Masonry Magazine March 1965 Page. 15
THE SELLING PARADE
by CHARLES B. ROTH, America's no. 1 salesmanship authority
The Selling Parade by Charles B. Roth is another new feature added by masonry. Watch for it in all future issues of the magazine for the entire Masonry Industry. Cut out this article and future articles and place them in your business file for further reference.
Say It After Them
His method was flawless. I have watched him work it a hundred times, with all kinds of prospects under all kinds of conditions; and I never saw him fail to win the respect, confidence, and friendship of the person to whom he talked.
Yet there didn't seem to be any art to what this salesman was doing. He was quite natural in his friendliness, yet there was something moving about his technique which made not liking him an impossible thing.
I had known him for several years before I discovered his secret. Even then it took some active detective work on my part to ferret out his little play.
It is a simple enough habit he has. I want to tell you about it: I think you will want it to become one of your habits when I do.
He merely repeats the prospect's own words back to him. No matter whether the prospect asked for a price concession or raised an objection to the salesman's good or asked a question, the idea was the same he repeated the prospect's words.
Do you see what this simple practice accomplished?
First, it flattered the prospect; we all like to be understood, and anyone who will convince us he is sincerely trying to understand us we like.
Second, it gave the salesman time to think of what he was going to say next.
Any salesman who will form this habit of restatement will find that it will save him many misunderstandings, help his prospects more quickly to understand him, go a long, long way in making him better liked.
Develop The Tolerant Smile
Here is a selling tip from a source you would not suspect from the life of Dr. Albert Schweitzer, the great medical missionary in French East Africa, called during his lifetime "the greatest living human being."
The tip: develop the tolerant smile.
Schweitzer tells how he learned it. In his Alsatian village there was a Jew named Mausche, travelling the countryside with his donkey-cart buying cattle. He was the only Jew in the district, so the little boys of the village taunted him, little Albert Schweitzer among them.
They followed him out of the village, shouting imprecations, after him. "But Mausche, with his freckles and his grey beard, drove on as unperturbed as his donkey, except that several times he look round at us with an embarrassed but good-natured smile," recollected Dr. Schweitzer, and "This smile overpowered me.
"From Mausche it was that I first learned what it means to keep silent when offended, and he thus gave me a most valuable lesson. From that day forward I used to greet him politely."
The lesson the great Dr. Schweitzer learned is one any salesman can learn -smile tolerantly when they say mean things about you, your firm, your goods; smile tolerantly when they try to chisel on you; smile tolerantly when they raise impossible objections or demands-smile tolerantly and in time very inscrutableness of your smile will make the ill-natured win the respect of the most hard-bit-good-natured toward you, and will win the respect of the prospect.
Hold Out A Reward For Merit
The salesman said that tonight was going to be one of his big nights. He was going to take his family out on the town. He mentioned where they would dine, what show they would see; expensive places, costly entertainment. I could see a hundred bucks go down the drain that night on the town.
He must have sensed I was thinking in terms of money, for he explained: "It is my night of reward, reward for service rendered. I've worked for it for two weeks. I feel I have earned the reward."
I wanted to know who was rewarding him, and he said he was rewarding himself, then explained his system.
"All of us work better if there is a reward at the end for our efforts. I find if I hold out rewards for myself I am at my best as a salesman.
"So I am continually setting up jobs or goals, promising myself a reward. I say I am going to sell a certain volume in a week; a night on the town is a reward. Or I might set a higher goal, and hold a new car, or a new house, or a trip to Europe for performance.
"It is surprising how hard a salesman will work if he knows he is going to get an extra reward for doing so," he concluded.
Get Them To Recommend You
"I've got 300 customers," the salesman told me, "and also 300 assistants, whom I use in getting more customers."
That sort of sounded like a story so I asked him to tell me his system. He did. I tell it to you.
"Why go it alone when you can get every customer you sell to say a good word for you and help sell more customers," he said, "I find that my customers are delighted to recommend me, and their recommendation goes farther than my words in making sales."
Cut out this article and future articles and place them in your business file for further reference.
MARCH 1965 © CHARLES ROTH, All rights reserved.
MASONRY March, 1965
15