How to Create a Sale

Some years ago, a man hired the Opera House in a small Pennsylvania town for one night, but engaged no ush- ers or other staff. About a month before the date for which he had rented the hall, he put a large sign on the most prominent billboard in town, stating in huge letters: "HE IS COMING!"

A week before the fateful night this was replaced by: "HE WILL BE AT THE OPERA HOUSE THURSDAY NIGHT, OCTOBER 15th, AT 8:30!"

That night, the man himself sat in the box office and sold tickets at $1 a head to a capacity audience. When the lights went up inside, however, all that the crowd could see was a huge sign reading: "HE IS GONE!"

All the principles of selling are wrapped up in this story. Attention was gained. Interest was developed. Desire was stimulated. The prospect was convinced to act, and to "close the deal" by buying a ticket. I do not recommend this pro- cedure, but the principles applied contain the basic elements necessary to create a sale. In this chapter, let us unfold and develop these principles and endeavor to learn how to apply them to create a sale or to improve our present Sales Plan.

When I was sixteen years old, which was over 42 years ago, I began to sell. I am still at it. In fact, I get more real pleasure and enjoyment out of it today then ever before.

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Selling furnishes me with a modern school and a complete laboratory that is made up of living people, and affords me the opportunity to study every phase of human behavior and to understand the relations that exist in the varying aspects of selling. When you analyze selling, and especially creative selling, you find that you are dealing with the greatest and most interesting thing in the world. You are dealing with ideas and thoughts. By the application of ideas and thoughts, man has the ability to create. He creates by the power of an invisible idea. It is an invisible idea before it is a visible thing. It must be a thought before it can be a product or service. Therefore, if man has the capacity and ability to create a product or service by the means of an invisible idea, it must stand to reason that he has the power to create a sale, and to establish a market for that product or service. This is the line of reasoning that I have always followed, and it has never failed. I know from my experience that a man can create a demand and a market for anything, even for a product that never existed before.