SALESMANSHIP 
 and BUSINESS 
 EFFICIENCY 
 
 ic/y 
 
 
 By 
 
 JAMES SAMUEL KNOX 
 
 DES MOINEB, IOWA 
 
 1912
 
 COPYRIGHT 1912. 
 The Knox School of Applied Salesmanship. 
 
 Entered at Stationers' Hall, London, England. Pro- 
 tected by International Copyright in Great Britain and all 
 her Colonies, and under the provisions of the Berne Con- 
 vention, in Belgium, France, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, 
 Tunis, Hayti, Luxemburg, Monaca, Montenegro and Norway. 
 
 All rights reserved. 
 
 (Printed in the United States.)
 
 Contents 
 
 LESSON I. 
 Leadership 9 
 
 LESSON II. 
 Personality and How to Develop It 31 
 
 LESSON HI. 
 Efficiency 61 
 
 LESSON IV. 
 The Value of Time 84 
 
 LESSON V. . 
 Salesmanship Analysis 87 
 
 LESSON VI. 
 Mental Analysis 110 
 
 LESSON VII. 
 The Mental Law of Sale 119 
 
 LESSON VIII. 
 
 The Mental Law of Sale (continued) 160 
 
 LESSON IX. 
 Suggestion in Salesmanship 180 
 
 LESSON X. 
 Will Power 189 
 
 LESSON XI. 
 
 Human Nature . ...193
 
 LESSON XII. 
 Salesmanship, Advertising and Oratory 201 
 
 LESSON XIII. 
 Analyzing a Retail Business 206 
 
 LESSON XIV. 
 National Cash Register Selling Methods 212
 
 Introduction 
 
 T IS nearly seven years since I began 
 to teach Salesmanship, Business Man- 
 agement, Man Building and Business 
 Efficiency by the Class Method. Dur- 
 ing this time I have had Business 
 College students, University students. 
 Professors and all classes of Busi- 
 ness Men and Salesmen in my classes. 
 During these years I have learned 
 much from the students as to their own needs. 
 
 This book has been prepared to fit the needs of 
 the High School student, the Business College and Uni- 
 versity student and the Business man who studies in 
 Y. M. C. A. or other classes. Written exercises have 
 been placed after each lesson. This has been done for 
 the special benefit of the Business College student. It 
 will teach him to be a closer observer, a better thinker, 
 besides greatly increasing his efficiency as a writer. 
 
 With the exception of lessons ONE and THREE, 
 which are new, every lesson in this book has been taken 
 out of the four volumes of our regular Salesmanship 
 Course. In making this re-arrangement I have pro- 
 fited greatly from the very helpful suggestions which 
 have come from the various Business College men who 
 have successfully taught the course in their own schools.
 
 In fact, the book has been planned largely according to 
 their direction and to suit their needs. 
 
 The following are some of the men whose sugges- 
 tions have been helpful in preparing the book to suit 
 the Business College need. Mr. B. F. Williams, Presi- 
 dent Capital City Commercial College, Des Moines; 
 Mr. F. W. Mosher, of the Mosher-Lampman College, 
 Omaha; Mr. Watson, of the Lincoln Business College, 
 Lincoln, Nebraska; Mr. A. F. Gates, President of the 
 Waterloo, Iowa, Business College; Mr. B. E. Ecklund, 
 President of the College of Commerce, Waterloo, Iowa; 
 Mr. 0. C. Heilman, President of the Southern Minne- 
 sota Normal; R. B. Millard, President of the Little 
 Falls, Minnesota, Business College, and D. C. Rugg, 
 President of the Minneapolis Business College. I have 
 also profited by many suggestions received from other 
 Business College and University Professors who have 
 studied the regular course. 
 
 My aim has been to prepare a simple, practical and 
 comprehensive text-book covering the subjects of Sales- 
 manship, the Philosophy of Leadership, Business Effi- 
 ciency, Man-building, Character Analysis, the Develop- 
 ment of the Personality, the study of Human Nature, 
 and in fact the art of Making Good in Life. 
 
 President 0. C. Heilman of the Southern Minne- 
 sota Normal defines the purpose of the work so clearly 
 that I cannot do better than quote his words. He says : 
 "The term 'Salesmanship' as here used is not the 
 proper title for this work, as it is more than that, 
 \t is Man-building; teaching one how to develop one's
 
 talents, and how to best use them; also how to meet 
 people, and having met them, how to know and judge 
 them. In other words, it is a work that prepares a 
 man or woman to really live." 
 
 J. 8. KNOX.
 
 LESSON I. 
 
 ieabersfytp 
 
 HE last ten years have seen tremendous 
 business changes in this country. The next 
 ten years will see a business revolution. Ten 
 years ago there was no such thing as a Sci- 
 ence of Business, a Science of Salesman- 
 ship or a Science of Advertising. To-day these Sciences 
 are recognized everywhere. The student of the present 
 and the future must be trained to meet the new 
 condition. This new condition has been brought about 
 by applying psychology to the problems of Business, 
 Salesmanship and Advertising; it has been brought 
 about as a result of intense competition and the in- 
 sistent demand for greater individual efficiency. In 
 the past, business and selling were conducted by guess; 
 to-day we must know the reason why. To know the rea- 
 son why is to enormously increase individual efficiency. 
 Efficiency is the watchword of to-day. 
 
 C[The problem of efficiency to-day is the problem 
 of getting the maximum of results with the minimum 
 of effort. Our problem then, to begin with, is to find 
 out how to so train the human mind as to attain this 
 maximum of efficiency. To do it we must analyze the 
 causes of failure as well as the causes of success. To- 
 day the average man is a failure when he ought to be a 
 success. We must discover the reason and remedy it. 
 
