Chapter 9

YOUR FIRST TEN WORDS ARE MORE IMPORTANT THAN THE NEXT TEN THOUSAND 

            You have only ten short seconds to capture the fleeting attention of the other person, and if in those ten short seconds you don't say something mighty important, he will leave you -- either physically or mentally!

EVERYWHERE YOU go you read a sign that says, “Don’t Write -- TELEGRAPH!”   There is a definite reason for this slogan, and for choosing it as our second Wheelerpoint.   No matter how busy a man is, when a telegram arrives it gets his immediate attention.   The sender was forced to boil into ten words the entire sizzle of his message -- so his story was told in ten seconds, and naturally “rang the bell.”

Little Willie wants an extra slice of bread and jam; Big Brother wants the car for the evening; Dad wants to go out and play cards with the boys; and Mother wants a new hat.   Uncle Joe is planning a sales program for a new cosmetic; Sister Sue wants her beaux to take her to Bermuda on their honeymoon; and around the corner the preacher is planning a visit on the household to make it church -- conscious.   Their first ten words will be more important than their next ten thousand.

Everybody in the office knows the numerals on the dial of the safe, yet only a few know the COMBINATION of those numbers that will unlock the safe and reveal the riches that lie therein.

So it is with selling.   Every salesman knows the many sizzles of his product – he knows the numerals inside his sales kit, but what he often doesn’t know is the RIGHT COMBINATION of those selling words to make people buy.   One thing is certain – he must boil his sizzles down to the fewest possible and his sales talk to the least number of words to get the big message across properly to the other person.

This we learned in the chapters on the five Wheelerpoints, but for a moment now let us see the psychological reasons that underlie these Wheelerpoints.   It is interesting to know why something happens as well as to know that it happens. 

WHY YOU MUST GET TEN-SECOND ATTENTION 

As you walk to work your mind is fleeting from thought to thought and your eye from object to object -- you are doing what is known as “daydreaming.”   You see everything -- yet see nothing!   Your mind is miles away.   You are building castles in Spain.   Automatically you tip your hat, automatically you dodge a streetcar, and instinctively you walk around people who may bump into you.   You are awake --  yet sound asleep !   You are in a daze.

Suddenly somebody uses a “Tested Selling Sentence’ on you.   It penetrates the “cloud.”   You come to life -- down to earth!   You are all eyes and ears.   The sizzle captured your attention.

We must learn the secret of getting our words INTO the other person's brain – by the haze and past the daze -- for the prospect may be looking at us, eye to eye, yet his mind may be miles away .   As Richard Borden says, you must have an “oh hum crasher” for your prospect!    You must crash his oh hum -- his yawn -- you must use words that dash by his daze.

“Stop, look, and listen” means nothing today to people; they look at it, yet every day people are being hit by trains.    It is not a good split -- second “daze crasher” any more because we have seen it too often.

Go over your vocabulary.   How many “daze crashers” have you, along with “door crashers” and “telephone crashers?”   Pretty few, I'll bet, if you are like the average salesman.   Better stock up on some.   They will come in handy to penetrate the other person's Castles in Spain -- to change that glassy, faraway look into one of keen attention!

This is why our first Wheelerpoint is, “Don't sell the steak -- sell the sizzle,” and our second one is, “Don't write -- telegraph.”   This is why we advise you to watch your first ten seconds -- your first ten words.

WHEN YOU GET TEN SECOND ATTENTION –

THEN WHAT?

One should've been successful in crashing the prospects “Oh hum” or his daze with a “sizzle,” then you have about three short minutes to get your message into his mind -- his blood -- his system.   You have three short minutes before his mind will wander away, saturated!

After walking five miles, after reading several chapters, or after talking for some time, our muscles, our mind, and our spirit wilt and grow weary and fatigued because we have saturated ourselves.   A blotter holds just so much ink, and then it becomes “fatigued”; it is saturated, and it is useless to the writer.

Our case histories indicate that Mr. Prospect fatigues when you talk for more than three minutes without letting him talk, without using some showmanship to renew his interest, or without changing the topic.   He can concentrate just three minutes; then he wants to talk; he wants to try it; he wants to participate.   For this reason we have developed Wheelerpoint 3, “Say it with flowers,” which teaches you to make the prospect a part of your sales show.

OUR PSYCHOGALVANOMETER TESTS

A number of years ago I experimented at Johns Hopkins University with a psychogalvanometer, known today in police circles as the lie detector, to see if certain “sizzles” would make people respond quicker than others, and we received definite proof that they would.   We adjusted the little quartz string to a “customer,” and recited a long sales talk to him or her, and on going over the film afterwards noted wherein we had received mental reactions.

