Chapter 18 Five Little Words That Sold A Million Gallons Of Gasoline
The selling word is mightier than the price tag. With words we govern people. A million people every week buy gasoline and oil because of certain tested words they hear from the Man at the Pump. MY DAD OWNED a gasoline station near Highland Park in Rochester, New York. On Saturdays and Sundays I would help him sell oil. One day a gasoline salesman from Standard Oil approached me. He asked me, “What do you say to sell gasoline to motorists?” I had no particular statement, so I told him: “Sometimes I ask people if they want five or ten, other times I just say, ‘how many today?’” The salesman said, “The next motorist who comes in, say this to him: ‘Shall I fill it up?’” I used the sentence, and the motorist told me to fill his tank. I sold fifteen gallons instead of the usual five or ten. What a sure-fire method of getting tanks filled up! The sentence worked, and has been working successfully now for twenty years. Recent Experiments For Texas Oil Recently I had the pleasure of making a survey for the Pocahontas Oil Corporation of Ohio and the Texas Oil Company to find the best modern words and techniques to use in influencing motorists to purchase more petroleum products. People have a bad habit of letting things go that need attention. Cars that need greasing never get the grease until some alert station attendant tactfully reminds the motorists. Our research at the point of sale brought out many interesting things. First, my old favorite, “Shall I fill it up?” doesn’t work any more. You see, there are too many old cars with twenty-gallon tanks on the market today. Years ago the rich man owned the big car and the poor man owned the little car. Nowadays a poor man can buy a good used car once owned by a wealthy person and get good use out of it.
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