One Thousands way make $ 1000 Chapter -2

chapter Two 

SELLING AS A BUSINESS 

    I N LOGGING camps the cook shouts, “Come and get it.” In the army the bugler sounds mess call. In either case a horde of hungry men come running for their meals. In business it would be simple if a manufacturer or a merchant could bring all his customers within earshot, shout, “Come and get it” and be rushed by a crowd of customers eager to buy his product. However, as we all know, people are not that anxious to buy. They must be educated, persuaded and shown how and what to buy. That is the job of salesmen and saleswomen. There is always a demand for people who can sell. Salesmanship draws its manpower from every other profession and trade. Lawyers have closed their law books and turned to selling; some have grown rich. Surgeons have put aside their white coats and become salesmen. Bankers, grown tired of sitting on tall stools, or behind fancy desks have thrown up their jobs and turned to the more satisfying job of selling. Farmers have walked away from their plows to take up salesmanship; men from machine shops, from schools, churches, stores and offices have sought the greater freedom and wider opportunities for profit offered by a career in salesmanship. There are many reasons why so many men desert other types of work to take up salesmanship. One of the first reasons is that you can write your own ticket when you become a salesman. You do not have to wait until the boss gets ready to grant you a raise; a good salesman can give himself a raise in pay almost any time. You do not have to work long, dreary hours, Sundays and holidays as the druggist, the restaurant owner or the garage employee must. In selling you are almost entirely your own boss. You set your own rate of pay and, like the captain of a ship at sea, you rely on your own judgment and ability. There are many other things that go to make selling real fun. You meet the community’s most successful, most interesting and influential people. You are in constant touch with what’s going on in the world, and you are laying the foundation for success and increasingly bigger pay checks. There is almost no other man who is so thoroughly independent and secure as the salesman who has built up the confidence and friendship of a group of customers. A merchant may suffer fire losses that will wreck his business or he may make mistakes in buying that will shatter his profits for an entire season; a surgeon may lose the delicate skill of his hands as he grows older, and the loss of one important case may send a lawyer straight down the path to obscurity. A farmer may lose an entire season’s work in one heavy downpour of rain, or an overflow of the creek or river. But no fire can burn, no flood destroy, no thief can steal a salesman’s stock in trade which is, as you know, the confidence and friendship of his customers. Of course, there can be no doubt that most men take up selling to earn money. But there are other satisfactions and compensations in addition to the money earned. In 1928, a salesman almost jammed a life insurance policy down the throat of a certain New York newspaper man. The policy had an accident and sickness clause which paid $100 a month in the event of illness and disability. When he signed the application and paid the premium he was in the best of health. Less than two years later he was in a hospital, drawing $100 a month compensation. Was he grateful to that insurance salesman? You know he was. Had it not been for the salesman’s insistence, he would have suffered the loss of ten months’ earnings, and there would have been no funds to pay the heavy hospital expenses. Yet it seemed to the buyer when he took that insurance that he was doing the salesman a favor. As it turned out, the salesman did the newspaper man a favor for which he has been grateful ever since. 

   A salesman who sold a radio receiver sometime ago to an old lady who is crippled and confined to her home said that he wondered if he had done the right thing. It was an expensive set and she was dependent on a very small income. “I thought perhaps I ought not to have sold her, because it was obvious that her home needed repairs and painting. But as she made the payments I realized that the radio set had brought the world right to her armchair. She has since told me that her radio receiver, next to her husband and children, has been the greatest joy in her life.” There are literally millions of people who owe much of their happiness to salesmen. Think of the people who might never have owned a home if some real estate salesman hadn’t “pushed them over.” Think of the thousands of mothers whose lives have been made easier by some salesman who sold them a washing machine, a vacuum cleaner, or an ironing machine. There’s a president of a big advertising agency in New York who traces his upward rise back to the time when a salesman sold him a correspondence course in advertising. Numberless cases could be pointed out where salesmen, through their ability to educate, to persuade, and to induce people to act, have brought new prosperity, happiness and satisfaction into the lives of millions of people. That’s why it is so much fun to sell things. 

Qualifications of a Good Salesman 

    One of the best salesmen in his field was a big, blonde fellow who was a great handshaker and backslapper. He never missed an opportunity to make a friend or to push himself forward to meet the right people. He joined all kinds of lodges and clubs. He wore pink shirts, too. He was a typical salesman—the kind we read about. And he was a big success. Another topnotch salesman was a fellow who was totally unlike the first man. He never slapped any backs; he was quiet, reserved and almost diffident in his relations with people. But he could sell. When he sold an order he made a customer, and often a lifelong friend. These two men are mentioned to emphasize the idea that you don’t have to be an expert storyteller, a gin-hound or a great handshaker to be a good salesman. There are thousands of good salesmen who never take a drink of hard liquor. There are other thousands who are quiet, unassuming, modest fellows who do not feel the necessity of joining a lot of clubs or lodges, or painting the town red. It isn’t even necessary for a man to have the “gift of gab” to be a successful salesman. Experience has proved that more salesmen have become failures from talking too much, than from too little. Because a man doesn’t have to be a good “mixer,” in the usual sense of the word, don’t jump to the conclusion that a miser can be a good salesman. But there is a whole world of middle ground between being a “mixer” and a miser. If you enjoy meeting people, if you are not scared in the event a man becomes a little gruff and grouchy with you, if you are not afraid of hard work and study, and if you have a grim determination to succeed, you have most of the important qualifications of a good salesman. Of course, if you are imaginative, can see the inherent value in a proposition quickly, if you have the knack of explaining values in interesting and forceful terms, if you have any natural qualities of leadership—so much the better. But, important as these qualities may be, many men who have them in only the smallest degree succeed in selling. You may ask what is meant by “natural qualities of leadership.” Were you ever the captain of a sandlot or high school baseball team? Are you invariably appointed to some office in any little group, lodge, association, or club you join? Do people gravitate toward you and go out of their way to see you or please you? If these things are true, you are a natural leader and there is no better way to capitalize your inherent abilities than in a career as a salesman. But if you like to be alone, if you would rather read about a football game than go to one and yell your head off, if you would rather sit by the fire of a winter’s night and read a good book than go to a party, perhaps you had better not try selling—unless you are willing to fight hard to overcome your natural inclinations. To add one word of caution: Don’t pay too much attention to what your friends tell you. Many a potentially good salesman has been ruined by the well-meant, but mistaken, advice of wives, friends, mothers, or schoolteachers. After all, it is up to each man to decide for himself what he wants to do, whether it is running a retail store, building up a manufacturing business, farming, selling or anything else. You know in your own mind whether you want to sell or not. Once you have made up your mind, go ahead. If you are the sort of person who is constantly swayed back and forth in your opinions and your desires by the advice of friends, then perhaps you had better not try to be a salesman.