The Success System That Never Fails (with linked TOC). William Clement Stone
to sell everyone you call on” was one of the instructions my mother had given me. So I stayed with every prospect. Sometimes I wore him out, but when I left his place of business, I was worn out too. It seemed to me that in selling a low-cost service, as I was doing, it was imperative that I average more sales per hour of effort. For it wasn’t every day that I sold 27 policies in one place of business.
So I decided not to sell everyone I called on, if the sale would take longer than a time limit I had set for myself. I would try to make the prospect happy and leave hurriedly, even though I knew that if I stayed with him I could make the sale.
Wonderful things happened. I increased my average number of sales per day tremendously. What’s more, the prospect in several instances thought I was going to argue, but when I left him so pleasantly, he would come next door to where I was selling and say, “You can’t do that to me. Every other insurance man would hang on. You come back and write it.” Instead of being tired out after an attempted sale, I experienced enthusiasm and energy for my presentation to the next prospect.
The principles I learned are simple: Fatigue is not conducive to doing your best work. Don’t reduce your energy level so low that you drain your battery. The activity level of the nervous system is raised when the body recharges itself with rest. Time is one of the most important ingredients in any successful formula for any human activity. Save time. Invest it wisely.
How to Get a Person to Listen to You
‘When you are talking to a person, look at his eyes,” I was taught as a youngster, But in selling, I would look at a person’s eyes and he would often shake his head “no.” And more often he would interrupt me. I didn’t like this. It slowed me down. Soon, I hit on a simple technique to avoid this: Get the prospect to concentrate through his senses of sight and hearing on what I had to show him and on what I had to say. I pointed to the policy or sales literature and looked at it as I gave my sales talk. Because I looked where I was pointing, he looked too. If, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a prospect shake his head “no,” I paid no attention. Often he would become interested, and I would later close the sale.
Play to Win
In a highly competitive game or sport, you play according to the rules, and you don’t violate the standards that you have set for yourself, but you play to win. So it is in the game of selling. For selling, like every other activity, becomes a lot of fun when you become an expert.
I found that to become an expert I had to work, and work hard. Try, try, try, and keep trying is the rule that must be followed to become an expert in anything. But in due course, by employing the right work habits, you do become an expert. Then you experience the joy of work, and the job is no longer work. It becomes fun.
Day after day I worked, and worked hard, trying to improve my sales techniques. I searched for trigger words–words and phrases that would set off the right reaction within the prospect. And the right reaction meant that he would buy within a reasonably short space of time, for time meant money to me.
I wanted to say the right thing in the right way to get the right reaction. This took practice, and practice is work.
Everything has a beginning and an ending. The introduction is the beginning of a sales presentation. How could I end the sale in the shortest space of time, in a manner that would make the prospect happy?
Because I searched, I made a discovery: If you want the prospect to buy, ask him to buy. Just ask him, and give him a chance to say “yes.” But make it easy for him to say “yes” and difficult to say “no.” Specifically, use force with such finesse that it is subtle, pleasing, and effective.
And here’s what I found: If you want a person to say “yes,” just make a positive statement and ask an affirmative question. Then the “yes” answer is almost a natural reflex action. Examples:
1. Positive statement: It’s a nice day...
Affirmative question: Isn’t it?
Answer: Yes, it is.
2. The mother who wants her child to practice the piano for an hour on a Saturday morning when she knows that the child wants to go out to play, could say:
Positive statement: You want to practice for an hour now so that you’ll have the entire day to play...
Affirmative question; Isn’t that true?
Answer: Yes.
3. A sales lady offering the customer a lace handkerchief could say:
Positive statement: This is beautiful, and it’s quite reasonable...
Affirmative question: Don’t you think so?
Answer: Yes.
Affirmative question: May I gift wrap it for you, then?
Answer: Yes.
4. The effective close I found is just as simple:
Positive statement: So, if you don’t mind, I would like to write it for you also, if I may...
Affirmative question: May I?
Answer: Yes.
Why It Was Written
The stories of my experiences in the Dime Bank Building indicate the techniques I used to begin to develop my sales system that never fails, and why I used them. I was searching for the necessary knowledge for each step that would comprise the entire sales presentation. I was endeavoring to acquire the know-how–the experience of using this specific knowledge–through repeated action.
In brief, I was preparing myself to develop the habit of using a formula that would consistently obtain outstanding results in sales for me in the shortest possible space of time.
Although I didn’t realize it then, I was in reality getting ready for tomorrow. For some years later, I discovered that my sales system employed principles that are the common denominator of continuous successful achievement in every human activity. And thus I made a greater discovery: the success system that never fails.
What Does It Mean to You?
Health, happiness, success, and wealth can be yours when you understand and employ the success system that never fails.
For the system works...if you work the system.
Up to this point, you may not recognize and understand the success principles to be found in the stories and explanations you have read well enough to adopt them. But as you continue to read, they will become crystal clear.
As you search for the success system that never fails, you will make faster and more permanent progress by keeping in mind the three necessary ingredients, which are, in order of their importance:
1. Inspiration to action: that which motivates you, or anyone else, to act because you want to.
2. Know-how: the particular techniques and skills that consistently get results for you. Know-how is the proper application of knowledge. Know-how becomes habit through actual repetitive experience.
3. Activity knowledge: knowledge of the activity, service, product, methods, techniques, and skills with which you are particularly concerned.
For continuous success, it is necessary to get ready for tomorrow. To get ready for tomorrow, you must be a self-builder. And to learn to be a self-builder, read the next chapter.Little Hinges That Swing Big Doors
1. In the end, your environment will control you; therefore, make sure that you control your environment. Avoid situations, acquaintances, associates, who tend to hold you back.
2. Success is achieved by those who try. Where there’s a lot to gain and little to lose, try.
3. Thinking will not overcome fear, but action will.
4. Never forget: The system will work...if YOU work the system.
Be a Self-Builder
“Don, do you know where I can get a job?”