This is a proven and really easy way to start increasing your sales right away.
All you need to do is add these 2 words to your sales system and you’re good to go.
In fact, this trick is so cool I wish I could take credit for inventing it, but it actually comes from a little-known marketing legend.
Here’s the deal:
In 1947, Elmer Wheeler was one of the best-known salesmen of his day. His Wheeler Institute of Words developed selling “best practices” by testing a variety of words in more than 19 million selling situations.
I’m right in the middle of reading one of Elmer’s most famous books, “Proven Sentences That Sell.”
And here’s a great little sales trick that comes straight from this book:
Have you ever been to a restaurant and ordered a drink?
Of course you have.
And what does your waiter usually ask you, right after placing your order?
They usually say “small or large?”, right?
Well, imagine for a moment… that you are the owner of this restaurant.
Do you have any idea how much your sales would increase over time if… instead of saying “small or large”? after his customers ordered their drinks… he told his servers to say instead…
“The big one?”
Let me take the guesswork out of this and make your job easier.
Elmer Wheeler tested this experiment in five thousand different sales situations. And the results showed, when his server asked “Big?”…
7 out of 10 people answered “Yes!”
So let’s say a large soda costs you 35 cents more than a small soda, do you agree with me on this? This means that by saying “Large?”… 7 out of 10 customers who walk through your door end up giving you an extra 35 cents!
Now you may be thinking, “So what? It’s only 35 cents.”
Ahh, but remember…
Little hinges open big doors!
Follow me here for a minute: if you have 5 servers… and they each do this with 100 customers a day, that means each of them will be serving large refreshments to an additional 70 people a day.
That’s an extra 350 grand soda sales a day. (5 servers x 70 large sodas each).
350 additional sales, at 35¢ each, is an additional $122.50 per day in gross sales to you… which translates to an additional $857.50 per week, and over 52 weeks, this converts to…
$44,590 Dollars Per Year… With
ZERO additional marketing costs involved!
Not bad, huh?
And if your large sodas cost 50¢ more than your small sodas, then your annual increase in gross sales would be $63,700!
70¢ more? OK, that’s easy, just double the 35¢ figure, now you’re selling $89,180 more!
See how easy this is?
It’s crazy, isn’t it?
But what if you don’t have a restaurant?
How can you use this trick in your business?
Well, let’s say you own a photography store. When people fill out your forms to reveal their images, instead of saying “Singles or Doubles?” you can say “Doubles?”
If you own a landscaping company, instead of asking “Shrubs and grass?” you would say “The whole yard?”
And if you’re a hairdresser, instead of asking “Cut and shampoo?” you just say “Shampoo?”
Make sense?
When it comes down to it, the basic premise of this sales gimmick is…
If you don’t ask… you don’t get!
But polishing your application to be “benefit oriented” for your prospect…makes this work smoothly…effectively…and without seeming like you’re trying to “upsell”.
Notice how he’s not asking “Would you like a large soda?” — are you just saying “Big?”
Look, you’ll have to experiment a bit to find out what works best in your situation, but you don’t have at least one big advantage in things, do you?
And can you think of something easier?
how to make this kind of extra money?
Elmer Wheeler truly was a “sales genius” and you will learn quite a bit from him.
And, from the emotion and enthusiasm with which he is displayed, you know that he enjoyed his work.
Here are some of Elmer’s famous quotes:
“Your first 10 words are more important than the next 10,000.”
“People rarely want to walk all over you until you go to bed.” Y…
“Don’t sell steak, sell sizzle.”
Unfortunately, Wheeler’s books are out of print. However, she will find them showing up fairly consistently on e-bay and she can also find some of them at http://www.abebooks.com or http://www.allibris.com.
PS Remember, small hinges DO open big doors, and success is found in the margins, not in the wide open spaces. K So keep an open mind to find the little things that others let slip through the cracks.
