Masonry Magazine February 1967 Page. 11
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.
All It Takes Is-Everything
"You want me to tell you something about selling," he repeated. "All right. The first thing I would advise any man to do if he wants to sell is to train himself to be a good listener. Americans are probably the poorest listeners in the world, as any man who has traveled much in other countries will testify. Almost every man who applies to me for a job has an idea that his sales ability depends upon his talk. Naturally, he must learn to tell his tale, but it is as vitally important that he learns to Listen.
"The first point in salesmanship is to get the prospective customer's attention. There isn't any surer road to a man's attention than to be a good listener to his talk. I have sold more goods through asking for advice than in any other way. I've sold hardly less through asking for information. When I traveled-that should be present tense as I still travel and sell-I go into a town and find out something about my best prospects. In one town I found a retail man who had the local reputation of being a shark on tools. I went to him, and asked one simple question. He and I talked for a long time-and he did most of the talking. When he had finished, my goods were sold, and he hardly knew when he bought them. And I had learned things about tools that will help me the rest of my life.
"When I was on the road I suppose I was as fond of talking as any other salesman; anyway, I found it necessary to put a check on myself. I made one week in every four a LISTENING WEEK. It worked so well that I now use it in this business. On a given Monday I make up my mind to listen and to talk as little as possible. Then I invent excuses for asking the salesmen and various heads of departments to come in to see me, and I question them. In a little while they are talking freely, and I am listening. By the end of the week I have a fund of information that, when classified, is extremely valuable. I have been receptive all week, and the receptive man always learns.
'Salesmen can do likewise. Every month should see one listening week. If a man will patiently and persistently keep notes on what he hears, and classify it, he'll soon convince himself that listening is far more important than talking.
"I always pick a salesman who, in answer to my questions, convinces me that he is able to SEE things as well as listen. A salesman needs to see everything about him, to study the road, his customers, the stores, every happening. He needs to know the porter at the hotel or the clerk or the local banker or someone who knows how local things are going; he must learn whose business is up and whose is down, who is prospering and who is not. It isn't much trouble to get all this and it is an enormous help to any salesman.
"With observation must go a GOOD MEMORY. Now, most men have pretty good memories when they concentrate sufficiently. But I find men who read the sporting pages of the newspapers every day and can reel off the names of fighters, golfers, and ball players for years back, but who cannot remember half a dozen names in the towns they visit every year. If these men spent the same amount of time remembering their customers' names they would make better salesmen.
"Let's summarize as far as we have gone. We have a salesman who can listen, see, and remember. I would now caution him to take care of the WEARINESS FACTOR in selling.
"Some years ago, when I was on the road, I sold from a hardware catalog of 75,000 items. It weighed forty pounds. I watched my sales very carefully and made notes on all of them. I found that by far the majority of the sales were made of items in the first third of the catalog. By the time the customer and I had arrived that far we were weary; we went on in half-hearted fashion and we didn't do nearly so well. As an experiment, I tried beginning with the back of the catalog and working forward. Then I found I sold more goods from the last third. After that I had a regular routine. One trip I started at the front third, he second trip at the middle third, and the third trip I began at the back. The results justified me. I began to sell the whole line and the dealers turned over their stock oftener.
"Not everyone sells from a catalog But the same thing applies to your sales talk, whatever it is. You tire of it; you don't do your best after the first third. All right; every thirty days take it out and make it over. Put the last third first or the middle third first or introduce some novelty. Remember that if you are tired of it, you don't do it as well.
"Another way to get results is to make every month a SPECIALTY month. For instance, I would pick out a certain line of hardware and emphasize that line for thirty days. It meant that I made twelve concentrated efforts a year. This posted me thoroughly on the twelve lines.
"Is there such a thing as a born salesman? Maybe there is. Certainly a man who is in robust health, who has a fine appearance and a naturally pleasant manner, has big assets. But many a man who started out with none of these things has managed to become a worth-while salesman. Three kinds of men seem to experience the greatest difficulty in selling: Mechanics, or men with a mechanical turn of mind; bookkeepers and accountants, or men whose tendencies are toward mathematics; and timid souls who let fear dominate them. The bookkeeper and mechanic types tend to respond me thodically to exact laws. Salesmanship has some method and some law, but the supreme salesman is always an opportunist, dramatizing the moment, making it the big and vital thing. The methodical man who responds to exactness and who wishes to sell must train himself to watch for the advantage of the unexpected, pounce on it, and make it count.
Cut out this article and future articles and place them in your business file for further reference.
All rights reserved. FEB. 1967 CHARLES ROTH.