Business Marketing Advertising

A $3,850 order was closed a while back by a conveyor salesman covering Texas, nicknamed by fellow salesmen at a recent convention “Sketch” Stephens because of a favorite selling idea to which he attributes much of his success in closing this and many other orders.

His plan is to carry a large sketching pencil which he pulls out as soon as he begins talking with the buyer, making crude pictures and lines as he talks to illustrate his points. For instance, in closing the order mentioned, he drew, on a piece of paper paths showing how four men had to walk around machinery during the day under the old arrangement. When pictured in this manner and the number of yards and miles visualized, crude as it was, the picture drove the point home.

An overall salesman recently increased his earnings over 50 per cent with a little constructive planning. Not being able to get a branch office in his territory, he sold a jobber on carrying a good stock, with the understanding that he would personally give the jobber’s salesmen a free course in selling the line by accompanying them for several days on their trips.

It was a new venture for the salesman and his house. The result was a very large order from this jobber and the opening of an account of a size never considered possible previously. With what amounted to an entire organization working for him, as well as numerous others which he is developing into real accounts, he will soon double his earnings while his com?petitors are still believing that it can’t be done. An idea injected into his work did it. True, not a new idea ? but an idea just the same.