THE ART OF SELLING

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 65, 9 December 1938, Page 3

THE ART OF SELLING

The way to get the other fellow to say ".yes” is to make it difficult for him to say "no,” Elmer Wheeler, one of tiie United States’ leading sales experts, said in an address prepared for the National Men’s Fashion Forum, says the “Christian Science Monitor.” “For instance,” he said, “if you want to sell a man an egg in Ids milk shake, do not ask him if he wants an egg. “Say: ‘One or two eggs, sir?’ then he cannot say ’no.’ ” Mr. Wheeler, who claims to have invented “sizzling steak” —by prefixing “sizzling"—makes his living thinking up one-sentence sales lines that make all the difference between bankruptcy and prosperity. A department store had a stock of children’s moccasins which the.v could not sell and called in Mr. Wheeler to help. The salespeople were asking customers if they wanted Io buy moccasins. Mr. Wheeler had them instead ask (he children: “How would yon like a real Indian moccasin?” The shoes sold out in no time. “You only have ten short seconds to efrtch the Heetiojr interest of the other person,” he said. "And if in those ten seconds you don’t say something important. he is going to leave you mentally if he has not already left you physically.”