Mental Pictures Can Help You Sell More Goods

In his book, How to Make $25,000 a Year Selling, Charles B. Roth tells how a group of salesmen in Detroit who tried a new idea increased their sales 100 per cent. Another group in New York increased their sales by 150 per cent. And individual salesmen, using the same idea, have increased their sales up to 400 per cent. (Charles B. Roth, How to Make $25,000 a Year Selling, Englewood Cliffs, N.J., Prentice-Hall, Inc.)
"And what is this magic that accomplishes so much for salesmen?
"It is something called role-playing, and you should know about it, because if you will let it, it may help you to double your sales.
"What is role-playing?
"Well, it is simply imagining yourself in various sales situations, then solving them in your mind, until you know what to say and what to do whenever the situation comes up in real life.
"It is what is called on the football field 'skull prac­tice.' "The reason why it accomplishes so much is that selling is simply a matter of situations.
"One is created every time you talk to a customer. He says something or asks a question or raises an objection. If you always know how to counter what he says or an­swer his question or handle the objection, you make sales....
"A role-playing salesman, at night when he is alone, will create these situations. He will imagine the prospect throwing the widest kind of curves at him. Then he will work out the best answer to them . . .
"No matter what the situation is, you can prepare for it beforehand by means of imagining yourself and your pros­pect face to face while he is raising objections and creat­ing problems and you are handling them properly."