Business Marketing Advertising

In speaking of a new selling method which he has successfully adapted, D. F. Wallace, a topnotcher in creating new business, A. H. Barber Creamery Sup?ply Company, Chicago, says :

“People do not mean what they say these days. As I call upon the trade, they meet me nicely, say they are glad to see me and before I have time to explain why I came, they say there isn’t a thing they will need for some time.” This salesman’s plan is illustrated in the manner in which he handled two buyers of this kind in Terre Haute.

If Napoleon were living today he would want to be a salesman. He would be attracted by the quick reward and the opportunities the work offers for generalship and initiative.

He would soon single himself out from the crowd, just as he did at Toulon, by doing things which the “Old Timers” said couldn’t be done. Saturday would probably be his biggest day ? because on that day his competitors would be off their guard.

In an address before the Chicago Association of Commerce, an executive of the American Lady Corset Company told of the manner in which all sales person who came to work for that company automatically classify themselves in one of three groups within a short time.
First, there is the group which complains about prices. Every time a competitor undersells them, they write to the company about reducing prices. They do not keep up to date on how to sell quality. It never occurs to them that when the buyer says the price is too high, he is leading into the best selling talk the salesman possesses.

A salesman who has been successful in selling newspaper publishers has worked out a code of procedure, which may be interesting to you ? not because it is something you do not know ? but because it organizes facts which every experienced salesman knows thoroughly, in such a way that you can use with the utmost effectiveness.

This man has classified his prospective customers into groups, and worked out with great care a complete canvass for each type of buyer. He finds, for example, that some publishers will buy anything that will add to the prestige of their property; others respond most readily to the fear of competition; others let acquisitiveness govern their actions and still others buy for pride and vanity.

At this time of the year, when we are standing on the threshold of a new opportunity, I want to remind you of Jack Trice, Ames colored football star, who met his death in 1924 in the Minnesota-Ames game.
Just before that game Trice wrote: “Everyone is expecting me to do big things. I will. My whole body and soul are to be thrown recklessly about on the field tomorrow. Every time the ball is snapped I will be trying to do more than my part.”
When Trice wrote this he did not know that it would ever be published. It was just his confession to himself. It was found on a piece of paper crumpled up in his pocket after death. It has since received editorial comment from one end of the country to another. It will live for years to come, even though Trice himself has passed on.
Suppose that you and I were to write our thoughts about the job ahead of us this year. “Would there,” to quote C. G. Stevenson, “be any editorials written about them? Would the document be used by fathers to inspire their sons with the do or die spirit?”
Our job is worthy of throwing into it our whole body and soul. Your reputation, the happiness of your family, your own self-respect, are at stake. Live and work this year so that when January rolls around you can truthfully say: “Every time the ball was snapped, I did more than my part.”

R. P. Spencer tells a story about an Englishman and a Scotchman that has a moral for those of us who are not getting on in our present jobs, because our expense account gives the lie to our claim of having business ability.
“How is it,” asked the Englishman, “that the Scotch get on so well in business while so many English and Irish don’t seem to be able to make it go?”
“Brains, my boy,” replied the Scotchman. “If you want to get on in business you must eat more fish. Give me ten shillings and I’ll get you some fish like my wife buys for me.”
The Englishman gave the Scotchman ten bob and the fish was sent to him. Next day he again met the Scotchman, who asked him how he was getting on since eating the fish.
“It was splendid fish,” the Englishman admitted, “but I can’t say that I feel any different ? and besides ten bob was a lot to pay for a piece of fish.”
The Scotchman slapped him on the back. “Why, it has done you a world of good,” he said. “Your brain is beginning to work already. Now you will get along all right.”
The story is an old one but the moral will never be so old that it can be forgotten. It nicely illustrates the value of watching the outgo as well as the income.

I read a poem the other day about hope. It was a wonderful word picture about looking forward to bigger, better things and all that.
That is true. It is mighty fine to hold high aims, and who will deny that if it were not for hope, life would be a tame and colorless affair.
Yet ? admitting all that ? I sometimes think that the trouble with most of us is that we do too much hoping and not enough hoofing. We think about plans for next week, next month or next year, but seldom think about today.
Today can be the beginning of next week, just as well as next Sunday.
Today can be the beginning of next month, just as well as August 1st.
Today can be the beginning of next year, just as well as January 1.
Why wait for some imaginary date to start your plans for bigger accomplishment? Resolve to get more business next week, but let next week begin today. Plan to get more business next month, but let next month begin today. Aspire to get more business next year, but let next year start today.
Tomorrow, next week and next year are far away, but today is here. Make the most of it.

There is in Chicago a certain company that uses a great many locks. It is rated “AAA.” Yet, strange as it may seem, it is very seldom that a lock salesman ever calls upon this company.

The salesmen for the different lock manufacturers had decided among themselves that it was a waste of time to call on this company because for the past fifteen years it had given all its lock business to an Eastern manufacturer.

A nice-sized order got away recently because a salesman didn’t have the courage to say “no” at the critical moment of the sale.
The buyer wanted to be sure he was getting the very lowest price. He had gone so far as to say that if he wasn’t given a certain concession he would give the order to a competing firm.
The salesman lost his nerve. He was afraid to risk the issue. He was afraid to incur the customer’s displeasure. He took the easy way out: “I’ll wire the office and see if they’ll take the business on those terms.”
That was all the buyer wanted. The suspicion sprang into his mind that the salesman’s proposition could be bettered. Otherwise, why would the salesman even think of taking it up with the office?
The buyer stuck to his ultimatum. The salesman’s hesitation had convinced him that if he hung on long enough the company would take his business. The buyer is still hanging on ? still suspicious that the salesman’s proposition was not the best obtainable.
Don’t be afraid to say “no.” Say it as though you mean it. Not independently, with a “go to Hades” inflection, but firmly and politely.

There can be no greater tribute to the power of salesmanship than the steady increase in life insurance written by all companies since 1923.
The total amount of insurance issued last year exceeded the total life insurance in effect twenty years ago, and beating the previous high-water mark of 1920 by more than one and a half billion dollars!
While it is true that much of this gain can be accredited to the formation of living trusts to escape the high surtaxes, and other new uses of insurance, still the bulk of the number of policies written was sold to people who were very positive when first approached that they didn’t want any insurance.
The next time you feel downhearted and discouraged because one buyer after another has said “no,” and you have begun to wonder if the trouble is with the thing you sell or the man who is selling it, just remember eleven billion dollars’ worth of insurance are sold by salesmen who don’t know what “no” means.
There is a world of truth in the saying that real salesmanship begins after the buyer says “no.” As a matter of fact, it is because buyers say “no” so easily that we keep you boys on the pay roll. If they all said “yes” a letter would do just as well, and would cost much less.