NCR Sales

John Henry Patterson is and will always be remembered as the founder of the National Cash Register Company. However, he is also regarded as one of the greatest salesman of all time. This is because Patterson invented modern selling, with his pioneering efforts leading him to create the sales training manual, canned presentations and quotas. Things that we use each and every day. 

When patterson was 40 he decided to buy NCR l. The company was hampered by a product that was not in demand and salesmen who, quite literally, didn’t know how to sell. To counter this, he started something that we will always be able to use in the future. Training. He did this because he thought that it was crucial  to the success of his business to ensure that his sales agents were successful. Patterson created awareness about the product using, what could be considered, the first marketing campaign which incorporated advertising, direct mailing and publicity. This raised the profile of the cash registers; matched with the new sales training approach NCR reached heights much unprecedented. Many of his models are still used today, for instance, the practice of using testimonials as part of the marketing process was first incorporated by Patterson. He infused testimonials of satisfied customers into the direct mail he would send out to prospects.This was Patterson’s view after travelling to multiple NCR offices across the country. His response? To create a 450-page canned presentation document called the NCR Primer. All his sales agents were to memorise it to help perfect their sales pitch or they would be fired. This lead to the Book of Arguments which was devised in order to give NCR sales agents responses to all kinds of questions and objections during the sales process.