Getting the Name on the Order Blank

 Getting the Name on the Order Blank 

When you begin to sell you are almost sure to find nearly everyone will promise you some business. You will be told, “I will keep you in mind,” or “I will let you know when I need anything.” People really mean these pleasantries when they say them to you, but they seldom bother to remember them after a salesman is out of sight. You must learn, and learn quickly, too, that a promised order pays no commissions, turns no factory wheels. The ability to close sales without a long, drawn-out series of “call backs” is the greatest asset a salesman can have. Without this ability you are just a solicitor, not a salesman. There’s an old saying, “Anybody can solicit business, but it takes a salesman to close orders.” The first thing to remember in closing a sale is that most people need a little pushing to bring them to a decision. The natural inclination of every prospect is to put off buying as long as possible. Even a woman, a few days before Easter, will want to put off buying a hat or a new outfit, until she has seen what every store in town has to offer. Yet she wants that new hat or dress as badly as she ever wanted anything. She’d be heartbroken if she knew she couldn’t have it. But she wants to wait, wait, wait and see if she can’t find something she likes a little better. Keeping this human trait uppermost in your minds, as salesmen, you can understand the necessity of persistence and pressure in helping people to make up their minds. Take the case of a man buying a new automobile. He may have decided to buy a Ford, a Chevrolet or a Plymouth. But which one? All three cars are presented to him in the most favorable manner. He is a bit confused. Each car has certain special features which appeal to him. The salesman’s job is to bring him to the point of deciding. There are definite methods of doing this. For example, one salesman may say: “Mr. Prospect, if you will just check your preferences as to color, tires, and body style, I’ll put your order through, so you can drive this car next Sunday.” See how this salesman has simplified the prospect’s problem of making a decision. See how much better this attempt at closing is, than: “Think it over and let me know what kind of tires and wheels you want.” The washing machine salesman may say, “Mrs. Jones, if you will sign this memorandum you can have this machine in your basement by Monday, and finish your washing long before noon, leaving you free from worry and work all Monday afternoon.” In closing an order make everything as simple as possible, and get the prospect to take some first, easy steps toward signing. A typewriter salesman had the president of a large company convinced that his machine was right. But there were some twenty-five old machines to be listed for tradein and a contract to be drawn. The salesman saw that the president, who was accustomed to “okaying” memoranda which had been prepared for him, was busy. Had he waited for the president to ask someone to list all the old typewriters to be traded in and to draw up the contract, he would never have obtained the order. The salesman went out of the president’s office, tore off a sheet of wrapping paper. On it he listed the serial numbers of all machines which were to be traded in. Under the list he wrote, “$21 allowance on these machines.” Back into the president’s office went the salesman. He showed the president the memorandum and said, “Just okay this and I will have your purchasing agent prepare the order.” The president scribbled his initials and his okay in a jiffy. Later the salesman went to the purchasing agent who prepared a formal purchase order for the twenty-five new typewriters. The salesman had made the job of buying as simple as possible. At the first sign of agreement on the part of the prospect, the wise salesman “asks for the order.” If he can’t close at this point, he goes right on explaining, even in some cases, repeating things he has said before. Then he asks for the order again. More men make the mistake of asking for the order too late than too soon. Remember this point when selling—ask for the order five times before you give up. Very often a prospect will spar and feint by saying he will check his stock and let you know. Or he will tell you that he will find out what color, or what size, or what quantity is needed. Here is where the salesman shows whether he is really an order getter, or just a solicitor. If he is really a salesman he’ll say, “That’s fine, Mr. Prospect, just okay this order with the color (or size or quantity) left blank and I will have your clerk (assistant bookkeeper, or secretary) fill in the details.” Not long before this was written a salesman was trying to sell a landlord a Kelvinator electric refrigerator. Two other refrigerator salesmen were after the order too. The landlord couldn’t make up his mind, so he said he would talk to the tenant and find out what make the tenant preferred. The Kelvinator salesman went straight to the tenant and explained all the good points of Kelvinators. The other two salesmen waited a day or two and then came back. “Sorry, but I bought a Kelvinator,” said the landlord when they approached him. The Kelvinator salesman had “cinched” the order by seeing the tenant and then going right back to the landlord and saying, “Your tenant will be delighted with a Kelvinator, because I have just seen him and told him all about it.” 

Deciding What to Sell 

   What do you want to sell? Don’t make the mistake of thinking, “I would sell anything if I had the chance.” The first step in going into sales work is to decide what you want to sell, and what you think you can sell. You might do a splendid job of selling electric ranges, yet fail miserably in selling electric motors. Or vice versa. You could conceivably make a big success selling life insurance and fail completely to sell accounting machines. Your own previous experience, your interests, hobbies, education, and background, all should govern the selection of something you like to sell. If you like the feel and touch of materials; if you have an eye for style, line, color; if you are a natural trader who loves to see money changing hands, by all means get into selling something that is sold over the counter in retail stores. But if you are the kind of fellow who thinks that a retail merchant is just a “shopkeeper,” and you can’t get excited about a piece of merchandise and the possible profit it carries, then forget about selling to retailers. Do you like automobiles? Are you interested in all the new models that come out from year to year? This interest may be turned into profit by selling automobiles. Are you of a mechanical turn of mind? There are a thousand mechanical devices to sell. And so on through the long gamut of everything that is made. There are a thousand things you could sell. But find the one thing you want to sell, and you’ve made your first step toward a career in selling. In the following portion of this chapter you will read how other people who, like yourself, had a real desire to sell, satisfied their desire and made good money to boot. You will notice that in nearly every instance the adventure proved successful because the product offered for sale rendered a definite service to the buyer. It is not enough that you are enthusiastic about selling a product or service; it must be something for which a need exists. When you are searching for something to sell, make sure that it not only appeals to you, but that it will appeal to those to whom you must sell it. In this connection you will find in the supplement in the back of this book a list of products, which offer such opportunities. From this list you can make a selection with every assurance that the product is salable.