Elmer Wheeler | Marden's Keys To Success

Elmer Wheeler

How to Make Your daydreams Come True

Elmer Wheeler's classic "How To Make Your Daydreams Come True"

Elmer Wheeler was America's most popular author and speaker during the depression era, during World War II, and post war.

In fact, post war he was voted by a large margin as the best public speaker around.

He was credited with coining the expression "Don't sell the steak - sell the sizzle."

His most celebrated work was "Tested Sentences That Sell" but one of his other works is contained within the 'Marden's Keys to Success' package.

Elmer Wheeler was the "Zig Ziglar" - the greatest salesman - of his time.

He took a wise crack: "Don't sell the steak, sell the sizzle" and turned it into an imposing, profit-making, money-sucking business philosophy.

Wheeler emphasised that people are not interested in "the steak", the meat of the product or service itself.

But people want the "sizzle" - the real main reasons why they want to buy.

He is famous for his "Wheeler Points." Five ways in which he used to get his selling techniques across. These 5 points were:

1. Don't sell the steak - sell the sizzle

2. Don't write - telegraph

3. Say it with flowers

4. Don't ask if - ask which

5. Watch your bark

These 5 points are all made clear, with lots of examples, in his book "Tested Sentences That Sell."

Wheeler founded the Tested Institute and Word Laboratory Inc. in New York primarily to take the guesswork out of selling.

He formed this "Wheeler Word Lab" after his experiences as an ad salesman for several newspapers.

He developed a fine sales presentation to sell ad space to retail merchants. But the reply he got was "So what?" The retailers would point out that hundreds of people would come to the store and browse through the aisles - but never buy.

After careful analysis, Wheeler concluded that the weakest link in the sales process was the store clerks behind the counters - sales were made or lost largely because on what these clerks said to customers.

The problem was because these salesmen were merely guessing as what words or sentences will sell - and not keeping track of exactly what they were saying to customers.

Thus, you have to control what words and phrases you use, using those words and sentences that have been tested and proven to sell.

So after over 10 years of research, he and his staff tested over 105,000 selling words and phrases on 19 million people.

And the results of all his testing were published in his book "Tested Sentences that Sell."

Did his "Tested Selling Sentences" work? During the depression these "Tested Selling Sentences" helped sell hundreds of hard-to-move products.

Important: Wheeler's Word Lab supports a crucial lesson (or frightening thought, depending on your point of view) that many people, including famous people, celbrities, politicians, and maybe you, have learned the hard way in human behavior.

One slight word change or one simple mistake in your choice of words, can mean the difference between:

The success and failure of selling a product or service
Making a person love you for what you said, or offending them so much that they will never, ever forgive you again
Getting others to praise about you consistently, or give people the excuse to crucify you.

Here's a video of Elmer explaining his 5 Wheeler Points:

Why not take a look at the other "Success Masters" on this site by checking out the links at the foot of the index page - Success Leaves Traces - and you may well find that spark of inspiration you need to take the next step to success in your own life.

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