Chapter 27 Selling-Sentence Oddities That Have Made People Respond Oddities in selling have their place. But “tricky” door -openers and attention-getters harm sales. Use the odd only when it is dignified and moves the sale smoothly toward a close. The book salesman’s approach. When you find the sign, “No Canvassers Allowed.”
I HAVE ALWAYS been interested in the science of “door crashing,” the great American art of getting inside the home of a busy housewife with a cake in the oven and two children to dress for school. Perhaps one of the most amusing door crashers that has come to my attention recently, as used by a salesman for one of those educational schoolbooks, goes as follows: SALESMAN (Rapping on door.): “Do you have a little girl named Dorothy?” WOMAN (Wondering.): “oh, no, I have a boy named Harold.” SALESMAN: “Oh, yes, Harold is the name. He is backward in his history, isn’t he?” WOMAN: “Well, I didn’t know. I thought it was writing.” SALESMAN: “I WOULD LIKE TO SHOW YOU HOW Harold c an get better marks in his writing at school. May I step in? It will take only a moment.” WOMAN (Wiping her hands on her apron.): “Oh, certainly, do come in.” It is often the simple things that make people respond. Things so simple any of us could have thought them up, but so original that none of us ever has. However, BEWARE. Don’t use tricks to get to the prospect, because when she tumbles to the subterfuge, beware of her rolling pin! “If You Run A Little” One tailor uses this sentence on his store, and it works: “Pants Pressed – 10c a leg!” Ridiculous? Sure. But he says it in a split second. He telegraphs his message.
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