Paler Shambers
Salesmen
should never
THE CHINA MÀIL, SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 1961.
sell themselves short
Trule is
THE salesman's golden
this:
It doesn't matter what proj duct you are selling, mister, in the first 10 seconds with A customer what you are doing is selling yourself.";s I tried this. I went, to ex- perlence my death as sales- man to Mr Alfred Tack, who suns the world's biggest sales- training organisation
BY PETER CHAMBERS
Good ralesmen never do this, just as they never tell "com- mercial traveller stories unless they are quite sure that this is a customer who likes a course laugh.
After you sell yourself, you sell the product. How is this done?
is
"Good salesmanship from an
office near Victoria Station,
Shock hends, Smlled brilliant- ly. I was really trying to make an impression. I sank in the deep feather armchair, shining
with Instant Charm.
llku
good Journalism," said Mr Tack. "The salesman's job le to tell the story of his product, and itke all good stories it should have a beginning, a middle, and be factual, straightforward, and
an end."
Tack, usted 54 his dark, alert in head pivoting
starched, Next thing, the salesman must white collar, addressed himself be un enthusiast. He must be attentively Lo me and said: lieve in his product. Ah, but "Now in what way, can I help product is cheap, awful, and here's snag. Supposing the you, Mr Chambers?" J
He was absolutely marvellous. He could have sold me London Bridge. But how was I making out? Twenty seconds had gone already.
: MISTAKES
"PLEASE make the quick
nasty?
Mr Tack repiled severely: "It you have nothing to offer but cheapness, you sell on cheap- ness, that's all."
get
Some tricks of the trade are his leitimate. Having told story the salesman who says "May I take your order for the
conditioner, Mr Jones? nir
predictably fewer -asscosment," I said. Will "Could I ever be a sulesmant Could I tell a vacuum cleaner or a Comet, er make the legendury break-through and flood the Eskimo market with refrigerators?"
Tack smiled. He runs sales training schools in London, New York, Toronto, Milan, and cist where, anul some famous inter- national corporations send their salesmen to him to learn the ABC of persuasion.
orders than the man who says: "Are you ordering the red or cream nodel, Mr Jones?"
But tricks like "switch-sell- Ing" are frowned on. The £35 refrigerator "as advertised turns out to be temporarily un- available, so the salesman "switches" the £00 machine.
Salesmanship.
customer to a
Salesmen go to school now, whether they are selling door to-door brushes or all reiineries.
The sales experta I talked to think
have the Americans nothing to teach us in the field' of Industrial selling and sales organisation. But all agreed that retail salesmanship in Britain- eclling across the counter YOU compared very poorly with the U.S.
10
We don't have it.
Yes, we could order it.... it will take a week or 10 days."
These are stock responses of the British shop assistant, and we take it uncomplainingly. We are a "please, thank you, EDITY" society, ritualistically polite,
azıd never expecting
rarely which is our right. demanding the sales service
GOOD WILL
THE spectrum of salesman-,
Tchip is vast, ranging from
Sir George Edwards, Vickers chief who designed Britain's airliner, the most successful Viscount, and helped sell many of them himself, right down to the "missionary salesmen" some famous breweries. don't even sell beer, they just create good will
of
They
Hard end giniy is the path trodden by the door-to-door The sales director salesman. for a popular encyclopedia told me: "Encyclopedias are not as tough to cell as is commonly believed in the selling business,
Is it British? Is it decent? In Britain, A "I have sold houses, encyclo- certain distaste for salesman pedas, and vacuum cleaners. is Houses are laughably easy. But "Your shoes are shiny-good," ship, still persists, but it
pushing vacuum cleaners-that's he sidd. "Your hair is a bit waning.
Tough. Jong-bad.
"I started at sixteen and a half as a door-to-door sales- man in London (ladies' wear,
but domestic appliances),
don't think you are cut out for
that,"
I made other mistakes too. I fetobed out a elgarette packet without first saying, "Do you mind if I smoke?"
SCIENCE
door-to-door huckster, familiar in the depression years, who fast-talk ed. In a smothered provincial accent and wore a phoney Old Etonian tie, is fast fading before the trained regiments vi Britain's sales forcës.
THE type of
For myself, I couldn't sell a packet of confetti to the bride's father on the eve of the wed- ding-I haven't the touch,
was
the sort of chap who could make
But Alfred Tack said I
ago of selling typewriters, perhaps, Instead of playing about on one, like this,
-(London Express Servico)..