 [9]
 
 10 Salesmanship and Business Efficiency 
 
 C[The late Professor James of Harvard, after years 
 of investigation, came to the conclusion that the average 
 man was only using one-tenth of his brain power. To 
 think that nine-tenths of the average man's brain is a 
 desert waste, is enough to arouse the slumbering power 
 which is lying like a sleeping giant only waiting to be 
 awakened. 
 
 ,C[The great American desert is not located in Ida- 
 ho, Arizona or New Mexico. It is located under the hat 
 of the average man. The great American desert is not a 
 physical but a mental desert. One of the aims of this 
 book is to irrigate this mental desert waste with the 
 waters of a practical and progressive education which 
 will enable it to blossom into a rich, luxuriant harvest. 
 
 C[The average man to-day may well be called a 
 failure because he earns little. Eighty-five per cent, of 
 the men of this country earn $15.00 a week or less. 
 Only seven and a half per cent, earn between $1,800.00 
 and $3,000 a year. The question arises; why do they 
 not earn more? The answer is simple. They do not 
 know how to think. They have never learned how to 
 use their minds to anything like a maximum of their 
 possibilities. 
 
 C[ Never in the history of the world has there been 
 such a famine of high priced men as exists at the pres- 
 ent time. Hugh Chalmers, President of the Chalmers 
 Motor Company, the man who was a stenographer in 
 the National Cash Kegister factory at the age of four- 
 teen and Vice-President and General Manager of the 
 company at twenty-eight, at a salary of $50,000.00 a 
 year, says: "Five great M's go to make up the prob- 
 lem of every business man in this country to-day. They 
 are money, materials, machinery, markets and men 
 and the biggest figure in the problem is men. Really 
 valuable men, high-priced men, are the hardest things to
 
 Leadership 11 
 
 get of all the things we manufacturers need. Men in the 
 mass are the cheapest things in the market. There are 
 too many $1,000.00 men and too few who are worth 
 $10,000.00 a year." 
 
 CJWhy does this condition of affairs exist? It 
 exists for just four reasons. Here are the reasons. 
 Failure to think right, failure to talk right, failure to 
 write right, and failure to understand human nature, 
 are the four great causes of failure in this decade. The 
 next quarter of a century will demand that a man re- 
 ceive such mental equipment that he will become an 
 analytical thinker, that he will learn how to think from 
 cause to effect; it will demand that a man learn how to 
 express himself intelligently, fluently and vigorously; 
 it will demand that a man know how to write a business 
 getting letter, circular and advertisement, and it will 
 demand that a man know the point of view of the man 
 he does business with. In order that we may accom- 
 plish this end we must analyze the mind and find out 
 why we fail and why we succeed. The main reason why 
 the average man fails to-day is because he has never 
 learned how to think analytically, consequently he 
 guesses. 
 
 CJWe have discovered that there are really just 
 four things we do in life. We think, we remember, we 
 imagine and we act. To accomplish these four things 
 efficiently, spells success. 
 
 CjThe average man thinks but very little and when 
 he does think the chances are about ninety per cent, in 
 favor of his thinking wrong. He must learn to think 
 right rather than wrong, and to do that he must de- 
 velop a discriminating judgment. I knew a retail 
 merchant in a town of four hundred who bought twen- 
 ty-nine hundred pounds of raisins. He did this because 
 he thought wrong. His 'judgment was not developed.
 
 12 Salesmanship and Business Efficiency 
 
 He put twenty-seven hundred pounds of them down 
 cellar and they spoiled. At another time he bought 
 enough window curtains to last the community five 
 years. Again he thought wrong because his judgment 
 was not developed. At another time he refused to buy 
 store fixtures which his business demanded. He 
 thought to his disadvantage again because his judg- 
 ment was at fault. His judgment worked against his 
 own best interests, both when he was buying and when 
 he refused to buy. 
 
 C[I know a very able young man who was highly 
 recommended and who was about to accept a very re- 
 sponsible position. On his way to the office where he 
 expected to get the position, he thought, but he thought 
 wrong. His judgment had not been carefully 
 trained. He went in and met his prospective em- 
 ployer. His looks and recommendations were of the 
 best, but his prospective employer got a whiff of his 
 breath and said: "I cannot employ you." The 
 young man said : ' ' Aren 't my recommendations good ? ' ' 
 He was told they were, but he was also told that he 
 had just visited a saloon and taken a drink of whiskey. 
 He was told that under no circumstances would a 
 drinking man be hired for that position. The whole 
 destiny of this young man was no doubt determined 
 by that one drink. He thought, but he paid a big price 
 for thinking wrong. 
 
 CjOne day a retail house received a telephone call 
 from an angry customer. The customer said he had 
 given the salesman an order for twelve dollars' worth 
 of goods to be delivered at once, but a week had passed 
 and he had not received the goods, in spite of the fact 
 that he was promised delivery the same day. The 
 house immediately discovered that the order had never 
 been sent in. The salesman was called up over the tele-
 
 Leadership 13 
 
 phone. He admitted he had the order in his pocket and 
 had spent the $12.00 but expected to make it good 
 in a day or two. He lost his position. He paid an 
 awful price for thinking wrong and using poor judg- 
 ment. The head of the concern told him he would have 
 been glad to loan him the money he needed. 
 
 C[A big concern sent a letter to four thousand 
 retail merchants who were worth from $10,000.00 to 
 $40,000.00 each. In that letter the merchant was asked 
 to solve a simple problem. Here is the problem : ' ' Sup- 
 pose you bought an article for one dollar and your cost 
 of handling that article was twenty-two per cent., how 
 much would you have to sell the article for in order to 
 make a net profit of ten per cent.?" Just twenty-two 
 per cent, of the replies were right. The average busi- 
 ness man doesn't know enough about bookkeeping and 
 arithmetic to enable him to think right. An authority 
 states that, "Only about ten per cent, of retailers rated 
 at $5,000.00 or less know how to figure percentages of 
 profit." 
 
