Business Marketing Advertising

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.

Now his proposition, like every sales proposition, has angles which can be fitted to any of these characteristics, and it is highly important that the right angles be played up at the very outset of the interview. If this is not done you will probably fail to get a good hearing. But the problem is: “How can you get a line on the man quickly enough to know what plan of attack to use?”

This salesman has worked out a clever stock question which compels one of five possible answers. No matter which answer the prospective buyer gives, he automatically classifies himself so that the salesman knows exactly which of his plans of attack to use.

Possibly you have a better plan for handling the buyer who comes out to the rail to tell you why he isn’t interested and to quickly get rid of you. How you do it is not so important. The big thing is, do you do it? Have you a plan for making the first sixty seconds count or are you an opportunist?