SELLING PROCESS-PRELIMINARY TO THE INTERVIEW 1. Definition of a sale.—From a legal point of view, to sell is to transfer property to another, or to contract to do so, for a valuable consideration, espe cially money. From a business point of view, the sale should, in addition, represent a profit to the owner of the goods. Not much salesmanship is required to give goods away or to sell below cost.
There is still another requisite. A sale, as a legiti mate phase of coinmerce, should represent a profit or an advantage to the buyer. Some treatises on selling would lead one to believe that the average buyer is a putty-minded person before whom the scientifically instructed salesman makes a few mysterious passes and thus hypnotizes him into signing an order whether he can use the commodity to advantage or not. , The reminiscences of some salesmen would almost lead one to believe that most of their sales are made thru a sys tem of legerdemain in which no consideration whatever is given to the question -whether or not the buyer can use the goods to advantage. One wonders how men who are so easily persuaded to make disadvantageous purchases ever become sufficiently successful to be able to buy anything. Of course, the truth is that the salesman has really taken the buyer's point of view, and, consciously or unconsciously, has made the buyer see that it is to his advantage to buy.
It is recognized today to be both poor ethics and bad business to sell a person anything that he cannot use to advantage; and most salesmen realize that to overstock a dealer, altho it may show fine powers of persuasion, will do no permanent good to himself, bis customer or his house. A true sale, then, is one in which there is a threefold profit—to the house, to the buyer and to the seller.
2. Development of a sale.—In the development of the selling process, there are four distinct stages. First, the salesman must secure the prospect's undi vided attention. Second, this attention must be sus tained and developed into interest. Third, this in
terest must be ripened into desire. And fourth, all lingering doubts must be removed from the prospect's mind, and there must be implanted there a firm reso lution to buy ; in other words, the sale must be closed. In every successful sale there is another element, con fidence. Unlike the four elements previously men tioned, confidence does not develop into another dis tinct phase of the selling process. It is rather the base made stronger by the interview upon which the completed sale must be built.
Before a sale is possible, the buyer must be ap proached. The approach, then, tho not an integral part of the selling process, is a necessary and difficult preliminary. It may be divided into two parts: prep aration for the interview, accomplished by securing a knowledge of the prospect ; and getting in to see the prospect. To keep these various elements in mind is necessary to an intelligent study of the subject of salesmanship. It is even more important in the actual making of a sale.
3. Preparation for the interview.—Many sales men open their interviews smoothly by approaching a prospect on his "blind side"; that is, by talking to him of something in which be is deeply interested. Even tho a salesman has a standard presentation, he will find it advantageous to modify it or add to it, if neces sary, in such a manner as to tie his proposition closely to the prospect's interests. In other words, the sales man's talk must be suited to the prospect. This means that he should know as much as possible about the prospect before approaching him. The astute salesman gathers a great deal of valuable information before he ever faces his prospect, just as the general provides himself with topographical maps of the coun try OVer which his army is to operate. Oftentimes, a great part of his knowledge must be secured by ,scruti nizing his man as he crosses the office floor. He will secure some knowledge during the inteniew, of course, by getting the prospect to talk.