Persuasion Article No58
Selling during Tough Times
Persuasion Article no58 asks the question.....Are you a fair weather sales person or are you prepared to earn your salary and commissions by making sales when it's hard ? Anyone can make sales when the economy is booming and the focus of most companies is keeping up with demand. If raw materials and labour are scarce it's a sellers market. But what about when things slow down ? What do you do to make sure you make your share of sales ? The list below comes from the December 1932 issue of Opportunity Magazine, written for salespeople during the Great Depression. It was a test to be taken to see if you could sell during the depression. I was lucky enough to find this information re-printed in The Customer Collective Blog. Take the test and see how you do ? - Am I sociable?
- Do I think in terms of success?
- Do I really like selling?
- Do I think of my customers interests?
- Do I read sales literature?
- Do I study my prospects?
- Is my personal appearance a credit to myself and the company I represent?
- Do I realize that success in selling is a matter of study and perseverance and that the element of luck is small?
- Am I cheerful in the face of interruptions?
- Am I always courteous even with unreasonable prospects?
- Am I always scrupulously honest in my representations?
- Do I think of selling as a dignified calling worthy of my best efforts?
- When faced with competition, am I inspired to excel?
- Do I know that my line of goods is the best on the market?
- Do I try to make repeat sales?
- Do I talk quality first and price later?
- Do I stay with a line of goods long enough to give the line a fair trial?
- Do I spend sufficient time perfecting my demonstration to make it convincing?
- Do I take advantage of every modern convenience in selling, such as the telephone, telegraph and letter service?
- Do I canvas systematically and never skip places because they look uninviting?
- Do I work regular hours even when the weather is unpleasant?
- Do I put in the extra time to close a deal when necessary?
- Do I put extra effort into selling after a poor day?
- Do I put extra effort into selling after an unusually good day?
- Am I determined to stick with selling despite the lure of a blind alley, time clock, type of job?
persuasion article no58
Score the test by adding up the number of questions answered favorably:- 25: Star Salesman
- 20: A Success
- 15: On The Way
- Below 15: Need Overhauling
Well how did you do ? Hopefully, you did well. If not, get to it and start working on your game.
The time to start is now. Here's to YourSalesSuccess, Greg
persuasion article no58
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