Business Marketing Advertising

A $4,400 order was recently taken in face of a $2,600 differential in price, as a result of a Vitrolite salesman’s plan of arranging a “setting” around one of his more remote selling points.

The salesman’s aim was to clinch the contract for the construction of toilet rooms in a school, by appealing to the buyer’s responsibilities of protecting the children’s morals as much as their health. He first placed ink on the material and wiped it off to show that the material was nonabsorbent. Then he demonstrated that a child with corrupt tendencies could not write on the product with pencil and corrupt morals of other children.

This was an unusual method of presenting quality. His case was clinched by showing that the pure whiteness of the product suggested purity and cleanliness.

The order was secured largely on the fact that the product could not be written upon, apparently a remote selling point but extremely important when “staged” in the right manner.

The “reverse course” is also taken by a successful salesman with the Jackson Corset Company. While his competitors all call upon the trade with a complete line of samples, this salesman does exactly opposite. He carries a few swatches, corset boning and photographs to show quality. While selling his line in this manner, he determines exactly what the retailer should put in stock, brings in his samples, and proceeds to sell only what he knows the merchant should have, getting an order for a larger quantity of goods in a fewer number of styles.
With this plan, the salesman has brought an unproductive territory from twenty-eighth place to eighth, demonstrating what can be accomplished by the salesman who gets a plan that is slightly removed from the ordinary.