As the number of Americans who own an automobile continued to grow throughout the entire 20th century the role of the car salesmen changed with it. As trade ins started become more and more common and the invention of direct mass marketing, the sales techniques and styles had to evolve. This collection contains three fascinating auto sales films that discuss how to sell cars and adapt in the every changing auto sales industry.
Included Films:
Helping You Sell
Helping You Sell
Produced: 1937
Length: 9 Minutes
Fishing with a single line can catch a single fish, but mass net fishing is the profitable way of fishing. Plowing with a single plow is great for the farmer with a few acres but mass farming is economical farming. Direct mass selling is as practical as mass fishing; as logical as mass plowing. It is doing for retail what mass production has done for manufacturing. And an essential part of mass selling is the salesman who reels in the buyer and cultivates their interest in the product they are wishing to buy. At Chevrolet the salesman know the value of mass selling but they also know the product and have strict rules they must follow when selling a car. A Chevrolet car, after all, is a car built on integrity; their salesmen reflect that principle. An interesting look at selling techniques in the 1930s, Helping You Sell, is a splendid historical film on merchandising techniques.
Hired
Hired
Produced: 1940
Length: 18 Minutes
Selling automobiles in a time where selling was a result of house calls and honest footwork was no easy task. Hired, serves as a training film for both the salesmen and the managers. We are introduced to Jimmy, a bright young salesman who, despite researching the product and actively pursuing potential clients just cant sell a car. His boss blames his and his other employees failures on lack of initiative. He learns throughout the course of talking to his father that a good manager isnt just someone who sits by the wayside and lets his men work, but a person that actively helps out where he can. This is a educational look at selling techniques during the 1940s as well as an interesting step back into time when people saw selling in a different light.
Trader Thorne
Trader Thorne
Produced: 1956
Length: 22 Minutes
The Ford salesmans biggest investment is his time. In America there is an automobile for every 4 1/2 people and every car and truck you see on the road was put there by a salesman. The automobile business offered an exciting opportunity for salesman in the past, and because car buyers have been so satisfied with this method of individual form of transportation the automobile offers a still greater opportunity to salesman today. But the fact that virtually every family already has an automobile puts the new car salesman into the trading business. Therefore, it is essential that a salesman knows how to finesse a potential client and point out the benefits of trading a car in for a new Ford. Without investing his time into the customer, a Ford salesman comes up short. Part Ford promotion, Trader Thorne is an interesting look into automobile selling strategies in the 1950s.