 C(I could give you an unlimited number of illustra- 
 tions of wrong thinking and untrained judgment, but 
 these will do. Failure and crime are due to wrong 
 thinking and poor judgment. "Sin is misdirected 
 energy." 
 
 CJWe must learn to think right first and when we 
 think right, that in itself will go a long way toward 
 developing a good memory. 
 
 G[An idea which is not clear to us will not be re- 
 membered. The subjective mind always retains an im- 
 pression once it is photographed upon the negative sen- 
 sitized plate of that mind. To have a good memory 
 you must pay attention to every new idea, name or 
 face ; you must concentrate your mind upon it and then 
 associate the new idea, name or face with something 
 similar vou are familiar with.
 
 14 Salesmanship and Business Efficiency 
 
 you get a new idea and try to think of 
 that as a new idea and separate fact, you must concen- 
 trate your mind very strongly upon it, but even then 
 you are likely to absolutely forget it, temporarily any- 
 way, unless you associate it with something you are 
 already familiar with. Take the definition of Sales- 
 manship for illustration. "Salesmanship is the man- 
 ner, method and art of most economically effecting the 
 exchange of an article for money, to the equal and 
 permanent satisfaction of buyer and seller." If you 
 try to think of this definition as a whole, you may for- 
 get it, but if you associate it with the idea of mutual 
 benefit which is the central idea of the definition, you 
 will have no trouble in remembering the substance, at 
 least, of the definition. 
 
 ,C[A man stopped me on the street one day and told 
 me to send a book to a friend of his. The name he gave 
 me was familiar so I did not need to make note of it. 
 But I asked him what the initials were, with the idea of 
 writing them down. He said the initials were B. A. 
 I realized at once that I would have no trouble in re- 
 membering them because I have a brother with the 
 same initials. I met another man whose name was 
 Peculia. I immediately associated his name and face 
 with the word peculiar. I said to myself, "Here is a 
 man with a peculiar name and peculiar face. In 
 other words, he is a peculiar man." I concentrated my 
 mind upon his face until I got a complete image of it. 
 Then I had no trouble with either name or face. 
 
 Q[A friend of mine went into a strange tailor shop 
 in Chicago and ordered a suit. The man who made 
 the sale was a very agreeable and attentive little 
 man. My friend got his suit and left the city. Three 
 years later he was in Chicago and decided to get an- 
 other suit at the same place. He went in and was met 
 at the door by the same man who sold him the suit
 
 Leadership 15 
 
 three years before. With a smile the tailor walked up 
 to my friend and said: "Why, how do you do, Mr. 
 Jones? I am very glad to see you." My friend said, 
 "How is it possible for you to pick my face out of the 
 thousands who have been in here since I was here three 
 years ago, and how is it possible for you to remember my 
 name and associate it with my face?" The tailor said: 
 "That is a very important part of my business." It 
 was, and it will be a very important part of the busi- 
 ness of the future for a man not only to remember 
 names and faces, but facts as they relate to every phase 
 of his business. 
 
 G[To develop a good memory is to overcome indif- 
 ference, carelessness and laxity and to develop to a 
 large degree the qualities of attention, concentration, 
 alertness and observation. It means a big mental asset. 
 
 C[We next come to the development of the imagi- 
 nation. Imagination is the inventive, creative, image- 
 making power of the individual. The young man who 
 cannot look into the future and create for himself a 
 position of importance will not be likely to ever have 
 such a position. The young man who can see himself, 
 ten or fifteen years hence, the manager of a great con- 
 cern with elegant offices finished in oak or mahogany, 
 with beautiful furniture and elegant rugs, with a lot 
 of clerks and stenographers under him, will some 
 day create just such a position for himself. This is a 
 creative idea, a tremendous spur to the ambition, a goal 
 to be reached ; such an inspiration thrills its owner and 
 develops within him the conquering spirit. It grips 
 him, it arouses him, it transforms him, it makes a new 
 man out of him. Such a man with such a mission pays 
 no attention to obstacles, except to use them as stepping 
 stones to help him reach his goal, which is always in 
 sight.
 
 16 Salesmanship and Business Efficiency 
 
 ((Here is a simple contrast of the non-use and use 
 of imagination in Salesmanship. It was Saturday 
 afternoon and two boot-blacks were out shining shoes, 
 the one on the left side of the street and the other on 
 the right. The one on the left side of the street used 
 just five words in selling his shoe shine. He said : ' ' Get 
 your shoes shined here." The one on the right side of 
 the street used just five words. He said: "Get your 
 Sunday shine here." But what a difference in the re- 
 sults! The first boy thought only of shoes that might 
 or might not need to be shined. His appeal was made 
 only to men's feet. But to-day we must appeal to the 
 brain in order to get results. The second boy appealed 
 to the imagination, rather than to the man's shoes. 
 ' ' Get your Sunday shine here. ' ' What train of thought 
 did that start in the mind of the busy business man as 
 he was hurrying by? This is the train of thought it 
 suggested. "To-morrow is Sunday. I must go to 
 church to-morrow, or we are going to have company for 
 dinner, or I will, of course, have to be dressed up to- 
 morrow or I need at least one good shine a week to keep 
 my shoes in good shape." These were the ideas sug- 
 gested in the minds of the different business men and 
 with this result: the boy who knew how to consciously 
 or unconsciously appeal to the imagination did just dou- 
 ble the business of the boy who simply thought of a 
 man's shoes and not of his head. 
 
 ((But how much does it profit a man if he knows 
 how to think, remember and imagine if he doesn't know 
 how to use his information, if he doesn't know how to 
 express himself, if he doesn't know how to act? 
 
