Maybe you’ve heard the expression “sell the sizzle not the steak.” Well
that’s Elmer Wheeler and his book “Tested Sentences That Sell” from 1937
reveals the ‘tested selling sentences’ that Wheeler uncovered by testing over
105,000 words on more than 19,000,000 people.
Doing so he found conclusive evidence
that certain words would produce incredible differences in results over other
words. And I’ll tell you all about them in a moment, but first it’s interesting
to know the way this all got started. When Wheeler was an ad salesman for
several newspapers he developed a fine sales presentation for retail merchants.
He would come in and tell the retailers about his paper’s large circulation and
how people who needed to buy shirts, hosiery, umbrellas, etc. would be done to
their store to buy. But the reply he got was “So what?” The retailer would
point to hundreds of people in the aisles of his store and tell Mr. Wheeler
they come down here but they don’t buy.
Making a careful analysis Wheeler
concluded that the weak link in the sales process were the salespeople behind
the counter. He realized the sales were made or lost by the sales clerk in the
stores. And to a great degree depending on what they said determined how much
merchandise was sold. This is how Wheeler formed the “Wheeler Word Laboratory”
and his 10 years of research might just be profitable to you today.
Here are a few great examples. At a
pharmacy, the clerk would ask customers walking in “Are you on your feet much?”
Then he’d hand them a shoe insole and say “This will ease your feet. It’s made
especially for people who are on their feet a lot.” This sold hundreds
of insoles every week.
Or another testing selling sentence
(of 100 tried) worked best to get 250,000 motorists to open their hood in one week.
You know the worthless phrase “Can I
check your oil?” This question makes it easy to say “no”. The question
Wheeler found to work best was “Is your oil at the safe driving level?”
This worked 58% of the time.
Then Wheeler also found that if waiters
asked, “Would you care to order a red or white wine with your dinner?”
It would double the sales of wine. Or how about this example? When a customer
would ask for a drink the order-taker would normally ask “small or large?” The typical response was “I’ll take the small one.” Well, simply changing to an assumptive
question, “Large one?” proved 7 out 10
people would say “yes”!
Pretty impressive, huh? All with the
power of words.
So again, what’s this all mean to
your business? You’re probably not a gas station, pharmacy or a restaurant...
but let’s just see if we can’t breakdown the powerful elements Wheeler
discovered:
1. Ask a question that breaks through a
prospect’s mental indifference. Something they can’t say “so what?” to.
Here’s an example:
“Mrs.
Jones, are you concerned about wrinkles?”
If the prospect says “yes” then your
staff member will simply say “This new procedure actually erases wrinkles
and makes you look years younger!” and hand them over your free special
report on laser resurfacing.
This follows the proven pattern
Wheeler used for insole sales. Very easy to duplicate for your business.
2. Don’t ask “if” but ask “which”.
This is what Wheeler calls his
“Wheelerpoint 4” and by this he means is you should always frame your words to
give the prospect a choice between something and something. Not something and
nothing. By asking the right questions,
you’ll get the answer you want.
Just like the waiter asking if the
person preferred white or red wine with dinner you can do the same thing. Using
packages You give your customers a choice between good, better or best
packages. Or even just a basic or deluxe package. Now, the choice becomes which
option to choose instead of do I choose to have this procedure done.
Assuming the prospective customer is
ready to make their buying decision, you could ask something like this: “Would
you like the deluxe package of _____ for only $750 more or just the basic
package?”
Culled from The Greatest Marketing Secrets by Yanik Silver
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