When a\u00a0Wall Street Journa<\/em>l interviewer asked Caples if the principles he had discovered still applied, he replied: “Times change. People don’t.” If people coming into this business – especially the online side – just studied the past they would save themselves a lot of mistakes – and money on moonshine schemes that swear to make you rich in the twinkling of an eye.<\/p>\n So, here’s something a friend just sent me – as true now as it was over a 100 years ago.<\/p>\n In the early 1900s, A. Joseph Newman, General Sales Manager, Bayuk Cigars, Inc., Philadelphia, had an original method of helping his company\u2019s distributors.<\/p>\n Under a pen name, Frank Trufax (true facts) he wrote a series of letters to imaginary salesmen in which he discussed very real problems. Here\u2019s one example:<\/p>\n <\/em>To My Salesmen:<\/em> <\/em><\/p>\n <\/em>I was looking over the orders the other day and I saw one from a dealer whom we had not been selling for at least a year.<\/em> <\/em><\/p>\n <\/em>I was tickled pink to see him back on our books once again.<\/em><\/em><\/p>\n <\/em>Our little selling-fool, Billy Keepatem, put it over\u2014yes, he did. Hats off to Keepatem, boys!<\/em><\/em><\/p>\n <\/em>\u201cWell, Bill, how did you do it?\u201d said I to Bill at first opportunity.<\/em><\/em><\/p>\n <\/em>\u201cNothing wonderful about it, Mr. Trufax,\u201d replied Bill. \u201cThat dealer sells a lot of stuff and I thought if he was worth going after, he was worth keeping after. I\u2019ve been calling on him regularly once a week for nine months and \u2013 well, I landed him. That\u2019s all there is to it.\u201d<\/em><\/em><\/p>\n <\/em>Did you get that one pithy phrase Bill pulled: \u201cIf he was worth going after, he was worth keeping after?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Manoman, there\u2019s the salient secret of selling success! If a dealer is worth going after to sell, he is worth keeping after until he is sold.<\/em><\/p>\n And that brings up two interesting queries. Here they are: How many calls do salesmen make before they quit calling? How often does a salesman call before the dealer buys?<\/em><\/p>\n Now, get me right, boys. I didn\u2019t personally conduct the investigation to get the answers to these two questions and I don\u2019t want to be facetious when I say I didn\u2019t get up the dictionary either; but there\u2019s where I went to find out if I could get away with that \u201cwicked\u201d word \u201cfacetious.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n It is just as important to know where to find knowledge as it is to have knowledge. Well, anyway, the investigation was carefully made and here\u2019s the findings:<\/em><\/p>\n 48.2% of salesmen made 1 sales call and quit.<\/p>\n 24.4% made 2 sales calls and quit<\/p>\n 14.7% made 3 sales calls and quit<\/p>\n 12.7% made 4 or more sales calls<\/p>\n <\/em>Go over those figures once again, boys, they\u2019re intensely interesting.<\/em><\/em><\/p>\n <\/em>Then clear your mind to get full shock of this body-blow of an answer to the second question:<\/em><\/em><\/p>\n Sixty percent of the sales made were on or after the fifth call!<\/em><\/p>\n <\/em>This investigation, of course, proves very little conclusively but it does emphasize this one thing:<\/em><\/em><\/p>\n Eighty-eight percent of the salesmen automatically eliminated themselves from consideration of sixty per cent of the business because they quit before the dealer had been brought up to the buying point.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/em>Boys, I don\u2019t want you to waste time watering dead plants but I do want you to keep digging around the live ones.<\/em><\/em><\/p>\n <\/em>You can never tell when the \u201cNo, not today\u201d will change into \u201cYes, send \u2018em along.\u201d<\/em><\/em><\/p>\n <\/em>It may be on the fifth call; it may be on the fiftieth call; but as Billy Keepatem says:<\/em><\/em><\/p>\n <\/em>\u201cIf a dealer is worth going after, he\u2019s worth keeping after.\u201d<\/em><\/em><\/p>\n <\/em>Yours, tilhesezyes,<\/em><\/em><\/p>\n <\/em>Frank Trufax.<\/em><\/p>\n Incidentally one of my most determined clients made a sale worth \u00a315,000 after the 14th follow-up. It is no coincidence that he does a lot of testing. Wise man.<\/p>\n One last point: there are some wonderful colloquial expressions in that old piece. I love the bit about watering dead plants. A good writer.<\/p>\n – Drayton<\/em><\/p>\n![\"sales\"](\"https:\/\/www.marketingforsuccess.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/08\/sales1.jpg\" "\\"sales\\"")
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