 ((Here are some illustrations which make clear 
 what I mean by action. A young man came into my office 
 one day and said he wanted a position as a salesman. 
 I asked him what experience he had had as a salesman 
 and he said: "I ain't had none." That is action,
 
 Leadership 17 
 
 negative and demoralizing action through expression. 
 What did I judge as to his educational qualifications? 
 I judged he hadn't any and told him so. "But," he 
 said, "I am a high school graduate." Then said I, "Why 
 do you use the language of the street?" He said he did 
 it through carelessness. Well, carelessness is our greatest 
 "business criminal." According to Dun and Bradstreet 
 sixty per cent, of all our failures in this country are 
 due to that awful word carelessness. We must learn 
 to be accurate in our speech, in our figuring, in our 
 bookkeeping, stenography, etc. But first we must be 
 accurate in our thinking. If we are careless in thought 
 we are careless in act, for as a man thinketh so does he 
 act. Thought and action are as closely connected as 
 cause and effect. 
 
 C[ Again. A very competent young woman h:ul 
 just finished her bookkeeping course. The president 
 of the college took her to the head of a concern that 
 wanted a bookkeeper. He said: "Miss Jones, can you 
 do our bookkeeping?" Miss Jones said: "I don't 
 know. ' ' What is the use in having trained ability unless 
 we have learned how to sell our services? This young 
 woman knew, but she neither had confidence in herself 
 nor knew how to express herself in such a way as to 
 inspire confidence in her ability sufficiently to sell her 
 services. I have taught Salesmanship to over three 
 thousand men by the class and personal method; I 
 have delivered lectures on Salesmanship to all classes 
 of business men and I have found by personal in- 
 quiry that lack of confidence has been the millstone 
 around the neck of nine people out of every ten. 
 
 C[The president of another Business College told 
 me that one of his students, a young woman who had 
 studied Salesmanship in his school, sold her services as 
 a teacher for twenty dollars a month more than she 
 ever received before, and that in the face of the
 
 18 Salesmanship and Business Efficiency 
 
 strongest kind of competition. So we might as well 
 learn right here at the beginning that it is just as neces- 
 sary for us to learn how to sell our services as it is for 
 us to learn that the philosophy of Salesmanship is the 
 philosophy of Leadership and the philosophy of Leader- 
 ship is the philosophy of Success; we should remem- 
 ber also that the ability to influence is the secret of 
 success. 
 
 C[No man can take chances on being a success to- 
 day without studying the philosophy of Leadership and 
 there is little philosophy of Leadership taught anywhere 
 to-day outside of the philosophy of Salesmanship. 
 Even the colleges and universities are not, to any great 
 extent, teaching the philosophy of Leadership. Leader- 
 ship consists in the ability to lead and control thought 
 and action. It consists in the ability to influence people 
 to think as we think, feel as we feel and act as we would 
 like to have them act. This definition of Leadership is 
 also a definition of Salesmanship ; it is broad enough to 
 apply to the individual seeking a position, the man 
 selling goods, the lawyer before the jury, the governor 
 of a state or the president of the United States seeking 
 an election or a re-election. 
 
 C[The new and inspiring philosophy of to-day is 
 making it plain to the human race as never before in 
 all the history of the world, that man is not the slave of 
 his environment and his circumstances, that he can be- 
 come master of himself and his circumstances; that he 
 can control his environment and not have his environ- 
 ment control him; that he is master and creator of his 
 own destiny. 
 
 ,QIn analyzing the causes of failure, I find that 
 they lead right back to man's thinking. I find that the 
 philosophy of the average man is the philosophy of 
 failure and that is the reason he is a failure. To make 
 a success his philosophy must be changed, there must
 
 Leadership 19 
 
 be an educational revolution in his life. Before I go 
 farther I want to give you my reason for saying the 
 philosophy of the average man is the philosophy of 
 failure. The average man thinks it isn't necessary for 
 him to develop the study habit; he doesn't realize that 
 knowledge is power; he doesn't realize that time is 
 money, in fact he places no definite value on time; he 
 doesn't realize that health is his greatest asset; he 
 doesn't realize that whiskey and cigarette smoke dimin- 
 ish both health and strength; he believes that success 
 is a matter of luck rather than law; he believes that 
 success is a matter of pull rather than push, and he 
 doesn't realize that all pull will ever do for a man is 
 to eventually pull his character down; he doesn't rea- 
 lize that character is the greatest asset in the business 
 world, that it is the corner stone of all success and that 
 there can be no lasting success without it. This is his 
 philosophy, or part of it, and none of it is original. In 
 fact our average man is not bothered with originality. 
 This philosophy he has absorbed from his environment; 
 it is the result of the impressions the ideas which have 
 unconsciously forced themselves into his life through 
 daily contact with them. In fact this is the philosophy 
 of the average man's environment. It becomes his 
 philosophy because he is daily hearing it. He grows 
 up with it on the street and his only salvation is to 
 grow out of it and grow into the philosophy of success. 
 To do this he must study and absorb the philosophy of 
 character building and the philosophy of success. 
 
 C[ Possibly the best article ever written on the sub- 
 ject of Character Building and Character Analysis was 
 written by President Henry Churchill King of Oberlin. 
 The following is a quotation from the article.
 
 20 Salesmanship and Business Efficiency 
 
 Character Building. 
 
 0(1. In the first place, it seems to me, that at the 
 lower moment when it looks as if everything were go- 
 ing, it is well for a man to say to himself in all serious- 
 ness, "everything is now at stake; it is fight or die." 
 That is the situation. A friend of mine, with the marks 
 of a serious disease upon him, went sometime ago to a 
 distinguished specialist in that disease and consulted 
 him. The physician, after carefully going over his case, 
 said to him : 
 
 ({"I think the disease has not gone so far but that 
 if you will vigorously follow this regimen which I pre- 
 scribe for you, you can still pull through." 
 
