Business Marketing Advertising

One of the biggest accounts now on the books of the Faultless Caster Company was closed as a result of a salesman going back to correct an error he had made. At that time, J. F. Weintz, now vice president of Sales Management, Inc., was selling casters to manufacturers of furniture for that company. The first call made on this buyer was on Saturday. The buyer was not very receptive. There was much mail and Saturday was a short day.
Anyhow, Weintz placed his sample caster on the buyer’s desk. The buyer fumbled with a letter, showing no inclination to stop his work. The salesman ex?plained that he would be glad to hurry through his story because he wanted to get away quickly to catch the two o’clock train. The buyer looked out of the corner of his eye with a frown. “As far as I am con?cerned, you can go and catch your train right now,” he snapped. “The interview is terminated right this minute!”

Suppose that you were a sales manager in charge of ten men.

Suppose, further, that it was necessary for you to reduce your force by one man. You have carefully gone over the records of each man and decided that the man to get the pink slip must be either Bill Smith or Jim Jones.
But you are in a quandary as to which of the two men to lay off. Smith’s record shows that his sales volume is $400 a week more than Jones’. On the other hand, Jones operates himself for $50 a week less than Smith.

G. D. Carter, a sales manager of the F. E. Compton Company, at one time had an experience that shows why some sales people who are not particularly clever, or brilliant, or unusual, succeed where “born” salesmen fail.

On leaving his home one morning, Mr. Carter noticed an Armenian, with a bright-colored oriental rug thrown across his arm, ringing a doorbell. A woman came to the door and the Armenian said, “Pretty. Want to buy?” The woman slammed the door.

An investigation during the past month discloses that the most disheartening buyer being encountered these days is the man who fully agrees that he should have the product offered. He claims he has a need for it, wants it, and even yearns for it, but he further insists that he cannot take it on now either for cash or on time. How can he be handled?
Recently a Royal Typewriter salesman called upon a certain large Detroit company and let it be known that he had come to trade in their present machines and replace them with forty new Royals. The purchasing agent almost laughed at him and reported that they just received instructions from the board of directors to buy nothing except what they had to have. They were retrenching.
The salesman congratulated them. He said his company was doing the same. He asked if they had any orders to stop saving. Anticipating an answer in the negative, the salesman pulled out of his pocket previously prepared figures showing interest on investment which could be earned on the difference between the tradein value now and later. The interest looked too good for the buyer to pass up and an order was placed.
Of course, there is nothing startling about this plan, except that he had prepared himself in advance for the objection he felt sure would arise. Every sales man approached on this subject of the “buyer who cannot afford to spend the money” points out that his success in handling this type began when he discovered that such a plea is superficial. The man who says he is not buying at present is simply putting forth an objection which he has found baffles most salesmen.

You never know how close you are to an order until you try. This is a point of salesmanship which most of us have heard hundreds of times, but soon forget.

It was forcibly demonstrated recently in a sale made by a substitute salesman in Cleveland. He sold a popcorn machine to a storekeeper who had repeatedly told the regular salesman that he wouldn’t put in his machine if he gave it to him.

Three brothers’ salaries are one hundred, two hundred and five hundred dollars, although each of them started to work for the same company at equal salaries six years previously. The apparent unfairness impressed their father, according to a story related recently to employees of the W. S. Tyler Company. He decided to visit the employer and ask the reason.
The employer promised the father that the reason would be demonstrated. He pressed a button under his desk and Jim, the one-hundred-dollar man, answered. “I hear,” said the employer,” that the Oceanic has just docked. I would like to find out what she carries.”
Jim was back in three minutes. “I learned by telephone that she carries a cargo of two thousand seal-skins,” he reported. “Thank you,” said the employer, and Jim left the room.
Frank, the two-hundred-dollar man, was then called. He was given the same instruction. Frank was gone an hour. When he returned he said, “The Oceanic carries two thousand sealskins in addition to five hundred beaver and eleven hundred mink pelts.” He was dismissed and George, the highest paid brother, was called.
George received the same instruction. Nothing was heard from him for three hours and when he returned it was long after the closing hour. The father and employer were waiting for the report.
“There were two thousand sealskins aboard the Oceanic,” he said. I found we could get them for five dollars each, so I took a two-day option on them. I wired a possible buyer offering them at seven dol?lars. As they sent us a call for sealskins, I expect their order tomorrow. There were five hundred beaver skins on the boat. I sold them over the telephone at a profit of seven hundred dollars. The lot of mink pelts carried were of too poor quality to handle.”
Later, the employer said, “It is easily seen that Jim does not do as he is told and Frank does do as he is told. But George does without being told.”