These findings indicated a three -- minute fatigue point, beyond which the sales talk fails to register efficiently.   They also indicated that words affect people physically as well as mentally, and so we offer you our fourth Wheelerpoint, “Don't ask if -- ask which,” to help you close sales quickly, before saturation sets in!

“LEMON”—“COTTON”—“ALUM”

Take the word lemon .   Visualize biting into a nice juicy lemon, and note how your salivary glands will function.   Speak the word to somebody, and talk about cutting the lemon.    Watch his mouth water .

If you want to dry his mouth, ask him to visualize a mouth full of hot, dry cotton.   This thought will tend to drive the salivary glands, just as the thought of the word alum tends to pucker the lips of those who hear it.

When I was sales adviser to Dave Rubinoff, showman violinist, he informed me how he could move people physically, as well as mentally, with his musical “sales notes.”   If he played “Humoresque” soft and low, the ducts in the eyes would water up; the “St. Louis Blues” caused spines to wiggle; “Lover, Come Back to Me” prompted the ladies hearts to beat faster; and a Sousa's march always made the feet of the men beat in time.

Such is the EMOTIONAL POWER of word tones on the human system!   This accounts for Wheelerpoint 5, “Watch your bark,” because your voice is the carrier of your “tested words.”

A GOOD SALES EXAMPLE OF THESE FACTS

As a good example of the fact you have ten seconds to get attention and must tell your story in three minutes before saturation takes place, note this sales talk of L. D. Caulk Company, makers of silver alloy for the teeth.   This sales talk, which I developed with William Grier, president of the company, was designed to be used on dentists, who have only a very few minutes to give to any dental salesman.   They are professional men, and their time is valuable.   Realizing this, we took the five Wheelerpoints, and built this three-minute talk:

SALESMAN (daze Crasher):   “How would you like to INSURE your restorations for one cent per filling, Doctor?”

DENTIST (Looks up from work, curious): “How?”

SALESMAN: “The Chinaman charges you one cent for insuring your shirts, and by using Twentieth Century Alloy you can insure your reputation for one cent per filling.”)

(Dentist becomes interested.)

“Run-of-the-mill alloy, you see, Doctor, costs you about three cents per filling, and our T. C. Alloy costs only four cents -- but this is what you get for that extra cent”:

(Dentist now keenly interested)

“First, and you get scientifically graded alloy that is easy to carve, and it will adapt itself to the sides of the patient's tooth and prevent seepage and thermal shocks .   Second our T. C. alloy has particles with ‘silver overcoats’, and because each particle contains more silver, the biting edge of the patient's filling will be stronger.  Third these ‘silver overcoats’ keep the filling silver-bright forever in the patient's mouth !  Those three important things are worth one cent more per filling aren't they doctor?”

MAKE EVERY SALE WITHIN SATURATION POINT

Summed up, if you want to make your sales more accurate, more fool -- proof, and faster, you must, for biological as well as psychological reasons, follow the five Wheelerpoints, which teach:

You have only ten short seconds to penetrate the “daydreaming” of the other person, and you must concentrate your best “sizzles” into three minutes, so the prospect will not YAWN, physically or mentally!

Each Wheelerpoint is based on this philosophy, which underlies all successful “Tested Selling Sentences.”   First you get the “sizzles,” and then you express them “telegraphically,” “saying it with flowers” to dramatize and prove your points; and by asking WHICH, not if, you bring your close within the fatigue point.

The tone of your voice as you are performing these simple points is important, for the best message will fall flat if the telegraph operator fails to click his keys properly!

Make your prospects now water for more by never saturating or fatiguing them, for anyone becomes bored when he cannot take part in the game, and every actor knows that the time to stop is WHEN THEY WANT MORE!   Even the circus parade soon wearies the eye when we watch to long, and the third chocolate soda begins to taste bitter!

Therefore, RIGHT NOW, go back over the five Wheelerpoints.   Memorize them!   Interpret them into your own business!   Find the “sizzles” in what you are selling, and practice putting these “sizzles” into ten second “telegrams.”   Ask yourself how you can say your “sizzles” with “flowers.”   Can you bring about swifter closes, using the technique of the good lawyer, with his “Which,” “Where,” “When,” and “How?”   Then study your voice delivery.   Does it sound convincing, honest, sincere?

If you can answer these questions with a “Yes,” then you are doing about all that any salesman can to create interest, desire, and eventual purchase of whatever you are selling!

The principle is simple:

Parade your selling “sizzles” in telegraphic language with “flowers” so that no sales sequence is longer than three minutes at a stretch!

Prev | Table of Contents | Next