EVERYONE IS A SALESMAN
Have you ever noticed the advertising for franchises, especially the ones where the franchiser sells you some kind of a dispensing machine and then places them in various locations? They always include in their' advertising "No Selling Required". Why is it that people are always looking for business opportunities that involve no selling when in truth nothing happens in commerce until somebody sells something. When you really think about it everybody is selling something, either themselves or some object or idea they want accomplished.
There are many good books on positive thinking and salesmanship and maybe you as I have read many of them. There is always something of use in all of them. I don't intend here to go into a course on salesman ship but I do want to share with you some personal observations and experiences.
Have you ever pulled you car into a strip shopping center and noticed a new business opening up? Then a few months later you drive in the same center and notice the business has closed it doors. If you think about it, that small business owner probable invested his or her life savings and lost it all in just a few months. These folks who start these business are depending on a couple of assumptions. They believe they have a product the public needs and their very success depends on the public coming through the door.
The lesson I learned from this observation is: Think a long, long time before starting a business that depends on people coming into your store. Try to find an occupation which requires you to call on prospects. By calling on prospects you will never run out of prospective customers.
Don't depend on prospects coming to you, Go to them.
The next lesson I learned was about doing good things and occurred when I was a young man working for General Motors in West Hartford, CT. I joined a golf course which was recently made a private club by the owner who was (Old Man) Fuller, founder of the Fuller Brush Company. Mr. Fuller was 80 years old at the time.
I had the opportunity to play golf with Mr. Fuller a number of times. Being a young salesman for General Motors I was curious about his company and asked him what made his company successful. He told me that during the depression he would hire door to door salesman to ring doorbells and ask the lady of the house if she needed any brushes. He said the secret to the salesman's success was not his salesmanship but the fact that, considering the bad times, the lady of the house was simply doing a good thing because it made HER feel better and she could afford the inexpensive brush.
Most people will do good things for other people because it makes THEM feel good. Its like the young man who stops and changes a flat tire for a little old lady. It makes him feel good.
My next lesson taught me about catching someone in the "thinking process" which is what advertising is all about. There was a very successful insurance company in Chicago owned by J. Clemment Stone. When hiring salesmen Mr. Stone would bring them into his office and lay out in front of them $100,000 in cash. He would then say to the applicant: "If you do as I tell you, you will make this much money in your first year" He would then tell them what to do. "At 9AM each morning I want you to go into a neighborhood and ring door bells. When someone answers I want you to say; "Nobody here needs any insurance do they?""
The lesson here is to catch the prospect in the thinking process. Enough prospects invited the salesman in and bought to earn him $100,000 in a year.
I will give you one last example which occured right here in Florida. I have a friend who is very successful in owning large apartment buildings. He has a son who was living in Phoenix with his wife. This kid (33 years old) was irresponsible and so was his wife. The wife's mother died and left the daughter $60,000. These two blew the whole sum up their' noses on cocaine. Broke and despondant the couple came to Florida to be near his father. The father told him he had to get off the drugs and get a job. He tried but no one would hire him. The father then made a decision that the son was going to be a painter. The son told him he didn't know how to paint and the father told him he would learn. Necessity is the mother of invention. The father then took in into a neighborhood and started ringing doorbells. When the man or woman of the house answered the door the father said: "We are painters looking for work". The first day they got work and the son started painting. When they got home the father said "Its either this or poverty. Pretty soon the son was hiring painters to do the work while he rang doorbells. That was 10 years ago. Today this kid has 26 painters working for him, he is the biggest and most successful painting conrtactor in Pinellas County and he no longer rings doorbells, his phone rings constantly from referals. More important, today he has a net worth of more than 3 million dollars.
You will notice that in the above examples we have the salesmen going on cold calls, no appointments, no previous contacts by phone. There is another important lesson to be learned here and that is the importance of "standing in front" of the prospect. This "standing in front" is the most powerful advertising in the world. Consider all other forms of advertising and the human being "standing in front" is the most powerful.To emphasis this truth a test was done on the Interstate between Kansas City and St. Louis.
Along the way there are billboards and rest stops. A couple drive by a hitchhiker holding a sign "Kansas City". The couple pass him and pull into a rest stop 1 mile down the road. When they get out of the car a man with a clip board approaches the man and tells him he is making a survey and could he ask a couple of questions. The driver says yes. Question No 1. About a mile back did you see a hitchhiker on the road? Yes we did. Did you notice what his sign was saying? Yes, it said Kansas City. Can you tell me what the billboard in back of him was advertising? No, I didn't see it. A human being will always be the most powerful force in advertising.
You must keep in mind that people who make a lot of money are people who are willing to do things which other people are not willing to do. The thing they are willing to do is "stand in front" of other people.
Most people avoid a position in sales because they are afraid of rejection, they are afraid of failure. No one likes to be rejected. Safe Stride has developed a sales track which does not involve any rejection whatsoever. This no rejection sales track is available only to Safe Stride dealers.
But it does require calling on businesses.