 ({My friend heard him out as to the regimen that 
 he proposed and said, "Why, doctor, I would simply 
 die if I had to live under that regimen. ' ' 
 
 ({The doctor somewhat gruffly turned upon him 
 and said, "Well, die then." 
 
 CHe had just one chance. Let a man say to him- 
 self, in like manner, in one of those lower moments 
 when he is likely to be engulfed by temptation, "It is 
 fight or die." 
 
 C[II. Moreover, I think a man ought to ask himself 
 in these lower moments: "Why the lower moments?" 
 And the second suggestion, therefore, that I have to 
 make is: Keep yourself persistently at your best. You 
 have no right to have these lower moments continually 
 breaking in upon your life. Just as in health that is the 
 secret, so here in character it is the secret. You are to 
 guard conditions and strive to keep yourself at your 
 very best. Not tolerable health, but superb health, what 
 Emerson called ' ' plus health ' ' must be the aim. I know 
 no way in the matter of bodily health except simply 
 to say this: I will carefully, conscientiously observe
 
 Leadership 21 
 
 the conditions that will keep me at my best. In the 
 same way, no man can be certain of character who is 
 willing barely to keep the breath of moral and spiritual 
 life in him, and not aiming persistently at the very 
 best of which he is capable, and therefore conscientious- 
 ly observing the conditions that will keep him at his 
 best. It is the subtle, gradual deterioration which we 
 are to fear as death. 
 
 G[III. In the third place, we are to consider the 
 conditions bodily, mental and of association. 
 
 ,(!. And, first, the bodily conditions, I suppose 
 there is hardly a clearer lesson in all modern philosophy 
 than the unity of man mind and body. You may like it 
 or you may not like it ; it makes no difference. You are 
 not now a disembodied spirit whatever you may be 
 hereafter; you are in the body; you have to get on 
 with your body, if you expect to make such achievements 
 as you ought to make in your moral and spiritual life. 
 And those conditions are not far off. Let no man 
 think that they are unimportant. The problem of char- 
 acter, what is it? The' problem of character is the 
 problem ultimately of self-control. That which dis- 
 tinguishes you from the animal below you, and that 
 which distinguishes you as a sane man from the insane 
 man, is to no small degree this power of self control. 
 The animal, James says, has a ' ' hairtrigger constitu- 
 tion." What does he mean by that? He means simply 
 that the animal, having an impulse, must yield to it, 
 but as a human being you can hold yourself in check, 
 and not yield to impulse, through attending to some 
 other consideration. 
 
 ,C Self-control, I say, is the root virtue of all vir- 
 tues. It is the very center of character. But the center 
 of self-control, of course, is will. And the center of 
 will, what is that? Attention. For if this temptation
 
 22 Salesmanship and Business Efficiency 
 
 which now besets you is not to sweep you off your feet, 
 what has got to be done? You must be able in the 
 presence of the temptation to hold your attention fixed 
 upon those higher considerations that ought to prevail, 
 but seem now in danger of not prevailing; and if you 
 can do that, you are safe; and if you cannot do it you 
 are lost. 
 
 C[The center of character is self-control. The cen- 
 ter of self-control is will. The center of will is atten- 
 tion. Now what has all this to do with the body? Just 
 this. The greatest cause of fatigue is attention ; that is 
 what tires more than anything else. It takes nervous 
 energy to attend ; and the supreme condition, therefore, 
 of power of attention, so far as the body is concerned, 
 is surplus nervous energy. That is the whole prob- 
 lem. Character, self-control, will, attention, it's su- 
 preme physical condition, surplus nervous energy. You 
 have no right then as a man who means to fight an 
 honest fight to disregard the conditions through which 
 you are to get surplus nervous energy. That means 
 that you are going to see to it that you get sleep 
 enough, to see that you get exercise enough, to see 
 that you attend to all these conditions that have 
 to do with surplus nervous energy; especially that 
 you will avoid every species of excess, particularly 
 emotional excess; and that you will thus honestly do 
 what you can to keep in yourself surplus nervous en- 
 ergy. Then you have a margin of capital, with power 
 to attend, with power to will therefore of self-control. 
 The danger of fatigue, then, is manifest. The record 
 of Saturday nights in this world of ours is a tragic 
 record. The problem of Saturday nights is already a 
 national problem in Germany because that is the time 
 when men are run down, at their worst physically, and 
 when, therefore, they are exposed to every temptation.
 
 Leadership 2& 
 
 ; Q[Now, one cannot always control the conditions. 
 There will be times when, in spite of all precautions, a 
 man will find himself necessarily and rightly fatigued. 
 Bear in mind that at that time you are to be especially 
 on your guard against sudden onsets of temptation. 
 There is nothing clearer in modern psychology than that 
 the weakest in us, bodily, mentally, morally, tends to 
 come out in these moments of fatigue ; and, therefore, at 
 these moments we are to guard ourselves with special 
 care against sudden temptation. Sometimes you get up 
 in the morning with a consciousness that you are not at 
 your best, that you are On a low physical plane, that it 
 is going to be hard for you to be what you ought to be 
 that day. That is the day when you can know you have 
 a fight on hand. You may as well prepare for it from 
 the beginning and watch it to the end. 
 
 C2. In the second place there are the mental con- 
 ditions. For it is not only true that we are one, body 
 and mind, but it is true that this mind of ours is, in a 
 wonderful degree, one ; and the unity of the mind 
 makes it imperative that there should be nothing lack- 
 ing at any single point. "We do not know when we are 
 sapping the foundations. Let me take simply two or 
 three illustrations of the need of heeding the unity of 
 our mind, where many might be taken. 
 
