HOW SUGGESTION HELPS IN SELLING
The ability to influence or induce people to purchase what you
have to sell is a mental art that will repay cultivation.
“Salesmanship is the art of selling to the other fellow
something he needs but doesn’t know it.”
“A sale is a mental thing. It results from harmonizing certain
mental elements which enter into all common agreements between
men.”
A sharp-witted lawyer after successfully defending a man accused of
horse-stealing, asked him in confidence, after the trial, if he were
really guilty.
“Well, Mister,” replied the man, “I thought at first I had took the
critter, but after listening to your speech I concluded I hadn’t.”
The power of suggestion may be used for base and illegitimate ends or for
honorable and legitimate ones. It is his suggestive power which makes the
smooth, long-headed promoter dangerous. He uses it to make people buy
what they do not need, or to palm off on them fraudulent or spurious
goods. The victims of these unscrupulous promoters, when under the
influence of a suggestive anæsthetic, will mortgage their homes, their
furniture, draw their last dollar from the savings-bank, borrow every
dollar they can, to obtain the thing which is made to appear so desirable
that they cannot see how they can get along without it.
Now, suggestion is just as effective when used for a lawful and honorable
purpose as for an unlawful and dishonorable one. One salesman succeeds
where others fail, largely because of his greater suggestive power. He
draws such a vivid description of the merchandise he is selling, makes
it seem so very desirable, that his prospect feels he must give him an
order. The salesman knows he is selling a good thing that it is to his
customer’s advantage to buy. The transaction is therefore of mutual
benefit to both parties, the buyer as well as the seller.
Suggestion has been defined as “whatever creates or inspires thought.”
As a science, suggestion “shows us how to start and steer thought.” The
five senses are the channels which bring us impressions from without.
“An act of the will or some association of ideas” brings impressions from
_within_; this latter is auto-suggestion.
Suggestion can help you to upbuild and develop yourself, to educate and
train yourself in spirit, mind, and body. “In building up character a man
must have spiritual and moral backing.” “As a man thinketh in his heart,
so is he.” This is the essence of auto-suggestion. “Thought is a creative
force.” It is a “motive, impelling, sustaining” force. Hence, when
auto-suggestion keeps thought “working in the right direction” we have
a powerful backing in all our undertakings. By thinking _definitely_,
_steadily_ and _strongly_ on useful and exalted sentiments we come into
the realization of our thought aspirations. Briefly, we create within
what we mentally desired steadily and intently. Thus we may build our
character, ever “improving, developing, and adorning.” Suggestion is our
“working force.”
“It (suggestion) can also help you to shape the desires and direct the
will of the customers you seek to influence.” In the first place, we
direct the will of our customers by our very personality, which has been
developed through auto-suggestion. Then the various steps of attention,
interest, desire, and, finally, resolve, in the customer, must be induced
by suggestion. He must forget himself and his own senses, ultimately;
or at least, he must have had all his faculties so brought into harmony
with those of the salesman that he readily accepts the salesman’s ideas.
“If you remember that suggestion is merely the working of the subjective
mental force,” says Mr. Sheldon, “and if you consider that the activity
of the subjective mind is in ratio to the strength and depth of the
suggestion, you have a pretty clear idea of the use that may be made of
suggestion in the progress of a sale.”
I have heard the story of a preacher, in Washington, who told his
congregation so dramatically and so convincingly that all humanity was
hanging over hell by the single thread of a cobweb, that, when the climax
was reached, one man, a very learned one too, was clinging frantically to
a pillar.
The simple study of psychology reveals that the activities of the will
must be stirred up by approaching and capturing the outlying sentinels,
namely the intellect and feelings. We get attention through the senses,
increase attention to interest through the intellect, change interest to
desire through the feelings, and finally, in decision we have induced
the will to act. To be sure, there is no mathematical dividing line,
no architecturally apparent flights of steps; nevertheless, the true
salesman is perfectly conscious of the different stages of progress of
the customer’s mind, and he leads him easily and naturally from one to
the other. The importance of this point in selling is emphasized by a
writer in “Business Philosopher,” who says: “It is just as reasonable to
expect your prospect to reach a favorable decision without first having
been brought through the three earlier stages—attention, interest and
desire—as to expect water to run up hill.”
A sale is a mental process, and depends largely upon the quality and the
intensity of the mental suggestion, and the confidence communicated to
the would-be purchaser’s mind.
Suggestion is properly used in the conduct of a sale when it is
unobtrusive, and in no way savors of the pompous, swaggering, hypnotic
methods of the impertinent intruder. Suggestion should be “honest and
well aimed.” It should help the customer’s mind and inspire confidence.
Suggestions to the customer should have for their object “not to overcome
or dethrone the will, but simply to guide and influence it.” Hypnotism,
consisting in dethroning a man’s will, is “the complete setting aside of
the objective mind.” Every salesman should study psychology. He should
be able to understand the mental laws by which the mind of his prospect
acts, so as to be able to read his mental operations.
Character is largely made up of suggestion; life is largely based upon
it. Salesmanship is pretty nearly all suggestion.
The salesman should always keep in mind this great truth,—“The greatest
art is to conceal art.”
Suggestion, by its very nature, is subtle, if rightly used.
The salesman who has great skill in the use of suggestion helps the mind
of the customer, without making him feel that any influence is being
exerted. He leads his customer to buy after the same method by which Pope
suggests men should be taught:
“Men must be taught as if you taught them not,
And things unknown proposed as things forgot.”
Let the customer feel that he is buying, not that you are selling to him.
Professor Hugo Münsterberg, in an article on the psychology of
salesmanship, said: “If the customer knows exactly what he wants, and has
made up his mind, no suggestion is needed.” It is then a case of letting
well enough alone. An ill-timed or negative suggestion may spoil a sale,
as in the following instance.
A farmer once went to town to buy a self-binder. He looked at one binder
and was so well satisfied that he was about to buy it. At this point
the salesman said: “I’ll tell you, this binder has given us very little
trouble.”
Now, this farmer wasn’t looking for a binder that was going to give him
even a little trouble. He had troubles of his own. That one suggestion
scared him away. He went out and bought a binder from a salesman who
said, “This binder has given us excellent satisfaction.”
In the offices of a New York business house there is a quotation framed,
which serves the purpose of a very effective suggestion. This house is
in the paper business, and, naturally, they wish to impress upon all
buyers the value of using good quality paper. Here is the quotation
which, I am sure, has suggested to many customers the advisability of
buying good quality paper: “A printer recently uttered this truth:
‘Printing doesn’t improve the paper any, but, for a certainty, good paper
adds considerably to the appearance and worth of printing.’”
Psychology in selling is in reality only a new name for the principles
which good business men, expert salesmen, have used in all times.
Diplomacy, tact, cheerfulness, the good-will habit, and the suggestion of
confidence—all these form an important part of business psychology.