The Detroit times., 1916-07-10
"A Little Matter Here
In Which We Would Like
To Interest the Statesmen!
The statesmen are in town.


A buyer, the way salesman defines
buyer. is someone to SELL TO.
The salesman is always on the job.
The buyer doesn't get on the JOB until
a salesman gets him there.
You can get buyer TO buy against his
will.
We never heard of salesman selling
against his will
He is a mighty important man around
any institution, the salesman.
Take a product that stands an equal
chance of appealing TO the public on its
merits. and the success or failure of the
business of making that product de-
ponds, in the last analysis, upon the man
who sells it, and the success or failure OF
the man who sells it depends on the man
himself.
Take factory that covers acres, en-
ploying thousands of men, turning out
necessity or luxury, as the case may
be, with hundreds of machines grinding
away, miles of betting slipping over pull
leys, with hurry and hustle everywhere,
and there still has to be some crunching
of gravel made by trucks departing with
their heavy leads, which means that af-
ter all the thing SINNERS down to an IN
DIVIDUAL, working quite noiselessly in
a room next to the trip hammers.
This individual is the salesman.
Things that machines can make re-
quire brains to get them to market, and
the salesman supplies the brains.
There is no student as versatile.
He has to study the article whose fate
is put up to him; he has to study peo-
Pile; he has to study the wants of peo-
pie, and these require study OF HIM
SELF, most important of all.
Experience has taught me-" said one
salesman to another in an interchange
of experiences, in our presence, that the
best time to sell man is directly after
he has had lunch and tipped himself and
his cigar back in his chair at his desk.
find that men are most ready at that
time to talk"
"And have found that to be the very
worst time" said the other salesman.
''The only customer / ever lost was one
on whom called at that very hour and
under those same conditions"
(Which proves to me-" suggested the
first salesman, shat you ate something
at your own lunch which did not agree
with you"
An idea of just how the successful
salesman must study the article ne Is
putting on the market, is conveyed in
the experience of the man who was sell
ing promotion stock in a patent washing
machine.
Calling upon local capitalist in his Of
fee, he secured an audience and was
given an attentive hearing for his propo-
sition.
| He was extolling the possibilities of
the improved machine, when he was In
| terrupted by his prospect, who remarked
81 know that the representations you
make for this machine are very true,
every one of them, but | little dreamed
| of some of its possibilities at the time.
1t happens l am the inventor of the ma
chine"
| We were sitting at home one after
noon, minding our own business, when
the door bell rang.
Upon answering it, we found there a
man with vacuum cleaner which he
wished to demonstrate.
| There had been on our part no idea
whatever of acquiring vacuum cleaner
but how in the world we had managed to
get along without one, and live, and be
happy, was more than we could tell after
having listened to the agent for some ~
minutes without an intermission.
And he was right.
He kept it working the full 20 minutes
in the same spot on the rug, and you
couldn't help but notice the difference be-
tween the spot he cleaned and the rest
of the rug.
And, again, there was the time we
bought house.
The real estate agent said he would be
around to the place where we were pay
ing rent, and take us in his automobile
and show us some of the houses on his
list.
We bundled the whole family in, sank
back into the soft rear seat, winked at
the wife, muttered pretty soft" and
then together we gave the real estate
man in the front seat little laugh.
On what we had saved up, it didn't
look like there was a cSance in the world
of that real estate man making sale,
but we were getting a ride out of it on
his gasoline, anyway.
But he sold us the house we are living
in today.
That automobile ride cost us so much
we haven't got it paid for yet, and the
real estate man got something like 5000
for the gasoline he used.