SAMPLE QUIZ ON APPROACHES

Type of Selling: Over the counter.

1.    There are three types of approaches.    TRUE     FALSE

2.    The salutation approach is always used on friends,      TRUE     FALSE

3.    “May I help you?” is an overworked service approach.     TRUE       FALSE

4.    “What may I show you?” is a good service approach,    TRUE     FALSE

5.    A merchandise approach saves time.     TRUE     FALSE

6.    The customer’s name should not be used in the approach.   TRUE       FALSE

7.    Tell a waiting customer, “I’ll be with you in a moment.”    TRUE       FALSE

8.    You should never have anything in your hands during the approach.    TRUE       FALSE

After the quiz has been distributed and scored, discuss each question.  “Who has the answer to the first one . . . False? You’re right – that’s false! But what’s the main idea there? So what should you do as a result?”

The important thing is to bring out the underlying teaching point. How the individual answered the question is not significant. What the group finally learned about it — that’s the thing.
Multiple choice and completion type questions can also be used. True-false is usually best, however, because it’s so simple.
 
Don’t grade adults. They resent it. Instead, let each person correct his own paper. They’ll usually want a “yardstick,” so give it to them: “If you missed only three, you did very well. If you missed less than three, you should be the instructor!”

Let them keep their tests. Encourage a review at some future date. But avoid a school room atmosphere. Adults absolutely will not accept it. They left school long ago and they’re not going back!

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But most of us aren’t children. Maybe that’s why we sometimes have trouble! Or perhaps the assembling is sometimes not simple at all, any plan should be so simple that people can use it. That’s another feature of this five-step plan for organizing a speech. It’s quite simple. People speaking at one of your sales meetings can learn how to use it in no time at all.

Here’s a summary of a speech. It shows the logic and simplicity of this plan:

CALL BACKS

Interest-getter:    “This afternoon a man dropped dead in my office! I was startled and shocked!
“Perhaps you knew him. He was a merchant, and one of you tried to sell him our line of goods. He was overstocked at the moment, so he bought nothing. He said he’d buy a couple of weeks later. And he would have bought, had the salesperson returned, because he liked our products. He liked them so well he refused to buy any other line.

“But our salesperson never returned, so the merchant ran completely out of merchandise. With nothing to sell, he soon lost his store. Then he had no income at all. Finally the poor fellow starved to death.

“Just before dying, he visited me to ask why the salesperson never returned. That’s how he happened to die in my office.

Point:    “A ridiculous story? Of course it is. But some-times we do fail to call back. And that’s the main point I’m trying to get across. Let’s make call backs – lots of call backs! Call back early and often”

Reasons for Point: “Why? Because a well-timed, follow-up is good salesmenship. Call backs pay off. They always have and they always will. They bring you more customers, bigger sales, and more commissions.

Examples:    “For example, when you call back on the merchant who has never bought your line, you make him feel important. And sometimes you can get an order from him.

“Where a merchant is already using your line, call backs produce still more sales. The customer is impressed by your sincere desire to serve and, therefore, gives you more of his business.

“We’ve found that call backs can most easily be made when . . .”
“There’ll be times when your call backs should instead be made . . .
“And it’s sometimes a good idea to make call backs even though the customer . . .”

Restate with Plea      “So let’s make call backs – frequent call backs.

For Action:    That’s what the highest paid salespeople are doing, and it’s what all of us should do. Make call backs!”

Deciding on the Point of a Talk

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Sales Meeting Ideas

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It could eventually burn down to a fuse, in this manner setting off a small firecracker. Or it could burn down to a string, finally severing the string with its tiny flame. The triggering action should cause something important to happen, or at least be the signal for something important. It could signal the unveiling of a new product or the naming of a contest winner.

The candle is lit at the start of the meeting. Everyone is asked to estimate the exact time the triggering action will take place. An appropriate reward is offered for the best guess. This helps create interest and suspense.

To capitalize fully on the stunt, call attention to the candle at intervals during the meeting.
And those who like things cold instead of hot can forego all this hullabaloo with a candle, and accomplish the same thing with a block of ice.

The name of a contest winner is written on a slip of paper, placed in a waterproof envelope, and frozen in the center of a large block of ice. Or a new product makes its initial appearance in this way, having been frozen inside a block of ice.

An important new sales tool, details of a new merchandising plan, or the outline of a new advertising campaign are other items that might be dramatized either with a candle or a block of ice.

Sales Meeting

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Most salespeople are extroverted. They do not enjoy reading sales manuals or dissertations on company policy. It’s therefore necessary, from time to time, to stimulate their study of company literature. This can easily be accomplished by a quiz program.

Before the meeting, significant sentences are selected from various pieces of literature. Only the more important points are chosen, the things every salesperson should know. At the meeting, each person is issued a set of company literature. Then the preselected sentences are read by the emcee. As each sentence is read, the first person to find it in the literature wins a point toward the prize.

She jumps up and shouts the title of the publication containing it, as well as the number of the page on which it can be found.

