During the later part of the Great Depression - after the prohibition laws had been repealed - the management of the Statler Hotel wanted to increase sales of wine. While many of their restaurant customers drank beer, they made more profit on the wine. So they hired Elmer Wheeler.
Elmer Wheeler had the staff test many different sentences to the customers. In most restaurants, he noticed the waiters already asked "May I take your drink order now?" or some similar phrase. So he had them try a different phrase.
First, he had them try "Would you like any wine with your meal?" That only made a small increase in the sales of wine. It was easy for the customer to say "No."
Then he had the waiting staff say, "Would you prefer red or white wine with your meal tonight?" When they said that phrase, sales of wine shot up dramatically!
This was an example of one of his "Wheelerpoints" -
"Don't ask if, ask which." When you ask "which" one the customer wants, you're less likely to get "no" for an answer. It shows the power of words!
By the way, Tom Sant has an interesting book I've been browsing through, called "The Giants of Sales". He takes four personalities of the 20th century, and uses them to illustrate four different ways of making sales. They are:
John Henry Patterson. I'd never heard of him, but apparently he helped to pioneer making sales through a "process". Anyone who has ever done any basic company sales training would know exactly what that means.
Dale Carnegie. He uses Dale Carnegie as an example of making sales through relationships. It's true that when you have a good relationship with people, they're more likely to buy from you .
Elmer Wheeler. He illustrates making sales through the power of words.
Joe Girard. He's in the Guiness Book of World Records as the world's most successful salesman, having sold 13,001 cars from a Chevrolet dealership in Detroit, between 1963 and 1978. He's used as an example of how people's relationships with each other can be used to get more prospects.
If you want to find out more, here's a
1938 New Yorker article about Elmer Wheeler, and here's
chapter 13 and
chapter 14 from Tom Sant's book (both chapters are about Elmer Wheeler)...
Thanks for hearing me out...
- Dien