Cleburne

June 1, 2011

Retired Cleburne pilot shares tips, techniques for instant sales

By Steve Knight/reporter3@trcle.com

Roger Neumann of Cleburne, a retired military and commercial airline pilot, has been selling items since the age of 4.

“I grew up on a farm in Illinois just east of St. Louis about 40 miles. My sales career started out when my mom would take me door-to-door through the farm areas selling eggs, chickens and homemade apple butter,” Neumann said. “My job was to go up to the door, knock on the door and get the lady to come out to the car where the trunk of the car was open. ‘Here’s some apple butter. Do you want two, three, four or more?’ That was my line. Usually they would take at least one, sometimes two and sometimes they would get a bunch.”

If the customer only took one jar, the 4-year-old boy would apply the appropriate add-on sales technique.

“I would say, ‘You ought to get two because apples don’t get ripe every week of the year. We do this once a year and right now is a good time to stock up. Now is a good time to get more apple butter,’” he said. “That was pretty much my close. It went well because who’s going to say no to a 4-year old kid? Obviously, from that point on, my sales career got larger and bigger, and my products got larger and more expensive than a dozen eggs or a jar of apple butter.”

Now, Neumann applies and writes about what he has learned in “Persuasion Equations for instant sales,” a book with tips and techniques for the five-minute close.

“My niche in sales was at home, one-call closing where I have to go for the jugular to a make the sale while I was there. While I was flying with the airlines, I would continue to do my sales job because pilots don’t work that hard and they’ve got lots of time off,” said the retired Continental Airlines pilot. “So, I kept on with a sales career. I actually started a couple of businesses. My most profitable business was landscape lighting. I would go out to the homeowner’s place at night and give them a free lighting demonstration to show how the light would enhance their home in the evening time. That worked pretty well.”

Neumann said that the book explains how people can go from the traditional 20th century sales routine into the 21st century and instead of becoming a salesman, become a superior solutions specialist by helping people.

“The reason for that switch, which caused me to write the book, was at the turn of the century, a new monster came on the scene of salespeople called the World Wide Web. [The customer] can get on the Internet to find out everything you needed to know about whatever it is your thinking about getting for your home or for you or whatever the scenario was,” he said. “Now, people like me in your eyes, will treat it as a stepping stone to benefit me. So we had to change things around a little and a lot of people don’t know about this tactic yet.”

Instead of using the traditional 10 percent rapport, 20 percent gathering information, 30 percent presentation and 40 percent close technique, Neumann teaches a 90 percent rapport, 5 percent giving people the solution and 5 percent paperwork sales technique.

“It’s also with a touch of hypnosis involved with the book too. Most people have self-hypnosis. We all daydream throughout the day, which is a form of hypnosis in itself,” he said. “I tell people how to phrase their words, then use the right tonality and pacing and the words not to use. It gets the subconscious mind working and processing the information where it can feed the conscious mind, the logical mind and solidify the future partner to get involved.”

Because everyone is a salesperson at heart, he said, anyone in the people arena would find this book useful.

“One of the biggest problems in the arena is conversation and communication. Most people really don’t listen very well,” he said. “What I tell people to do whenever you are in the home and ask a question, always repeat what the person tells you. Use their words. The reason for that is they hear what they just spoke to you. If it’s right, they’ll agree with you. If it isn’t, they’ll say, ‘I didn’t mean that.’ I always have people repeat everything so you’re on the same track as everyone else. If you’re off track, how can you help people fulfill their needs and desires? Go out and make it a successful day.”

The book, published by Destiny Calling, is available at Amazon.com and other online retailers by searching for “Persuasion Equations.”

For more information, visit www.rogerneumann.com.