Certain Success. Norval A. Hawkins
stops you and says, "I'll give you two dollars to take me to the station." You transport him in response to his call for your services.
Distinguish Degrees of Effort
2. A sale completed by the buyer's acceptance on presentation only.
Example—A man is walking along a country road in the summer time. He sees a sign in the door-yard of a farmhouse; BERRY PICKERS WANTED. He presents himself as a candidate and the farmer at once engages his services.
3. A sale completed immediately after a desire of the buyer has been created by a definite, intentional effort of the salesman.
Example—A man out of work wants a job that will employ his physical strength. He encounters three men who are struggling to load a very heavy box onto a truck. He takes off his coat and proves his strength by the ease with which the box is lifted when he helps. He inquires which of the three men is the truck boss; and asks for a job. He is hired because he has made the boss want the aid of his strength in handling heavy loads.
4. A sale completed only after persuasion of the buyer.
Example—Assume that the truck boss in the next preceding illustration refuses at first to hire the applicant who has demonstrated his strength. It is necessary then for the man out of a job to talk his prospective boss into the idea that he needs a fourth man in his gang.
5. A sale completed only after a decision by the buyer as to the comparative benefits of purchasing or of not buying.
Example—You and another candidate apply for the same position in an office. You appear to be about equal in capability. The employer "weighs you in the balance" against the other applicant. This is a sale requiring the fifth degree of effort. Manifestly you will need to use a very high quality of skill to get into the mind of the prospective buyer of services the idea that you are likely to be of more value as an employee than your competitor for the place. Then you must skillfully prompt him to accept your application.
Difficult Sales Most Worth Making
When you appreciate exactly how sales differ in the degrees of effort necessary to close them, you will realize the wisdom of preparing to sell your particular qualities and services with full comprehension of all the difficulties commonly met by candidates for desirable positions.
Countless men have died failures because they used throughout their lives only the first or second degrees of effort. Consequently all their attempts to get good jobs were futile. The non-success of millions of other worthy men has been due to their use of no more than the third or fourth degrees of selling effort.
Sales of The Fifth Degree of Difficulty
Sales of the fifth degree of difficulty sometimes demand knowledge and skillful use of the entire selling process. They are the sales most worth making. The applicant for a new position or for a promotion is certain to succeed in his purpose if he knows how to complete a sale of the true idea of his best capabilities. In order to do this he must control the weighing process of the buyer; and be skillful in prompting acceptance of his "goods of sale."
When you master and reduce to every-day practice the fundamental principles you can learn from this set of books, you will be assured of making a successful average in handling sales of the fifth degree of effort.
They are sales of the kind the professional salesman makes with complete confidence every day. His methods, applied to the marketing of your goods of sale, will work such wonders for you that you soon should build up self-confidence equal to the matter-of-fact assurance of the master salesman of clothing, insurance, and other materials of sale. He knows when he begins a season or starts on a trip that he will make a good batting average.
Desired Results In Selling
Comprehend, further, exactly what results are desired by the skilled salesman whose work is based on scientific principles.
The immediate results desired are:
First, confidence;
Second, acceptance of the ideas brought by the salesman.
One who is unfamiliar with the scientific principles underlying the skillful practice of the right selling process is unlikely to realize that the first sales effort should be concentrated on winning the prospective buyer's confidence in the salesman and in the goods of sale. Failures in selling are often due to the fault of the salesman who works primarily for but the second of the immediate results to be desired; the acceptance of his proposition—the acceptance of his personal capabilities and services, for instance. He neglects, as a preliminary to securing acceptance, to gain the confidence of the other man. When you undertake to sell your particular good qualities and your services to a prospective employer, do not make the mistake in salesmanship of omitting the process of first winning his belief in you.
Repeat Sales
Besides the two immediate results desired by the skillful salesman, there is a permanent result to be worked for—an enduring consequence desired from the present gains made. That permanent result wanted is the opening of other opportunities for future sales.
Complete success in life is not assured when the original sale of one's best capabilities is closed successfully. Gaining the initial desired chance does not make it certain that one will succeed in his entire career. The first sale is faulty if it does not include a lead to future opportunities "to deliver the goods."
The right selling process is continuous. Where one sale ends, another should be already started. A great many failures of capable men can be ascribed to short-sighted concentration on immediate chances. One who would make certain of the success of his whole life must ever look ahead to the next possible opportunity for the sale of the true idea of his best capabilities, meanwhile making the most of his present chance.
Service Purpose In Selling
In order to get the right viewpoint for further study of the selling process, you, the salesman of yourself, need to comprehend clearly the fundamental purpose of all true salesmanship. It should be the service of the buyer in satisfying his real needs.
Few salesmen know what sales service is, and how it should be rendered. Service is the very soul of the certain success selling process. Service must be studied as a purpose until the principles underlying the fullest satisfaction of the buyer's real needs are mastered, and all false misconceptions of service are cleared away from the salesman's idea of his obligation to the purchaser of his goods of sale.
Sales Knowledge Universally Needed
This brief summary of the principal essentials of sales knowledge has been outlined in order to impress on you the practically universal need for a better understanding of the selling process. Certainly you are convinced now that it will pay you to know HOW to sell. Then let us look next at yourself in a different light—as a subject of study in sales-man-ship.
CHAPTER II
The Man-Stuff You Have For Sale
The Man Sales-Man Ship
Your knowledge of sales principles and methods, and your skill in selling ideas must be combined with right sales-manhood if your complete success in sales-man-ship is to be made certain. Particular man qualities are necessary to make you a master salesman in your chosen field. "A good man obtaineth favor." So we will study now the elements of character required for the most effective sales-man-ship, and how to develop them.
We shall not consider "Man" in the abstract, nor exceptional ideals of manhood. Our thought of the sales man will be concentrated on qualities