Selling Expensive Safety Pins
The fear of every mother – and of women who are not mothers – is to have a safety pin burst open at the wrong moment and stab the wearer (X). Therefore, Saks‟ clerks sold handfuls of safety pins that cost five cents more per package than most on the market, by this single sentence:
“They won‟t burst open in the garment and cause injury!”
Another worry – and also a desire of mothers – is to have diapers that won‟t chafe or cause injury to their children (X), and when the form-fitting diapers came out, they sold when the Saks‟ clerks used this “Tested Selling Sentence”:
“They are form-fitting, and require only one safety pin!”
Selling Shadow-Proof Slips
A desire and a need of women, especially in the South where there is plenty of sunlight and wide streets, is for a slip that is constructed in such a manner that it is concealing even in strongest sun glare (X). This problem was solved by several manufacturers long before the clerks began to dramatize the “sizzle” to the women rather than consume time talking about the fine needlework.
When the Hecht Company got behind the idea, and every sale was started with this single sentence, sales of the slips increased sixty per cent, according to the case record in our files. The sentence was simply this:
“It is shadow-proof – even on sunniest days!”
This is another example of self-preservation, the X portion of the Wheeler formula.
Romance (“Y”) Sells Furniture
After every regular sale in the Hecht Company, I had the salespeople one summer take the women shoppers to a comfortable lounging chair and say:
“This is our new napping chair.”
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