Masonry Magazine March 1966 Page. 17
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.
He Sells Himself
When a man can start out, with only a common school education, so poor he couldn't afford a brief case to carry his sales helps in, and earn $50,000 the first year in selling; when he can go on from there, selling more of whatever it is he was selling than anyone else; when he can start his own company and break all industry records the first year, that man has something any salesman on the go could use.
The name of the man: Quinten A. Stewart.
The secret of the man: He sells himself, not insurance or home study or whatever else he has sold.
To Stewart it is unthinkable not to be well liked by everyone. "My stock in trade is friendship," is the way he puts it. So wherever he goes he is the first to say the first friendly word. "Beat the other fellow to the punch with friendliness," is the way he puts it.
Right now he's on a long vacation in Mexico; and it is a dead cinch that United States and Mexican relationships are going to take a turn for the better. Stewart will see to it.
How To Overcome Invisibility
Maybe you have never thought about it in exactly one salesman's way, but I know you have been faced by the fact that one of the blights of salesmanship is being ignored by the prospect. Many times, even though the prospect apparently listens, he does not hear; often even though the prospect looks, he does not see.
That set this salesman I am referring to, to do something to counter what he calls salesman's invisibility.
The salesman is Burton Z. Sarason, a top man in his field of selling to stores. 'Twas not always so, because.
"Some years ago I was working in Grand Rapids. I spent an excruciating week calling on twenty potential customers, with absolutely no success. I couldn't understand it," Sarason recalls. "I had been successful in other markets. In this I was a dud.
"Two weeks later I tried again with one change in my approach. Only this time the 20 prospects became 20 new accounts."
By what strategy did he achieve this selling miracle? Well, he figured out the reason he hadn't been successful before is that the accounts were so well-established and doing so well, there was really no need to see a new salesman and hear what he had to say. Any new salesman to these accounts was an invisible man.
To shake his prospects out of their comfortable routine what Sarason did was dramatic, daring: he rented an Arabian costume, and wore it, flowing robes and turban, the whole works when he made his calls.
He got attention all right. When the prospect would ask him the reason for the get-up, the salesman was candid about it: "You wouldn't listen to me or look at me when I dressed like every other salesman, so I put this thing on to make you hear my story," he told them.
There's always a way for a salesman on the go if he looks long enough for it.
He Asked If They Liked His Brushes
One of the pioneers in direct selling and still one of the great figures in the field, Alfred Fuller, then a farm boy with a little brush factory on the back of the lot, perceived two things which as much as anything else helped make him successful.
The first was to take a step back when the housewife answered the door, rather than to step forward. The backstep showed he was not trying to force his way into the woman's home. So she invited him in.
The second discovery young Fuller made was this: that no sale is complete when the merchandise is delivered and paid for. It is only half complete then. It is only complete when the salesman goes back and asks the customer if she is satisfied with what she bought.
"How did you like the brush you bought from me last week, Mrs Crooks? Fuller would ask.
Usually the answer was that the customer liked it just fine. But now and then one disliked some feature. And Fuller was always eager to have these suggestions from customers for improving his product.
The practice had one more important result: Three women in five, flattered by this call, would suggest the names of friends who might buy- referrals to whom Fuller made easy sales.
Cut out this article and future articles and place them in your business file for further reference.
All rights reserved. MARCH 1966 CHARLES ROTH.
MASONRY
March, 1966
17