CHAPTER I

THE PROSPECT

"Every man is the center of his own particular universe. His interests are first. To sell him on any important matter, you have got to base your appeal on him, what he likes, what his ideas are."-Judson McGee, President and General Manager, New Durco Manufacturing Company.

"The safest way is to meet in person the average person whom one meets in print. A house-to-house canvass develops selling arguments quicker than anything else."-Lord & Thomas, "Real Salesmanship in Print."

A

CORRESPONDENT who had been trying without success to sell a farm tractor to a rancher in the Santa Clara valley, California, learned that the prospect was the father of a boy about 15 years of age. The following sales appeal, directed at the rancher's interest in his boy, sold the tractor:

The tractor tends to keep your boy on the place. In fact, it gives you an EXTRA MAN, because a 15-year-old boy who can't handle a four-horse team can handle the Bean Track-pull Tractor.

Now a boy hates to take care of horses but likes to drive a machine; so instead of horses sending him off to the city for more interesting work, the tractor keeps him at home and you and the good wife have him near you. The secret is that you have given him an interesting new productive ability that pleases him, because it makes him feel that he is useful, that he is adding to the earning power of the land. Boys don't want "city life" so much as they want an INTERESTING, USEFUL occupation.

In the light of his own personal needs and desires, each individual prospect classifies products that he is asked to buy. Products that enable him to meet a need, he automatically classifies as necessary; products that enable him to gratify a desire, as desirable. Products that come neither in the one catagory nor in the other, he classifies as unnecessary or undesirable. His interest in your selling appeal is, necessarily, a

selfish interest. Its shibboleth: "Wherein does the product meet my need or gratify my desire?"

The selling appeal, therefore, must invariably be expressed in terms of the prospect's individual needs and desires. Your problem, first, is to determine definitely the dominant interest of the prospect in question, and, then, to emphasize that merit of your product which will meet most directly this particular interest.

"What is the prospect interested in?" "What are his needs?""his desires?"-"his daily problems?"-"What prejudices of his, if any, must I remove before I can induce him to buy my product, or accept my proposal?"

Before the selling appeal can be planned, these questions must be answered. And when they are answered with some degree of accuracy, then will the appeal really strike home. If you show the prospect definitely that your product, or your proposal, will enable him to realize a larger financial return on his business investment, or will add to his comfort or convenience, or will solve any of the problems, or overcome any of the obstacles, that daily confront him, he will give you his order, or will agree to your proposal.

The circumstances surrounding the prospect thus dictate both the selection of the selling argument and the manner in which it is to be developed. No efficient salesman, and no efficient sales correspondent, would think of making the selfsame sales appeal to the cross-roads grocer who has little competition and to a grocer in a large city where competition is keen; to a doctor and to a lawyer; to a man whose hobby is baseball and to a man who is keenly interested in grand opera. No efficient credit manager would think of making by word of mouth or by letter the selfsame appeal for the payment of an overdue account to a man whose credit standing was doubtful and to an old customer who, up to that time, had always paid his bills promptly.

Modern business correspondents, and advertisers, recognize this bald fact, and, recognizing it, plan their appeal on the following basis:

(1) Know your prospect.

(2) Know your product.

(3) Match the needs, or desires, of your prospect

(a) with a merit of your product, i. e., with endurance, superior flavor, economy of operation, or other factor of merit; or,

(b) with the argument you employ in influencing him to accept your proposal, i. e., with an argument that will influence him to pay his overdue account, or to accept a reasonable adjustment of his complaint, etc., as the case may be.

The personal tone in the following letter is due in large measure to the fact that the correspondent was equipped with an intimate acquaintance with the circumstances surrounding the prospect in question:

Hill & Homans,

Oskadalia, Washington.

Gentlemen:

When Bud Dolan drives in on the stage from Short Plains tomorrow morning, with a broken spring part on a disk leveler, you are going to remember what I wrote you last fall about our new San Francisco branch and warehouse.

From three to four weeks is entirely too long to expect a customer to wait for a new part like that at this season of the year in Washington. Of course it may not be a spring part and it may not be tomorrow morning, but you are getting the call for parts now every day, and service is an important feature to your trade.

In fact Dave Russell, our man in your State, tells me that there are quite a few people already in your territory who are going 40 miles to Canisteo to get the more prompt service our retailer there is now able to offer because of our San Francisco branch.

Dave Russell will be in Oskadalia about the twentieth and when he arrives I want you to let him explain how promptly we are getting our shipments into Washington.

I guess I can leave it to Dave to tell you how much better and more complete our line is than any other in the field. I do want to tell you personally, however, that the New Durco's line is not only a shade better in any respect you can mention, but that our service is 50 per cent better.

With the county seat now located at Oskadalia, you are well on the road to a much larger town and a bigger volume of coun

try trade. The New Durco Company's line will be an asset to you in handling this bigger business. As you know, I am here on the job at the factory all the time and can promise you the personal attention a business like yours needs at headquarters.

Information of the definite sort employed in the above letter is most readily supplied the correspondent by the salesman. A large number of concerns therefore require their salesmen to fill out on cards provided for the purpose information bearing upon each individual prospect and customer, to which the correspondent may easily refer. This information, when the prospect is a dealer, will give the size of his business, the sort of competition he is facing, the nature of the demands made upon him by his customers, his business methods and habits, his income, the size of his family, his personal interests, i. e., his "hobbies," and any similar data which will enable the correspondent to have a fair insight into the personality, into the needs, of the man to whom he writes.

The salesman, indeed, since he comes into close, personal contact with the various dealers, is often in a position to suggest for the correspondent's use sales arguments, and methods of appeal, that will be effective. The correspondent should therefore keep in close touch, should confer frequently, with the man on the road; the relation between correspondent and salesman should be that of two men who are working together in harmony toward a common goal, the efforts of each supplementing the efforts of the other in closing the sale, and in establishing good-will that will result in future sales.

Information furnished by the salesman often enables the correspondent to build up good-will by developing a spirit of cooperation between the dealer and the house:

Dear Sir:

It is indeed a pleasure to learn through our Mr. Johnson that you have moved your paint stock to the front of your store. We certainly appreciate, Mr. Anderson, this splendid move on your part. Lots of goods are sold by suggestion, and this is especially true of Paints and Varnishes. You will be surprised at the sales you undoubtedly will put over as a result of the prominent position you are giving your paint stock.