Masonry Magazine June 1966 Page. 12
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.
What Makes A Supersalesman Super?
There used to be different theories as to what made one man a super salesman, but now we know the right one. A man named Edwin P. Hoyt has told us. Hoyt, a young writer, decided he would study a dozen of the nation's greatest salesmen to see if they had any qualities in common. Do they?
They do, says Hoyt: they have seven things in common. See, as you read Hoyt's specifications, how you measure up.
"First, they are perfectionists, not satisfied with anything less than the very best they can do," he begins.
"Second, they are willing to pay the work price; to them a 12-hour day is common, a 16-hour day not uncommon.
"They perservere. That is their third trait. If one plan miscarries, they try another, and another, and another.
"They are flexible, willing to change. They like money. They discipline themselves. And, finally, they have faith; not necessarily religious faith, but unbounded faith in themselves and their ideas."
That is all these salesmen have that you do not have, so it seems simple to become a supersalesman, doesn't it?
He Drank Carrot Juice
One of the great your salesmen of his day is a man named Allen Goldsmith, now living in Casper, Wyoming. and making his $50,000 a year selling securities in that sparsely settled state.
Goldsmith is willing to pay the price, any price for success. By nature he's a good-timer, liking to eat and drink and make merry. But he even gives these things up entirely to make sales.
Does he ever!
He is ascetic on the job, as you will now read: Came Monday and Goldsmith and a fellow salesman, a protege, set out on a selling trip. In the back of the car they carried a carrot juicer and half a bushel of carrots.
"You have to be hungry to sell," Goldsmith told his companion.
"That hungry?" asked the companion.
"That hungry," confirmed Goldsmith, as he ground up their breakfast next morning in the motel room.
At noon they made a call on a rancher, whose wife served him a 32-ounce steak, a heap of French fried potatoes, which the prospect ate while Goldsmith and his companion sat and drooled.
But they made the sale. That is the point-they made the sale. Admitting that it isnt necessary to go quite to the extreme of giving up everything to make sales, Goldsmith insisted that good selling requires self-denial on the salesman's part.
Man Of Few Words
Charles P. Rogge, outstanding insurance salesman, was the salesman of the fewest words on record. He always said it made him successful.
His method was this: He would go into an office in Wall Street, in New York City, write this on the back of a card and send it in to his prospect: "I have a message for you-30 seconds please."
If he got in and he nearly always did-while still standing, he would deliver a six-sentence sales talk and ask date of the prospect's birth. Then looking at his watch, he would prepare to leave, thanking the prospect for his thirty seconds.
Usually what happened is that his intrigued prospects would invite him back. Then he would stick till he sold. But he kept his word scrupulously that he wanted no more than half a minute on his first call.
"Double Your Rate Of Failure"
To Thomas J. Watson, the great builder of IBM, failure was not a thing to fear in selling, but to welcome. He always advised IBM men to "Double your rate of failure."
Then he would explain to them that in selling failure is the greatest of all teachers, if you will let it be.
Suppose you make a presentation and fail. If you take the trouble to analyze what you did that caused you to fail, then correct it with the next prospect you talk to, you've made yourself a better salesman.
But beware of failure and putting the blame on the prospect, as so many salesmen do. That's not the way to make failure pay off. John D. Rockefeller was another user of failures. Each night he analyzed the day, to check up on himself on the reasons for his failures.
Cut out this article and future articles and place them in your business file for further reference.
All rights reserved. JUNE 1966 CHARLES ROTH.