Just to expand, when I was in the church, we had what amounted to a sales guidebook called "Reasoning from the Scriptures" that would list common objections and

Just to expand, when I was in the church, we had what amounted to a sales guidebook called "Reasoning from the Scriptures" that would list common objections and suggestions for responding to them. Your interlocutors were probably just doing as they were trained. The Jehovah's Witness church is in many ways a sales organization. When I was around, they did't have the wealth or intellectual sophistication to advertise themselves effectively. We had been using the same sales book for years and I wouldn't be surprised if "the reasoning book" is still around. An organization that enforces orthodoxy as thoroughly as Jehovah's Witnesses isn't exactly a breeding ground for creative and entrepreneurial spirits. I wouldn't expect them to pivot if hard sales techniques proved to be annoying or ineffective. They used to publish their conversion statistics in the January 1st or 15th edition of The Watchtower so you could follow their growth (an anemic 1% or so per year back in the late 90s). That was a shockingly transparent move for such a close-minded organization; it probably helps increase members trust in the central organization. But it is also bad for morale to watch numbers languish.