Narrator: Scene two, take one. In this scene, the prospective buyer appears to have good credit. Your part is to switch roles with him by challenging his credit.
Salesman 1: Mister Wilson, the company will finance this product, but they have to be very careful and selective as to whom they can give credit to. And just what kind of a credit background do you have?
Narrator: Well done. Here, you challenged the prospect with regard to his crеdit. In this way, you've got him busy selling you on how good his credit is. Thе big point then becomes not the question of whether the prospect is ready to buy, but whether the company is ready to accept his credit. You, the salesman, got into the role of the skeptic. You, the salesman, make the decision to accept or submit the prospect's credit. Again, you switch roles. And now, scene three, take one. In this scene, you offer the prospect a special inducement if he does you a favor, such as referring customers to you. Then, you challenge the prospect as to what he will do for you, and you get him busy selling you.
Insurance agent: Excuse me for interrupting the rehearsals, but I'd like to tell you how I switched roles without even realizing it. I'm an insurance man and I can remember times when my prospect wasn't sure he wanted to buy a policy. Then, we'd get into the medical requirements and the question of whether the company wanted to accept him. Well, that's when he'd get busy selling me on how good a risk he was. Before you knew it, he'd have sold me on why he should have a policy.
Appliance salesman: Well, the same thing happened to me. I'm a salesman for an— an appliance distributor. Have to do a lot of talking to get my dealers to place orders. But one time, we ran short on a particular item. I limited each dealer to three. Why, suddenly they began to sell me on why they had to have more! The shoe was on the other foot. I never took orders so easily in all my life.
Narrator: Yes, situations arise that bring about the switching of roles. But you need not wait for that. Write your own script; create the scenes yourself. There are many ways to stage it. Get the prospective buyer in the role of selling you on why he wants that hard-to-get color or model, or that his credit is good, or that he'll refer customers to you in return for some special inducement. The exact method does not matter; the important thing is to eliminate buyer's skepticism by placing the consumer in the role of selling rather than in the role of buying. This is switching roles. (*Woodblock cracking*) Time, always advancing. The ticking of the clock has carried us into a new age — new concepts, new thinking, new challenges. To meet them, you must first know them, understand them. Let's push the record needle back and allow it to wander across the grooves. Let's listen again to the voices of today — a quick review, a capsule treatment.
Consumer 1: I'm part of today's public and the medicine man would have a rough time convincing me.
Consumer 2: The salesmen I've met sell too hard.
Consumer 3: They're good talkers, but let's face it — who could believe them?
Consumer 4: I'm wise to all the sales tricks; I just tell them to leave their sales literature.
Consumer 5: How much do you know about this product?
Salesman 2: Friend of mine has one.
Consumer 5: And what does he think about it?
Salesman 2: He likes it, but he's not sure it's worth the price.
Consumer 5: How about you? What's stopped you from buying?
Salesman 2: Price.
Gerald Trenton: How interested is the chamber of commerce in receiving heed from companies like mine? How much do you know about our company, the Trenton Steel Corporation?
Philip White: I'm Doctor Philip White, clinical psychologist. The consumer of today is hit from all directions with sales pitches. In self-protection, he builds up a wall of defenses. The chief defense is skepticism.
Account executive: I'm an account executive — used to be while you could sell with words alone, but today's public does not believe you. The new approach is devious, indirect. You have to sell today's consumer without his knowing he's being sold.
Actor: Switching roles? I'm an actor and that's the technique we use in our stage training methods.
Salesman 3: You know, Mrs. Adams, that model would take a bit of effort for me to get.
Mrs. Adams: Yes, but it's the one I like. Don't you think you can try and get it?
Insurance agent: I'm an insurance man. When I get into the medical questions, that's when the prospect starts selling me — I've switched roles many times without even realizing it.
Narrator: There it is: the scene today, the attitudes of today's public, the psychological reasons behind them, the challenges that face the modern-day salesman, and the ways he must meet them. The mentality of today's buyer has advanced. He is more sophisticated, more aware, more skeptical. The pitchman, the spieler, is no match for him. Arthur Miller's concept of Death of a Salesman might be expanded to include the death of an entire era of selling attitudes. This is a new age, a new era of thinking. The time has come for the birth of a new breed of salesman.
