sioux Falls doesn’t know what’s coming. Same team, new town, more journey ahead. 🚗

Well, we made it. Seven days in, and Team 7UP is still standing – sunburnt, slightly blistered, but standing. If you’d told us a week ago that knocking on a stranger’s door could feel like both the scariest and most exciting thing we’ve ever done, we might not have believed you. But here we are, and what a ride it’s already been.

Welcome to our first official blog post from the road. Grab a coffee, settle in, and let us take you through Week 1 of our Southwestern Advantage summer.

Life on Turf: Mornings, Miles, and Mental Gymnastics

Our days start earlier than most of us are used to. Turns out “door-to-door” really does mean door to door, and by the end of some days, our legs were filing official complaints.

The weather this week couldn’t make up its mind. One day we were melting under a relentless sun, sweat-soaked shirts and all, and the very next day we were pulling on jackets against a sudden cold snap, with a bit of rain thrown in just to keep things interesting. South Dakota, it seems, likes to keep us guessing.

But here’s what surprised us most: every single door – yes, no, or “please don’t come back” – taught us something. Sometimes it was about our pitch. Sometimes it was about ourselves. And sometimes it was simply a reminder that rejection isn’t personal, it’s just Tuesday.

The People Behind the Doors

This week really hammered home that this job isn’t about selling – it’s about people. Every one of us walked away with a story, a lesson, or at least a good laugh.

Liisa reflected on something we all felt deeply this week: how having an amazing team makes everything easier. “It makes the mornings and nights funner,” she said, “and it’s like a reminder that we are in this together, while each of us is writing their own story.” Honestly, hard to put it better than that.

Matthias had one of the funniest moments of the week – a dog that wanted to be pet non-stop, to the point where he genuinely couldn’t leave the doorstep. Between giggles, he shared the bigger lesson he took from the week: having a positive attitude and not being too harsh on yourself is what helps the most. “At least with me,” he added with a grin.

Michael had a quieter but powerful realization this week: he found himself genuinely grateful just to be alive. He met so many amazing people that it made everything worth it – sometimes, he said, one person can turn an entire day around.

Liisa also came back with quite the haul this week – two bibles, a statue of Jesus, and a Christian-themed under-plate mat, among other things. She’s joked that at this rate, she’ll be “really religious” by the end of the summer. We’re not entirely sure what the families are trying to tell her, but we love the generosity (and the comedy).

And then there was Matthias’s encounter with a very enthusiastic dog who decided he simply could not leave – the pup wanted pets and wanted them forever. Matthias laughed it off and said the real lesson of the week wasn’t about the dog at all: it was learning to keep a positive attitude and not be too hard on yourself when things don’t go perfectly. Words to live by, honestly.

And then there’s Gabriel and Michael’s new favorite hobby: standing at the door and dramatically yelling “IS ANYBODY HOME?!” the moment a knock goes unanswered. What started as a joke has now become a full bit, complete with sound effects and increasingly theatrical delivery. No word yet on whether it’s improved their numbers, but it’s definitely improved team morale. Also, would you rather eat a pound of a brick or a matter baby? 😉

As you can see in the photos, these moments – funny, heartfelt, or completely unexplainable – are what make this week feel real. Strangers becoming part of our story, one doorstep at a time.

Mount Rushmore: A Surreal Detour

On Sunday, we took a trip to Mount Rushmore – and wow. Seeing those faces carved into the mountainside in person hit differently than any postcard or photo ever could. There was something almost surreal about standing there, in the middle of our first big adventure away from home, looking up at a monument to ambition and legacy.

As you can see in the photos, the views were stunning – but more than that, it felt like a much-needed reminder of why we’re here: to challenge ourselves, grow, and create something we’ll remember for the rest of our lives.

Sunday Reflections: Looking Back, Looking Forward

Our Sunday trip to Rushmore doubled as our team reflection day – equal parts adventure and gut-check. Standing in front of something so massive and permanent made our own first-week wobbles feel a little smaller, and our goals for Week 2 a little clearer: more confidence at the door, faster pivots when things don’t go to plan, and continuing to lean on each other – because, as Mari reminded us, we’re in this together.

Looking Ahead

Week 1 taught us that growth doesn’t knock politely – it shows up uninvited, a little messy, and completely worth it. We’re tired, we’re learning, and we’re just getting started.

Here’s to Week 2, and to Team 7UP continuing to turn nerves into courage, one door at a time. 🚪✨