Regardless of when your shipments arrive, we shall always
cheerfully do all in our power to serve you promptly.
You are busy. Please don’t trouble to answer this note.
Yours truly,
J—– B—–, supt.
Barbara Anderson, who worked in a bank in New
York, desired to move to Phoenix, Arizona, because of
the health of her son. Using the principles she had
learned in our course, she wrote the following letter to
twelve banks in Phoenix:
Dear Sir:
My ten years of bank experience should be of interest to
a rapidly growing bank like yours.
In various capacities in bank operations with the Bankers
Trust Company in New York, leading to my present assignment
as Branch Manager, I have acquired skills in all
phases of banking including depositor relations, credits,
loans and administration.
I will be relocating to Phoenix in May and I am sure I can
contribute to your growth and profit. I will be in Phoenix
the week of April 3 and would appreciate the opportunity
to show you how I can help your bank meet its goals.
Sincerely,
Barbara L. Anderson
Do you think Mrs. Anderson received any response
from that letter? Eleven of the twelve banks invited her
to be interviewed, and she had a choice of which bank’s
offer to accept. Why? Mrs. Anderson did not state what
she wanted, but wrote in the letter how she could help
them, and focused on their wants, not her own.
Thousands of salespeople are pounding the pavements
today, tired, discouraged and underpaid. Why?
Because they are always thinking only of what they
want. They don’t realize that neither you nor I want to
buy anything. If we did, we would go out and buy it. But
both of us are eternally interested in solving our problems.
And if salespeople can show us how their services
or merchandise will help us solve our problems, they
won’t need to sell us. We’ll buy. And customers like to
feel that they are buying – not being sold.
Yet many salespeople spend a lifetime in selling without
seeing things from the customer’s angle. For example,
for many years I lived in Forest Hills, a little
community of private homes in the center of Greater
New York. One day as I was rushing to the station, I
chanced to meet a real-estate operator who had bought
and sold property in that area for many years. He knew
Forest Hills well, so I hurriedly asked him whether or
not my stucco house was built with metal lath or hollow
tile. He said he didn’t know and told me what I already
knew – that I could find out by calling the Forest Hills
Garden Association. The following morning, I received
a letter from him. Did he give me the information I
wanted? He could have gotten it in sixty seconds by a
telephone call. But he didn’t. He told me again that I
could get it by telephoning, and then asked me to let
him handle my insurance.
He was not interested in helping me. He was interested
only in helping himself.
J. Howard Lucas of Birmingham, Alabama, tells how
two salespeople from the same company handled the
same type of situation, He reported:
“Several years ago I was on the management team of
a small company. Headquartered near us was the district
office of a large insurance company. Their agents were
assigned territories, and our company was assigned to
two agents, whom I shall refer to as Carl and John.
“One morning, Carl dropped by our office and casually
mentioned that his company had just introduced a
new life insurance policy for executives and thought we
might be interested later on and he would get back to us
when he had more information on it.
“The same day, John saw us on the sidewalk while
returning from a coffee break, and he shouted: ‘Hey
Luke, hold up, I have some great news for you fellows.’
He hurried over and very excitedly told us about an executive
life insurance policy his company had introduced
that very day. (It was the same policy that Carl
had casually mentioned.) He wanted us to have one of
the first issued. He gave us a few important facts about
the coverage and ended saying, ‘The policy is so new,
I’m going to have someone from the home office come
out tomorrow and explain it. Now, in the meantime, let’s
get the applications signed and on the way so he can
have more information to work with.’ His enthusiasm
aroused in us an eager want for this policy even though
we still did not have details, When they were made
available to us, they confirmed John’s initial understanding
of the policy, and he not only sold each of us a policy,
but later doubled our coverage.
“Carl could have had those sales, but he made no effort
to arouse in us any desire for the policies.”
The world is full of people who are grabbing and self-seeking.
So the rare individual who unselfishly tries to
serve others has an enormous advantage. He has little
competition. Owen D. Young, a noted lawyer and one of
America’s great business leaders, once said: “People
who can put themselves in the place of other people
who can understand the workings of their minds, need
never worry about what the future has in store for
them.”
If out of reading this book you get just one thing – an
increased tendency to think always in terms of other
people’s point of view, and see things from their angle
– if you get that one thing out of this book, it may
easily prove to be one of the building blocks of your
career.
Looking at the other person’s point of view and arousing
in him an eager want for something is not to be
construed as manipulating that person so that he will do
something that is only for your benefit and his detriment.
Each party should gain from the negotiation. In the letters
to Mr. Vermylen, both the sender and the receiver
of the correspondence gained by implementing what
was suggested. Both the bank and Mrs. Anderson won
by her letter in that the bank obtained a valuable employee
and Mrs. Anderson a suitable job. And in the
example of John’s sale of insurance to Mr. Lucas, both
gained through this transaction.
Another example in which everybody gains through
this principle of arousing an eager want comes from Michael
E. Whidden of Warwick, Rhode Island, who is a
territory salesman for the Shell Oil Company. Mike
wanted to become the Number One salesperson in his
district, but one service station was holding him back. It
was run by an older man who could not be motivated to
clean up his station. It was in such poor shape that sales
were declining significantly.
This manager would not listen to any of Mike’s pleas
to upgrade the station. After many exhortations and
heart-to-heart talks – all of which had no impact – Mike
decided to invite the manager to visit the newest Shell
station in his territory.