Not long ago I was particularly interested in the installation of a large department store where electricity was being employed for auxiliary lighting only; for general illumination they were using gas.
I found that a certain lamp salesman, whose tactics represented nothing less than camouflage in an abnormal degree, had induced the proprietor of this department store to place with him an unusually large lamp order.
This salesman, who was handling a certain tungsten lamp, had so juggled words in describing the lamp as to convey to his prospect the idea that he was securing MAZDA gas-filled lamps.
Everything went fine for a while, but one day the proprietor of the store called us up and it was very evident from the trend of his conversation that he didn’t think a great deal of our electric service. Incidentally, he remarked that on account of poor voltage regulation we were burning his lamps out about as fast as he could install them.
To convince him that he was mistaken, we made a voltage test in his presence, whereupon he “warmed up” sufficiently to give us the details of his purchase.
On investigation, we found the lamps to be 115 volts. The correct voltage for this city should have been 120. We then proceeded to show the gentleman what it means to use lamps of incorrect voltage-how it affected the lighting of the lamp-how it affected candle-power. Thus far we had succeeded in making a very favorable impression until it came to the matter of price. We were rather curtly informed that our price was altogether too high.
Here was clearly a need of emphasizing quality. I asked him what article he had in his store selling for 27¢ that required 25 different kinds of raw material to produce it; incidentally, I touched upon the high degree of skill, the extreme care and the expensive mechanical equipment which made possible such perfect lamps as ours.
To further impress him with the importance and magnitude of the MAZDA lamp industry, I informed him that the works from which we received our lamps had 1,251,300 square feet of floor space; that it required the services of 3,300 carefully trained people to so place the article on the market that it might be had for 27¢. I also casually made mention of the fact that the plant from which we received our lamps was one of the largest in existence; that 110,000,000 incandescent lamps were sold annually; that 79% of these were MAZDA lamps.
Another weighty point which I made rested upon the fact that the lamps which he had purchased were not MAZDA C lamps, but that they were only tungsten lamps, with a concentrated filament which fooled the eye on account of the concentrated light source. I also explained why the MAZDA Clamp was not made in so small a size; also the effect of burning the filament at a high temperature; also how in the small sizes the heat given off by the bulb offsets the increased efficiency gained by this method.
We finally led up to the proposition of lighting his entire store, and he agreed to an installation, with the understanding that his bill for the next three months should not exceed our estimate.
As our estimate was a conservative one, he accepted the proposition. The outcome was that we secured a lighting contract for four floors in that store, as well as three floors in a branch store. We sold him MAZDA lamps for the complete installation, including show cases. Moreover, we improved his window lighting and materially increased the load. We are still selling lamps to this concern and have experienced no further trouble. On the contrary, we have gained a good friend and “booster.”
Briefly, the moral of this interesting experience may be summed up about as follows:
Convincing your prospect that you know your business is half the battle. Convincing yourself that you do not know all of his business represents a large percentage of the remaining half.