 G[And first, you cannot play with your memories 
 and be what you ought to be as moral men. There are 
 men, for example, who like so well to tell a good story 
 that it grows continually on their hands, and they 
 simply get where they can not tell the truth if they 
 want to. You know what happens under such circum- 
 stances. These men cannot trust their memory. Now, 
 the power of holding yourself in the presence of temp- 
 tation often depends upon this : that you are able to re- 
 call vividly and with scrupulous accuracy the exact re
 
 24 Salesmanship and Business Efficiency 
 
 suits of your previous experience; and if you have 
 played fast and loose with your memory, it will play 
 false in your hour of peril. 
 
 ,C[And note this other danger vagueness of 
 thought. If you allow yourself to remain in this condi- 
 tion you are not simply interfering with your intel- 
 lectual growth; you are doing something to sap the 
 foundation of your moral life, for the moral life is 
 made up of a series of volitions that involve the 
 thought; vague promises, vague aspirations, do not go 
 well with that kind of direct definite willing that be- 
 longs to character. 
 
 ,C[ Especially in this matter of mental condition, do 
 not forget the necessity of power of attention, and re- 
 member that anything you do at any time really to 
 strengthen your power of concentrated attention is 
 so much added to your mental and moral capital, and 
 anything you do at any time to break down your power 
 of attention is so much further preparation for disaster. 
 Every time you hold yourself rigorously to the task 
 that is appointed to you for the time, definitely attend 
 to it and carry it through with concentrated attention, 
 you are adding to your mental power. The human 
 spirit is not a bundle, but an organic unity, and you 
 cannot break down the mental and not affect the 
 moral. 
 
 C3. Third, we are to consider the conditions of 
 association. Here I touch upon what is really the su- 
 preme condition of all conditions, and to which, here, I 
 can only give a word. We know but one absolutely cer- 
 tain way to make character, and that is through a sur- 
 rendering persistent association with those who have 
 such a character as we seek. That is the only way. 
 
 ,Q[Let me go on to say in the next place, remember 
 'that self-control, which is at the very center of charac-
 
 Leadership 25 
 
 ter, in spite of its name, is always positive, never nega- 
 tive. I think many men have made disastrous mistakes 
 at this point. 
 
 (1. That means, first, on account of your relation 
 to the body that you are to seek positive help from the 
 body. I think Browning has that in mind in the Eabbi 
 Ben Ezra when he says: 
 
 "To men propose this test: 
 Thy body at its best, 
 How far can that project thy soul 
 On its lone way?" 
 
 CI do not think that that is a skeptical, cynical 
 question, but I think it is a challenge, "a God-like 
 challenge in the night to our too reluctant wills." Any 
 man who means to be the man he can be in character, 
 must say, "I am going to get positive help out of this 
 body of mine." 
 
 QAnd if that is to be true, he must make his body 
 the best instrument that he can make it for the spirit 
 the very best medium for the spirit to work out through. 
 I suppose that it ought to be true that a series of 
 photographs of a man taken from year to year through 
 his life ought to show that the spirit is increasingly 
 dominating the body, and that the light of the spirit, 
 yea, of the Spirit of God, is increasingly shining out 
 through the face, and bearing, and mien. 
 
 iCCThe man who intends to get the most help from 
 his body, will, besides, make his body the very best 
 foundation that he knows how to make it for the varied 
 demands of life, broadly laid, deeply laid and well 
 laid. 
 
 CfHe will further see to it that his bodily exercise 
 is a direct aid, as it may be, to intellectual and will 
 training. For all the higher forms of bodily exercise, 
 Romanes tells us, are exercises even more of the higher 
 brain center than of the muscles. Make your body
 
 26 Salesmanship and Business Efficiency 
 
 help your soul; make your body project your soul on 
 its lone way. One can sit down passively before nature 
 and regard it as a limitation if he will; or he can say, 
 by the study of the laws of nature, ' ' I will learn its se- 
 crets, and I will make nature serve me." And one can 
 do just that with reference to his body. 
 
 ,(2. Moreover, if self-control is to be positive, one 
 must remember that control of the emotions is always 
 indirect. You can not directly determine whether you 
 shall feel or not. Emotion spontaneously arises in the 
 presence of its object. That you cannot help ; but you 
 can direct your attention to another object. The small 
 boy who is looking through the fence at a patch of 
 watermelons that is not his, cannot prevent his mouth 
 from watering, but he can run. And you cannot keep 
 your emotions from arising in attention to the exciting 
 object, but you can think of something else. You are 
 not clay in the hands of your circumstances. You were 
 endowed with that which makes you akin to God in His 
 creative power a will. You can use that will in at- 
 tending to something other than this object which now 
 works upon your emotions. We are often told to-day 
 that our environment makes us. That is a dangerous 
 half truth. The whole truth is this : Not your environ- 
 ment makes you, but that part of your environment to 
 which you attend makes you. The same environment 
 means different things to different men. "Why? Be- 
 cause different men are attending to different things 
 in it. Let ten men travel over exactly the same route 
 to Europe; do they come back with the same things? 
 By no means. Each man has seen and gotten what he 
 attended to. 
 
 (JYou are, then, to control your emotions indi- 
 rectly through attention to some other object. You may 
 also control your emotions by acting in the line of those 
 emotions that you think you ought to have. At a given
 
 Leadership 27 
 
 time, for example, a man may be feeling far from cheer- 
 ful and without courage. This at least, he can do; he 
 can take a good long breath, and stiffen up his back- 
 bone, and put on the mien of cheer and courage, and so 
 doing, he is far more apt to become more cheerful and 
 courageous. There are two sorts of selves in you, a 
 lower and a higher. You can be true to your higher self, 
 or you can be true to your lower self. But you are 
 bound to be true and loyal to your higher self, to the 
 very highest vision that is given you. And one of the 
 sensible, helpful ways to get the emotions you think 
 you ought to have is to act in the line of them. It is 
 to no man's credit to act as badly as he feels. He is 
 rather bound often to act much better than he feels, 
 and so acting, he will be helped to better feeling. 
 
