law that with every new experience and in every new environment an individual will feel some degree of fear. Nature protects the individual from danger by this awareness. Children and women experience this to a greater degree than men; again, this is nature’s way of protecting them from harm.
I remember that as a boy I was so timid that when we had company I would go into another room, and during a thunderstorm I would hide under the bed. But one day I reasoned: “If lightning is going to strike, it will be just as dangerous whether I am under the bed or in any other part of the room.” I decided to conquer this fear. My opportunity came, and I took advantage of it. During a thunderstorm, I forced myself to go to the window and look at the lightning. An amazing thing happened. I began to enjoy the beauty of the flashes of lightning through the sky. Today, there is no one who enjoys a thunderstorm more than I do.
Although I called in each office in sequence in the Dime Bank Building, I had not licked the fear of opening a door, particularly when I couldn’t: see what was on the other side (many of the glass doors were frosted or had curtains on the inside). It was necessary to develop a method of forcing myself to enter.
Then, because I searched, I found the answer. I reasoned: Success is achieved by those who try. Where there is nothing to lose by trying and a great deal to gain if successful, by all means try!
The repetition of either of these self-motivators satisfied my reason. But I was still afraid, and it was still necessary to get into action. Fortunately, I struck upon the self-starter: Do it now! Because I had learned the value of trying to establish the right habits and the harm of acquiring wrong habits, it occurred to me that I could force myself to action as I left one office if I would rush quickly into the next one. Should it occur to me to hesitate, I would use the self starter Do it now!–and immediately act on it. This I did.
How to Neutralize Timidity and Fear
When once inside a place of business, I was still not at ease, but I soon learned how to neutralize the fear of talking to a stranger. I did it through voice control.
I found that if I spoke loudly and rapidly, hesitated where there would be a period or comma if the spoken word were written, kept a smile in my voice, and used modulation, I no longer had butterflies in my stomach. Later I learned that this technique was based on a very sound psychological principle: The emotions (like fear) are not immediately subject to reason, but they are subject to action. When thoughts do not neutralize an undesirable emotion–action will.
The sales manager in the real estate office hadn’t liked the introduction: “May I take a moment of your time?” Besides, many persons on whom I had used this introduction had answered “No.” So I abandoned it and, after experimenting, came up with a new one that I have used ever since: “I believe this will interest you also.”
No one has said “No” to this introduction. Most have asked, “What is it?” Then, of course, I have told them and given them my sales talk. The purpose of a sales introduction is solely to get a person to listen.
Know When to Quit
“Try to sell everyone you call on” was one of the instructions my mother had given me. So I stayed with every prospect. Sometimes I wore him out, but when I left his place of business, I was worn out too. It seemed to me that in selling a low-cost service, as I was doing, it was imperative that I average more sales per hour of effort. For it wasn’t every day that I sold 27 policies in one place of business.
So I decided not to sell everyone I called on, if the sale would take longer than a time limit I had set for myself. I would try to make the prospect happy and leave hurriedly, even though I knew that if I stayed with him I could make the sale.
Wonderful things happened. I increased my average number of sales per day tremendously. What’s more, the prospect in several instances thought I was going to argue, but when I left him so pleasantly, he would come next door to where I was selling and say, “You can’t do that to me. Every other insurance man would hang on. You come back and write it.” Instead of being tired out after an attempted sale, I experienced enthusiasm and energy for my presentation to the next prospect.
The principles I learned are simple: Fatigue is not conducive to doing your best work. Don’t reduce your energy level so low that you drain your battery. The activity level of the nervous system is raised when the body recharges itself with rest. Time is one of the most important ingredients in any successful formula for any human activity. Save time. Invest it wisely.
How to Get a Person to Listen to You
‘When you are talking to a person, look at his eyes,” I was taught as a youngster, But in selling, I would look at a person’s eyes and he would often shake his head “no.” And more often he would interrupt me. I didn’t like this. It slowed me down. Soon, I hit on a simple technique to avoid this: Get the prospect to concentrate through his senses of sight and hearing on what I had to show him and on what I had to say. I pointed to the policy or sales literature and looked at it as I gave my sales talk. Because I looked where I was pointing, he looked too. If, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a prospect shake his head “no,” I paid no attention. Often he would become interested, and I would later close the sale.
Play to Win
In a highly competitive game or sport, you play according to the rules, and you don’t violate the standards that you have set for yourself, but you play to win. So it is in the game of selling. For selling, like every other activity, becomes a lot of fun when you become an expert.
I found that to become an expert I had to work, and work hard. Try, try, try, and keep trying is the rule that must be followed to become an expert in anything. But in due course, by employing the right work habits, you do become an expert. Then you experience the joy of work, and the job is no longer work. It becomes fun.
Day after day I worked, and worked hard, trying to improve my sales techniques. I searched for trigger words–words and phrases that would set off the right reaction within the prospect. And the right reaction meant that he would buy within a reasonably short space of time, for time meant money to me.
I wanted to say the right thing in the right way to get the right reaction. This took practice, and practice is work.
Everything has a beginning and an ending. The introduction is the beginning of a sales presentation. How could I end the sale in the shortest space of time, in a manner that would make the prospect happy?
Because I searched, I made a discovery: If you want the prospect to buy, ask him to buy. Just ask him, and give him a chance to say “yes.” But make it easy for him to say “yes” and difficult to say “no.” Specifically, use force with such finesse that it is subtle, pleasing, and effective.
And here’s what I found: If you want a person to say “yes,” just make a positive statement and ask an affirmative question. Then the “yes” answer is almost a natural reflex action. Examples:
1. Positive statement: It’s a nice day...
Affirmative question: Isn’t it?
Answer: Yes, it is.
2. The mother who wants her child to practice the piano for an hour on a Saturday morning when she knows that the child wants to go out to play, could say:
Positive statement: You want to practice for an hour now so that you’ll have the entire day to play...
Affirmative question; Isn’t that true?
Answer:
