In sales I have to do it myself. A book helps me

An angry prospective customer from Zurich came to our workshop: "There they are, the CLASSIC. Why don't you supply me with one of these vehicles? Astonished, I tried to calm the situation. It turned out that our salesman Bernhard Hafner spoke a lot with potential buyers, but did not conclude any sales contracts with them! Even if the prospective buyer ordered a vehicle, Bernhard did not carry out this order on the grounds that the vehicles were not available. That was enough! Bernhard Hafner had to leave us on the spot.
A short time later we no longer had a salesman. It was no use: I had to do it myself! After all, Peter Schürmann had given me an image of a salesman with whom I could identify. Before the conversation with Peter, a salesman was someone who tried to talk me into something I couldn't afford and didn't need.
My father-in-law recommended that I read a book to learn the craft of a proper salesman: Zig Ziglar on Selling. In German, the title was "der totale Verkaufserfolg". Zig Ziglar was an American salesman who had sold pans and cooking pots in the 1960s and was thus able to learn his sales craft. He had written down all his knowledge in this book. In it I read more of the kind of selling I wanted to learn. The salesman is a communicator who mediates between the company and the customer. He sees that the customer is satisfied with his purchase and becomes a positive reference for the product and the company. So off I went: I loaded the CLASSIC into our van and drove to the prospective customers to let them drive it on site to find out together whether the CLASSIC could enrich their lives in the future or not. I enjoyed the new job. The seniors had a lot of life experience, which they were happy to share with me.
I remember with pleasure the street cleaner who was paralysed on one side after his retirement. He had never driven a car. But when he was cleaning the streets, he always paid very close attention to when the drivers put on their indicators. He was very well prepared. He wanted a CLASSIC to transport hay for his rabbits. He then took them to the restaurants in the area with the newly acquired vehicle.
Another customer was in a beautiful house in Reihgoldswil. Her husband had been a geologist. After his retirement, he had suffered from pneumoconiosis. Therefore, his doctor recommended that they urgently move to the countryside. He needed as much fresh air as possible. In the country, her husband also died after a few years. She was left alone - trapped in her beautiful house. Thanks to the CLASSIC, she could go to the bus stop and back to Basel, her beloved city. Very important for her: she could go to her husband's grave independently whenever she felt like it. An engineer and former test pilot lived in Appenzellerland. He told us, not without pride, how he was able to fix an aerodynamic flutter in the wings of a trainer called BRAVO, which was developed in Altenrhein, Switzerland. For me as an aircraft enthusiast, his stories were very exciting and instructive. He told how he had learned to fly in Germany during the time of the Second World War and then went into service as a test pilot because of his engineering studies. How they had tested the new types of aircraft, including the jet-powered Me 262, these were stories I had never been able to read so authentically from a book. Among other things, he also told about the weaknesses of the aircraft and how they had tried to remedy them. He told about the behaviour during take-off and landing. The engines had to be run up very slowly. Otherwise, too much fuel was injected and the engines ignited. It was very difficult during the landing when he approached a little too short. He would have had to carefully push the throttle to power, otherwise he would have set fire to the field with the flames from the engines, into which he crash-landed for lack of thrust.
Another customer was in the Grisons. He was severely disabled and was no longer able to look after himself. Without our vehicle, he would have had to go to Chur to the old people's home, which would have meant the end for him. He acquired a CLASSIC and was then able to go back to his beloved cave to shine - that is, he collected crystals. He did not want to tell anyone where this cave was. As thanks for being able to harvest his crystals again, he sent us boxes of them.

I learned from this:

• There is nothing better than selling something to a customer that means more to him than the money he gives me for it.
• Selling is a wonderful job if you do it right.
• In a book, someone can store his accumulated knowledge. Someone else can take up the knowledge again. That is fantastic.