“For the apparel oft proclaims the man.”
CHAPTER XXI
FINDING CUSTOMERS
“Where there’s a will, there’s a way.”
The King is the man who can.—Carlyle.
The hardest problem with any business man is to find customers, that is to say, desirable and profitable customers. Identical with the problem of finding customers, is the more difficult one of finding the men who can find the right kind of customers.
There’s the rub—“To find the man who can swim.” The right kind of salesman will solve for himself this problem of getting customers as he will most others connected with selling. How, you ask? This is how the question was answered recently by a little, short, unprepossessing salesman who is said to have written the largest amount of life insurance in one of the largest insurance companies in the world.
Some time ago this salesman went to Canada and at an influential gathering saw a man whom he sized up as a good prospect. He got his name and address, found out all about him, his habits and hobbies, one of which was the success of a big hospital in which he was especially interested. Next day the salesman went to this hospital, and asked to be shown through it, after which he called on his prospective customer, told him he had heard of his interest in —— Hospital, and said, “I have been studying this hospital, also; it is doing splendid work, and I would like to make a little contribution to its funds.” He thereupon wrote out a check for $250.00 and handed it to this man. This check was the entering wedge for a $250,000.00 life insurance policy, which this resourceful salesman soon after wrote for the man whose pet hobby was the big hospital in question.
The main trouble with most salesmen is that they put the problem of finding customers up to the sales manager or heads of the company. They want them to do all the thinking in the matter of where to go, and how to proceed in this difficult business. Let me say right at the start; there is no iron-clad rule for finding customers. Some say it is just a matter of “plan and push,” as illustrated in the above instance.