Business Marketing Advertising

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.

The purchasing agent for one of our big factories dropped a remark the other day that I think is worth passing on to you ? it is something that hits many of us.

He was speaking of the tendency of sales people in competitive lines to sing the praises of what they were selling to the same tune. He said that during the last week three belting salesmen told him that their belting was “the best on the market.”

Two years ago the star salesman for a Twin City flour mills got married. There was a long article in the house magazine about the wedding, and everyone felt sure that a home and a wife were the two things needed to bring out the best in him.

A few weeks back this same salesman handed in his resignation. For five consecutive months he had fallen below the “dead” line in his billing. He knew that another off month would finish him, and he wanted to save the stain of being “fired.”

When you take an order it does not necessarily follow that you have made a sale. There is a great difference between making sales and taking orders. For example, some buyer calls up on the phone. One of the salesmen in the office answers it. The buyer asks the salesman to send him certain things. The salesman puts it down. He thinks he has made a sale. But he hasn’t. He has merely rendered a service.
The same buyer calls you on the phone. He tells you that he wants so and so, and such and such. But the things he wants are not what you think he ought to have. They may be special, or they may be something on which there is little or no profit. They may be most anything.
You persuade the buyer that he was mistaken; that your suggestions are better than his; that in the long run it will pay to buy more in the beginning. You have made money for him. You have made money for your company. You have made money for yourself. You have made a sale.
Many a business has floundered because it had too many salesmen who thought that selling goods was taking orders. The more orders these salesmen took, the less profit the business made. George Westing?house, for example, was a wonderful salesman, but he went broke taking unprofitable orders.
All the big rewards go to the real salesman. He is the man who builds a good will with every sale; who delights in selling the man what he knows he ought to have rather than what the man thinks he wants. You cannot stop that kind of salesman, because in developing his business and his ability to sell, he develops himself.

An experienced driver knows that if a car does not start after turning it over a few times there must be something wrong, and he gets busy at once and begins to check up. He doesn’t run his battery down.
Neither will an experienced salesman burn up his energy and ruin his morale in a frantic effort to get business after a series of discouragements.

When you have gone several days without an order, check up on yourself to see what is the matter with your methods. You will probably find any one of these things to be wrong:

Word comes from New York that the “Sell Now” movement is making great strides. The newspapers are giving liberal space to the work, and even the great metropolitan dailies and the magazines of millions of circulation are urging their readers to “Sell Now.”

What are you doing to tie up to this movement? To bring home to you the possibilities in the idea we learned the other day of an enterprising salesman for the Sealy Mattress Company, who was bitten by the “Sell Now” bug and wanted to see if the idea was any good.

Porsche just recently sent me a lavish presentation kit and a very expensive brochure about their new 911 Turbo.

I sold it on eBay last week for $45!! I saw others that were selling it for twice that amount! (For REAL, I am NOT Kidding, I SOLD their promo package!)

Anyway, a simple, well-written one-page sales letter offering me a test drive would have gotten me down to the showroom, located 27 miles away in..about..oh..17.3 minutes! (I’d get there faster, but there are a lot of RED lights and the 2004 Turbo I have is by all accounts, not as fast as the new 500 horsepower one.) 

A salesman for Lee Puncture Proof Tires was balked by a customer who insisted that because his tires cost more than Sears, Roebuck tires, the farmers around wouldn’t pay the price.
To prove that they would the salesman got the dealer to go with him and make some calls. They tried all morning without success.
At noon they returned to town. After lunch, when the salesman went out to get his car it wouldn’t start. While he was tinkering with it a farmer drove up and parked alongside.
“What’s the matter? Won’t it start?” asked the farmer. “Maybe you ain’t got no gas.” The salesman, who by this time had the parts of the ignition system well spread out over the curb, merely grunted. He was in no mood to be friendly ? especially to a farmer. The farmer, however, was not so easily discouraged. His observing eye noticed that the salesman’s car was equipped with puncture proof tires. “How much do them tires cost?” he asked.
“A whole lot more than you would pay,” was the salesman’s none – too – courteous reply. This got Hiram’s dander up. “Is that so?” “Yes,” said the salesman, “they will cost you just four times as much as you are paying for tires from Sears, Roebuck and Company.”
This was too much. After telling the salesman what he thought of him, and city chaps generally, he walked into the dealer’s store and paid cash for a set of puncture proof tires, had the dealer put them on, and drove right alongside the salesman to show him, by heck, that he didn’t buy his tires from Sears, Roebuck, and that $130 for a set of tires did not faze him.
Of course, no salesman would talk to a prospect that way under ordinary conditions, but this experience does illustrate one of the eccentricities of human nature which makes selling the most fascinating of all occupations ? in this case an appeal to reason.
Ethel Mays Woofter, who sells insurance in and around Atlanta, Georgia, was arrested with her husband for speeding. Writing to a friend, she thus describes what followed:
“The judge fined Jack $25, but we came out all right. While Jack was handing over the money, I got the cop off in a corner, pointed out the dangers of his job, and sold him a policy. The commission more than covered the fine.”

Marketing chiropractic can be challenging. Look no further, then, as you have a very simple yet very powerful tool in YouTube’s new video sharing features.

Learn more about this revolutionary new feature, which allows anybody to spread the word and share your office tours, educational videos, promotions and all manner of other video content. Read on, if you want to be able to harness this sort of power for your marketing chiropractic.

YouTube as a Marketing Opportunity