Che Conricr-Zournal

 

LOUISVILLE, WEDNESDAY MORNING, NOVEMBER 15, 1939.

 

 

Master ‘Stagehand’ Zenn Kaufman Puts

Serio-Comedy Action Into Sales Lecture

Anti-Climaxes
Illustrate Points

By RALPH BRADY.

Zenn Kaufman, master “stage-
hand,” led an audience of “heroes
and heroines” through 75 minutes
of smooth-running serio-comedy
containing thirty-one laughs and

three exciting anti-climaxes Tues-
day night in Columbia Audi-
torium to illustrate his contention
that “Showmanship In Business”
is the difference between a cash
register that rings sweetly and
one that is just a nifty ornament.

The occasion was the annual
sales clinic sponsored by The
Courier-Journal and The Louis-
ville Times for the purpose of
bringing to the sales organizations
of Louisville firms the latest in-
formation on how to sell the pub-
lic and make the public like it.

Mr. Kaufman, former New York
advertising man, is author of the
books, “Showmanship In Busi-
ness”; “Profitable Showmanship”,
and “How to Run Better Sales
Contests.”

Says Selling Is a Drama.

“The one common denominator
of successful showmanship, “I be-
lieve,” declared Mr. Kaufman, “is
the amplification of the crack of
Vaudevillian Joe Cook, who said,
‘of all my wife’s relatives I like
myself the best.’

“The American public spends
about four million dollars a day
to goto the movies. And what
do we get? We get the right to sit
down there or up there and put
ourselves in the position of the
players.

“The star is the individual in
the audience in any form of en-
tertainment,” Mr. Kaufman as-
serted.

“When Robert Taylor takes the
feminirie lead into his arms, it
isn’t the movie star he’s embrac-
ing, it’s your wife sitting right
next. to. you and, that’s not all,
it isn’t Taylor who’s doing the
embracing, it’s you.

“Indeed, selling is a drama, but
the salesperson isn’t the hero—
he or she is just the stagehand.
The hero is the buyer, and you’ve

A section of the crowd at Zenn Kaufman’s

  

i

sales clinic.

   

—(C.-J. Photo.

 

got to keep him in the spotlight,”
said the speaker.

Action Louder Than Words.

Toying idly with a _ revolver,
Mr. Kaufman told the story of
the Marshall County, Ohio, Sher-
iff, who won eighteen elections
hand down, but never made a
political speech.

“Each election year, the day be-
fore the balloting, he marched
into the Court House Park with
his wife, put a cigarette between
her lips, backed off 50 feet and
(Mr. Kaufman’s pistol belched
flame at his startled audience)
bang—he shot it out of her mouth.
Yes, action speaks louder than
words.”

Throws “Hammer.”

“You’ve got to sell in the terms
of what the purchase means to
the buyer,” declared the speaker,
patting the head of a hammer into
the palm of his left hand.

 

Suddenly, he threw the ham-

 

mer out into the fifteenth row
and the man who lunged to catch

it as it descended toward the head
of a cringing woman became a
“hero,” but—you guessed it—the
hammer was made of balsa wood
and weighed an ounce.

“A balsa wood salesman used
a variation of tmat little stunt to
illustrate forcefully to harried
purchasing agents the advantages
of his product,” he said.

The yardstick of showmanship,
Mr. Kaufman said, holding up a
colored paper strip, consists of
these twelve inches: mystery,
realism, simplicity, life, motion,
timeliness, pictures, color, conflict,
sound, beauty and sex.

Showmanship Extoled.

Newspapers are the greatest me-
dium of showmanship in the
world, he said, because every Page
One carries the story of a fight, or
conflict, and everyone loves a
fight.

Showmanship, the speaker de-

clared, is a great universal force,
las powerful as the law of gravity,
if properly used, and while a per-
son can’t click on every try, the
law of averages enters the picture
when attempts are numerous and
varied.

“High pressure methods of sales-
manship have no place in my
scheme of things. Use the Golden
Rule of showmanship—give to
every man the same break you’d
like to have yourself.

Waves “Yardstick.”

“Remember (waving the ‘yard-
stick’) the twelve elements in this
stick make all the shows, whether
burlesque, Barnum & Bailey, Be-
lasco, bull-fighting, ballet, boxing,
Benny—or business,’ Mr. Kauf-
man cried.

“Now, if any of you want a sup-
ply of these ‘yardsticks,’ just de-
tach the stub (the ‘stagehand’
prepared to wind up his talk) and
send it in with a mark in the last
square, because if you don’t, you'll

 

be buying one of my books.”