 ,C[3. In the third place, positive self-control means 
 that you are to attend, as I have already implied, to 
 something else than the temptation which threatens to 
 engulf you, to replace that tempting thought with 
 some other. Do not merely fight a thought. You can 
 not get rid of a thought this envious, foul, hateful 
 idea that is in your mind by simply saying this, you 
 are persistently keeping it in mind, you are thinking 
 of it. You can get rid of it in just one way : by think- 
 ing of something else. You must take the positive way 
 out. The law is simply this it is a very simple law: 
 You cannot have an empty mind, and you cannot think 
 of two things ivith concentrated attention at the same 
 time. As you try to follow this suggestion, it may seem 
 to you that you think of two things at the same time; 
 you are thinking first of one thing, then of another 
 letting the thought you ought to hold be broken in on 
 continually by the other thought. Only keep your atten- 
 tion steadily fixed upon the consideration that ought 
 to hold, and it will hold you.
 
 28 Salesmanship and Business Efficiency 
 
 (4. And in the fourth place, positive self-control 
 means that we are to heed that principle which the 
 psychologists call the impulsiveness of consciousness; 
 that is, that every thought, by its very presence in the 
 mind, tends to pass into act, and will do so, if it is not 
 hindered by the presence of some other thought leading 
 in some other direction. That principle is of very great 
 importance in all our moral and spiritual life. If you 
 are sitting in the parlor of a friend, while you are wait- 
 ing for him, and there is an open letter on the table, 
 and you are not thinking particularly of what you are 
 doing, but have your eyes on the letter, before you 
 know it you will likely put out your hand and take it 
 up and begin to read it, until you recall yourself with a 
 start. The single idea, unchecked for the moment by any 
 other, was present in the mind; it passed into action 
 almost in spite of you. The teaching of modern psy- 
 chology, then, is that a thought in your mind will pass 
 into act unless checked by some other thought; and for 
 our moral life this is strenuous counsel to withstand be- 
 ginnings. 
 
 iC[5. And positive self-control will mean, further, 
 that you are to resist the evil with the good; that you 
 are not simply to stop doing bad things because they are 
 bad, but you are to get into the attitude that Spinoza 
 calls the attitude of freeman and have done with the 
 bad because you have something a great deal better to 
 do. Change your negatives into opposite positives. I 
 have little hope for a man who goes through his life 
 saying, "What is the harm?" What kind of attain- 
 ment can a man make in his moral life, if his one great 
 question is, "What is the harm?" and he does not re- 
 place the question with this other, "What is the very 
 best thing that is now open for me ? " For next to bad,
 
 Leadership 29 
 
 CV. In the next place, remember that, body and 
 mind, you are made for action. The body, one of our 
 psychologists tells us, is only a machine for converting 
 stimuli, coming into the brain by the afferent nerves, 
 into reactions, going out by the efferent nerves. And 
 the principle of the impulsiveness of consciousness 
 shows with equal clearness that in mind, too, we are 
 made for action. Every idea tends to pass into 
 action. We are made, then, for action. This is the 
 real justification of the far slower methods of the 
 laboratory and seminar in modern education. One 
 must do, to know. It is not enough passively to re- 
 ceive an idea; if it is really to be yours, you must 
 express it in some way, you must put it into act. 
 Your idea or ideal is not fully yours until you 
 have expressed it. The resulting law for character is 
 clear and unmistakable. That which is not expressed 
 dies. If you would kill an idea, deny it absolutely all 
 expression ; it will die. On the other hand, if you have 
 an idea that you wish to live, to be a reality, you must 
 express it. You may not rest content with fine thoughts, 
 and fancies and sentiments, and feelings, and aspir- 
 ations. If you are not willing to become mere senti- 
 mentalists, you must put them into act. Some of us 
 have been in the habit of speaking of the danger from 
 the theater and from novel reading in arousing emotions 
 and sentiments that we simply allow idly to be dissi- 
 pated. We need to remind ourselves that the same 
 law holds for emotion and sentiment, however aroused, 
 whether by theater, or novel, or concert, or lecture, or 
 sermon. If you have been stirred to moral feelings in 
 any way, as you prize your moral life, see to it that 
 your feeling gets some real and tangible expression; 
 put it into act.
 
 30 Salesmanship and Business Efficiency 
 
 e the best persistently a chance at you. The 
 only effective road to character we know is through 
 personal association with the best. Fill your time with 
 positive service. Do not drift. Have definite things on 
 hand to do. 
 
 Suggestive Written Exercises and 
 Questions 
 
 Write an essay of one hundred words, showing why 
 some men fail in business and others succeed. 
 
 The following questions are suggestive : 
 
 What has caused the great business changes during 
 the last decade? 
 
 Why are business men compelled to study the 
 
 Science of Business, Salesmanship and Advertising to- 
 day f 
 
 What are the four great causes of failure? 
 
 Why isn't the average man a better thinker? 
 
 How can one learn to talk better? 
 
 Can a man be a successful business letter writer or 
 "ad" writer without training f 
 
 How can a man train his memory and his imagi- 
 nation f 
 
 Why is the philosophy of the average man the 
 philosophy of failure f 
 
 Define Salesmanship. 
 
 Why is man the creator of his own destiny f
 
 LESSON II. 
 
 $crsonalitp anb 
 
 to JBefcelop 3t 
 
 "The greatest and most vital power in influencing 
 life is personality. It is greater than law, instruction 
 or example" Lyman Abbott. 
 
