Business Marketing Advertising

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.

When the regular salesman left for his vacation the home office sent a new man out to look after the territory. But the regular man didn’t tell the new man anything more than necessary. Maybe he didn’t care much if the new man put in a good part of his time calling on prospects he “knew” were dead.

But the report of this prospect’s death had been grossly exaggerated. When the new salesman introduced himself to the storekeeper, that worthy beamed all over. I’ve been on the point of calling you folks up for a month ? I just cleaned up some obligations that have been keeping my nose to the grindstone, and now I’m ready to talk business.”

The trouble with most of us is that we too easily reconcile ourselves to defeat. We try a few times and fail. We at once reach the conclusion that because we can’t do it, that it can’t be done. Then before we know it, someone, all too often a man of lesser ability, comes along and does it.

“Genius is the capacity for making a continuous effort,” says Chaddock. It goes double in selling goods. The only genius in sales work is the man who keeps on keeping on long after the other fellow has decided it can’t be done.