SELLING MEN AND TRAINING as a profession has been recognised in the United States of America for a long time, where, indeed, it is regarded as one of the most important professions of the future. In that country, therefore, is found the training school for selling men brought to the greatest perfection.
In Great Britain comparatively few employees of salesmen have deemed it worth while to specially instruct the selling force in their duties; but wherever it has been done, the results have almost invariably been eminently satisfactory.
Schools of salesmanship are springing up in this country for the education generally of all and sundry in the art or science of selling goods, and some of them are doing good work, but that class of school is not referred to here. Reference is here made to schools or classes conducted by individual firms for the benefit of their own particular salesmen.
The conducting of such a school presents difficulties, the most serious of all being the opposition of the proposed students themselves. Employees who have been successful in selling goods do not believe, as a rule, that anything can be gained by spending some weeks indoors to discuss details of a business which they think they know from beginning to end. It is best to begin gradually, preferably by engaging with a successful outside man to come indoors for a few weeks to give two or three new men the benefit of his experience. Thi.; is not easy, for in the meantime the proposed instruc tor's own district will be suffering from neglect, and it may be necessary to put some one into it temporarily to keep matters going for Lim. If the two or three new men who have been thus assisted keep afloat until they have made proved successes of their districts or agencies, the rest will be easier.
There is not a great deal to teach in those cases where business is already being secured through a connection having been established, and where personality and friendship with those who have the power to buy are sufficient to produce a crop of repeat orders year in and year out. It is in connection with making new calls upon possible purchasers that training tells the most. With some commercial representatives it is a rarity to make
a new call. Others do make a new call occasionally, whilst some, notably salesmen handling specialties and working on commission, are always calling upon new people. These last-named are the men who derive the greatest benefit of all from a practically conducted selling school.
The training school salesmen must be run upon a pre-arranged schedule, or much waste time will result. A time-table must be drawn up, and adhered to as closely as possible. New men can generally be held in school for from four to six weeks, but the older men, who have been on the road, will not tolerate spending more than a week in class.
Dealing with new men first, six weeks is quite long enough as a rule, of which from one-third to one-half of the time is spent out upon the road, in a ground used for the purpose of training. The curriculum will include tuition in the strong points of every special line offered. The instructor will bring these out in the most telling way, for he will have been specially selected for the work owing to his success in calling upon new trade. Each student will then practise in turn until able to do nearly as well as the instructor himself. It will be necessary to have some one act the part of a shopkeeper, professional man, or as the nature of the goods may require. Acting as a prospective buyer, he will oppose all the reasonable objections he can think of, and do his best to avoid buying from the salesman who is practising upon him. The new salesman will fail at first, and the instructor himself will take up the running and prove to the class that the man can be sold to, if only the proposition is put in the right way.
The commercial morality of this training need be in no question, for it is vastly better for a shopkeeper to be waited upon by a man who knows his business, and puts his arguments in a clear and straightforward way, instead of wasting time beating around the bush to no purpose.