The person who wins the most points is awarded a prize. But here’s the real payoff—after each sentence is found in the literature, someone is asked to explain it. She enlarges on it, applies it to the salesperson’s job. This results in a better understanding of procedures and policies.

Product information can also be learned in this manner.

Sales trainers have found written tests a good means of lending variety. True-false tests are most popular, although multiple choice and completion type tests are also used. Every salesperson grades his own paper. The grade is actually of little importance; the underlying teaching point is the significant thing.

In a discussion following each point, the trainer brings out the why and wherefore, letting everyone know what they are expected to do as a result. Still other quiz programs have been patterned after those seen on television. It’s not difficult to work up an event of this sort, one that is profitable, yet enjoyable. Give it a try.

Sales Meeting

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Several days before the meeting, he showed the new aid to several top salesmen. In the interest of field testing, a few were permitted to use it.

Then came the meeting . . . When the sales promotion manager was introduced there was no mention of his subject. As he rose to speak a recording of a funeral march was played. A mock funeral procession entered from the rear of the room! It was lead by an “undertaker,” complete with dark suit and stove-pipe hat. Two “pallbearers” followed, carrying a “casket.”

When the procession reached the front of the room, the speaker called it to a halt. The music was also stopped, and the emcee asked for an explanation. “We’re burying an unsuccessful salesperson,” explained the “undertaker.” When asked the cause of death the “undertaker” replied, “I don’t know, but we’re burying all of them. Something is putting an end to all the unsuccessful salesmen.”

The speaker had the casket placed on a table while a coroner’s inquest was conducted. Ten “witnesses” were called to the front and seated apart from the audience. They were questioned one at a time.
 
The first expressed the opinion that unsuccessful salesperson were being eliminated by a new sales aid his department had designed. “It’s a tool so powerful that no salesperson will hereafter be unsuccessful.” Other witnesses confirmed the opinion. Salespeople who had field tested the item told of their success in using it. By carefully selecting the “witnesses” and asking well prepared questions, the speaker had a very rosy picture painted.

A gavel was banged and the verdict announced: “The findings are that death was caused by the new sales aid. This new aid is bringing an end to all unsuccessful sales efforts.” At that moment the “corpse” jumped out of the “casket!” It was a real shocker since the audience had no reason to believe someone was actually in the box! He ran to the speakers’ stand and grabbed the new sales aid. Then he raced out of the room yelling, “Don’t bury me – I want to use it too!”

This event lasted only 22 minutes. It did ten times as much good as a speech of the same duration. Try it!

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In this event, several chairs are placed in each corner of the room. A key person is designated, one who excels in the subject concerned, to handle each topic. Persons desiring information on a particular subject then meet with the group discussing it; everyone joins the discussion group of his choice.

This arrangement is a workshop in its simplest form. It’s effective because there’s freedom of decision on the part of the audience and because each salesperson receives help in the area where, presumably, he or she needs it most. Then, too, it’s a departure from nothing but speeches.

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The seminar method is a good example of how to vary the routine. One salesperson presents a problem with which he or she has been confronted. Others then attempt to solve that problem. The difficulty involved might be a tough prospect, an unusual selling situation, or a hidden objective.

Although he’s the last to realize it, the salesman himself might be the problem. Perhaps he’s not making enough calls. Or he may not be giving adequate service to old customers. Such weaknesses can often be discovered. Whatever the sales problem, profitable suggestions are usually forthcoming from those in attendance.

In addition, a seminar is refreshing because it is a departure from the ordinary.

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Whether John Q. American is “out of town” or is withdrawn to the privacy of his living room, he can see professionally staged programs. Even in the intimacy of his bedroom, he can enjoy radio and television.
Such entertainment is supported by multi-million dollar networks. It’s the product of experienced writers, producers, directors, technicians, prop men, make-up artists, and others. Thousands of dollars are spent on the smallest details. Everything is carefully worked out. Perfection is more than an aim – it’s an obsession.

SALESPEOPLE DEMAND THE BEST

The result of all this has been a loss of tolerance. People have become less and less tolerant of a mediocre production. They want the best and expect to get it. And, what’s more, they expect the best in all types of programming – even sales meetings!

Audiences have been conditioned — not to a slow pace set by a succession of boring speeches. They are accustomed to a lively pace, a good selection of subject matter, skilled dramatizations, proper timing, a refreshing variety of events, and the many other elements of good showmanship. Since they get good showmanship elsewhere, they understandably frown on a sales meeting in which it is lacking.

What a challenge! A sales executive should be such a good showman that his stage presence compares favorably with people of the entertainment profession. He should have timing, color, humor, change of pace, adroitness, resourcefulness, tact, urbanity, and sensitivity. Showmanship is a prime requisite. It’s the difference between a meeting and a good meeting.

You can meet this challenge, in part, by building your meetings around a central theme. Also, you can be dramatic, bizarre. You can do the unusual. But an additional step toward meeting the challenge is to stage a variety of events.  More on this in the next post.

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