April 2008 :: Where’s The Silver Bullet?

A quick spin through Google reveals the popularity of the following search terms:

Sales Profiling: 510,000 results

Closing a Sale: 1,420,000 results

Sales Prospecting: 3,070,000 results

Building Sales Relationships: 2,970,000

And for the person that needs the all inclusive Swiss Army knife of sales:

Sales Systems: 30,900,000 results

Call us crazy, but we’re thinking that not all of the information about sales techniques found on the ‘interweb’ is going to be reliable.

Of course getting an edge in sales is not a new 21st century science. In fact there is a fair amount of documentation that dates back 100 years and more.

In 1917 Dr. Edwin Morrell was an instructor at The Knox School of Salesmanship and Business Efficiency. Prior to that he was, for several years, a professor of psychology at an Ohio college.

In his book Science of Judging Men, he relied on the science of physiognomy to teach the principles of selling.

Physiognomy is defined as: the art of judging human character from facial features.

The book had pictures of famous people with instructions on how you might sell to them. Had a hot prospect named John D. Rockefeller? No problem. Just remember that John had “a head measurement of more than twenty-three inches in circumference” and should be best persuaded with a ‘broadside of statistics, facts and profit values, [spoken] with confidence and coolness of mind.”

Well, there you have it. Selling to J.D. Rockefeller summed up by the size of his head. Perfect!

On a more realistic journey through the time machine:

In 1884 John Henry Patterson founded The National Cash Register Company, later known as NCR. He is also credited with creating all the sales systems at the company and managing all sales personnel.

Patterson called his team ‘the American Selling Force’.

And boy did he have his job cut out for him. His sales professionals had to be good….really good. You see in 1884 he owned the rights to make a product that nobody even knew they needed. Prior to his sales force showing up there were no cash registers, anywhere.

He wrote the NCR sales Primer which taught his sales force how to navigate every word and gesture of their four step sales process: approach, proposition, demonstration and the close.

He started a company magazine called The N.C.R. (ok, so he wasn’t the most creative kid in class) and he contributed most of the content.

In May 1893 he wrote: “If most of our salesmen would do less drinking and smoking, and save their energies for making sales, they would make a great deal more money. On this trip I noticed that most of our salesmen work an average of 5 1/2 hours a day when they should work at least nine hours. They spend their nights carousing instead of resting; and when morning comes they are in no condition to do business”.

A tough leader, yes.

And one that knew about Memorability.

He believed that he could mold salesmen. If a man looked like an up and comer he was taken by Patterson to New York at the company’s expense. There, he was put up in a luxury hotel and measured for a new suit. Top that off with a custom hat and a visit to a made to order shirt shop.

For a taste of the finer things to come he would also be treated to dinners and a few shows. Patterson said that this was a way “to get the hayseed off him.”

He could have just as easily thrown them into a conference room with a manual on how to dress and act socially but he knew how to make the message Memorable and gain immediate buy in from his new salesmen.

Finally, and so as not to leave you thinking that Dr. Morrell of The Knox School was a complete sales head case, he did have the following quote:

He writes that “the five ways of entering the palace of mystery-’the dome of thought, the palace of the soul’ – are the five senses, five sets of nerves which carry to the mind all messages from the external world for recognition and action. You may enter this brain box at all times through ear, eye, touch, smell and taste. In the land of human consciousness and experience, straight is the gate and narrow is the way which leadeth to the land of the mind.”

91 years ago the good Dr. also knew that there is no silver bullet and was writing about Memorability and Increasing Your MQ – how about that?