I read the other day that the records of one hundred successful salesmen showed that a high percentage of them had previously been in business for themselves, and who had failed from lack of capital.
As a result of this discovery one of the largest employers of salesmen in the country is giving preference to men who have tried business for themselves to their sorrow. This company contends that these men, even though failures, have a better understanding of the objects of salesmanship than the man whose training has been confined to selling.
Now you may not agree with this theory. I do not say that I do. But you must admit that all too often a salesman overvalues the importance of getting an order, and undervalues the importance of getting the money for it.
The man who has been in business for himself and failed knows through bitter experience that an order is not a sale until the bill has been paid. He knows that a promise to buy some day won’t pay this month’s rent. He knows that a salesman can show a big billing and still be a liability to the business. In short, he is a business man as well as a salesman. This company is proud of its development during recent years. We feel that a good deal of our success is due to the fact that our salesmen are not only good salesmen but that they are good business men.

Last week one of the big office equipment concerns of Chicago put a young man to work as a company salesman. He had all the qualities of what we sometimes call “a born salesman,” but he lacked one thing.

A day or so after a customer came into the office to buy a credit file ? “one with an adding machine attached.” The new salesman went over the models on the floor, explaining to him the points of each in great detail. The customer, however, decided that he would shop around a bit. (1) The salesman urged him to buy. The more the salesman urged the more decided the customer’s “No” became. Finally he grew angry.

I had a call the other day from a person who used to travel for the same company that I did years ago. He was broke and discouraged. He had been fired from six jobs in two years. His nerve had gone. His gray hairs were turning to silver, and it was becoming harder and harder to get even a chance. He had come to see me, an old friend, for a loan of five dollars to stave off starvation.
In his prime this man had been a good salesman. He had made good money. He had loads of friends. But he had one great fault ? he hadn’t the driving power to make himself do the things he didn’t want to do.
A young man, fighting his way to success, working and studying and saving, may not have a particularly happy life. To the salesman who believes in having a good time he may seem terribly foolish.
But hard as his life of real work may be, it is a thousand times more pleasant compared with the life my old friend was eking out, begging for a chance, humbly grateful for that which he would have scorned in his better days.
The beginning of August brings with it the urge to “take things easy” till fall. Do you have the will power to make yourself work in spite of that urge?
You can work now, when you are strong and work is easy, or you can just “get by” and do your hard work in the years to come when the body is frail and work comes a thousand times harder.

A business man needed some money for expansion. He went to see his banker about a loan, taking with him his sales statement for the current month.
“This is interesting,” said the banker, “but it doesn’t tell me anything. I need something for comparison. Bring me your sales statements for a year back.”
Isn’t there a selling thought in this banker’s remark for you and me? How often in our sales work do we furnish our employees with a “basis of comparison”? We give him the facts, true enough, but we fail to give him other facts with which he can compare them, and make a decision.
A price may seem high to one man and low to another, simply because each man uses a different basis of comparison. A point of quality may seem very desirable to the man who has been using inferior merchandise, and yet mean nothing to the man who has been using merchandise of equal quality. The quality is the same in either case, but the basis of comparison gives it a different value in the eyes of the buyer.
Before we can expect that our sales points are going to carry equal weight with different people, it is up to us as sales person to see that these buyers are given a uniform basis for comparison. In selling, just as in banking, facts without a basis of comparison are interesting but they don’t mean anything.