 R a good many years we have heard the 
 subject of personality more or less dis- 
 cussed, but as far as I know no one has at- 
 tempted to tell us what personality really is. 
 Neither has any one told us clearly how to 
 develop it. This, of course, is hard to do in the ab- 
 sence of a definition; and since there is no definition 
 for personality, at least none that is adequate, I shall 
 have to coin one. The following definition, of course, 
 refers to a positive personality. Personality is that 
 magnetic outward expression of the inner life, which 
 radiates courage, courtesy and kindness. It attracts 
 people by producing a pleasing effect, and is the pro- 
 duct of the development of the positive qualities; it 
 makes a man a leader in the affairs of life instead of 
 a follower. 
 
 QThis definition will need to be defined in order 
 to give an intelligent conception of what I mean by 
 the "Positive Qualities." If it is hard to give a defini- 
 tion which adequately defines what personality really 
 is, it is not so hard to tell what the qualities are which 
 
 [31]
 
 32 Salesmanship and Business Efficiency 
 
 are back of personality and which produce it. We can 
 very well say that personality represents the flower 
 of manhood and womanhood in full bloom, 
 
 C[I was attempting to engage the services of a 
 Northwestern University student to do soliciting dur- 
 ing his summer vacation, when he said he did not 
 feel competent to do it. I immediately referred to 
 
 his classmate, Mr. L , who made a great success 
 
 the previous summer. He said: "Oh, yes, that is all 
 
 right for Mr. L . He has a good personality; 
 
 he could succeed all right, but I couldn't. I have no 
 personality." I asked him to tell me what he really 
 meant by personality. I asked him to define it. He 
 said he did not know exactly, that he could not de- 
 fine it. I could not define it, either. 
 
 ,C[I began immediately to study and experiment 
 on the subject. The next Sunday after the above dis- 
 cussion I heard Dr. Frank W. Gunsaulus preach. I 
 said to myself, "He has a good personality." During 
 the same week I heard Mr. Bryan lecture, and I said, 
 "He has a most striking personality." Well, I asked 
 myself the question again as I looked at Mr. Bryan, 
 "What is personality?" And these thoughts came 
 to my mind: "He is kind, courageous, diplomatic, 
 aggressive, honest, enthusiastic, and he seems to possess 
 an unconquerable will." I immediately got the key 
 which offered the solution to my perplexing problem. 
 These qualities which I name are positive qualities. 
 Therefore, personality is produced by developing the 
 positive qualities and eliminating the negative quali- 
 ties. 'Each positive quality has for its opposite a neg- 
 ative quality, as light darkness; heat cold; good 
 bad; honesty dishonesty; courage fear, etc. 
 
 ,QHere is a chart giving a list of positive and 
 negative qualities placed under separate headings. It
 
 Personality and How to Develop It 
 
 33- 
 
 is quite hard to designate some of these qualities as 
 either mental or spiritual; in fact, some of them very 
 properly come under both heads. The positive quali- 
 ties here designated should be carefully studied and 
 developed, while their opposites, the negative qualities r 
 should and must be weeded out. They are the mur- 
 derous leeches that are sucking our very life blood, 
 and they must be driven out of our lives with the 
 same vigilance that a foreign army is driven from our 
 shores. They are our enemies and they will grip us. 
 with the vengeance of a pestilence. 
 
 Mind. 
 
 Positive Qualities 
 
 optimism 
 
 agreeableness 
 
 tact 
 
 kindness 
 
 courtesy 
 
 enthusiasm 
 
 ambition 
 
 courage 
 
 initiative 
 
 the conquering spirit 
 
 confidence 
 
 diplomacy 
 
 sincerity 
 
 purpose 
 
 perseverance 
 
 concentration 
 
 knowledge 
 
 work 
 
 patience 
 
 decision 
 
 Negative Qualities- 
 pessimism 
 disagreeableness 
 indiscretion 
 harshness 
 discourtesy 
 indifference 
 satisfaction 
 cowardice 
 inaction 
 aimlessness 
 fear 
 
 impudence 
 insincerity 
 irresolution 
 indecision 
 vacillation 
 ignorance 
 laziness 
 impatience 
 indecision
 
 34 
 
 Salesmanship and Business Efficiency 
 
 analysis 
 
 confusion 
 
 judgment 
 
 indiscrimination 
 
 originality 
 
 dullness 
 
 thrift, saving 
 
 extravagance 
 
 reason 
 
 imbecility 
 
 wisdom 
 
 foolishness 
 
 system 
 
 carelessness 
 
 fair mindedness 
 
 suspicion 
 
 unselfishness 
 
 selfishness 
 
 openmindedness 
 
 egotism 
 
 observation 
 
 heedlessness 
 
 
 Soul. 
 
 Positive Qualities 
 
 Negative Qualities 
 
 courage 
 
 fear 
 
 desire 
 
 self-satisfaction 
 
 faith 
 
 doubt 
 
 confidence 
 
 instability 
 
 honesty 
 
 dishonesty 
 
 truth 
 
 falsehood 
 
 temperance 
 
 intemperance 
 
 morality 
 
 immorality 
 
 unselfishness 
 
 selfishness 
 
 love 
 
 hate 
 
 patriot 
 
 traitor 
 
 religion 
 
 atheism 
 
 charity 
 
 malice 
 
 joy 
 
 sorrow 
 
 sympathy 
 
 incompassion 
 
 hope 
 
 despair 
 
 beauty 
 
 ugliness 
 
 loyalty 
 
 disloyalty 
 
 intuition 
 
 stupidity 
 
 cheerfulness 
 
 gloominess 
 
 trust 
 
 suspicion
 
 Personality and How to Develop It 35 
 
 Body. 
 
 Positive Qualities Negative Qualities 
 activity indolence 
 
 gracefulness awkwardness 
 
 physical courage physical fear 
 
 health sickness 
 
 QThe physical, mental and moral qualities in 
 man are so closely related that an injury to one affects 
 them all ; while if one is helped, all are in some manner 
 helped. 
 
 CEach normal individual when born into the 
 world possesses these negative and positive qualities, 
 although dormant, of course. The battle for supremacy 
 is a battle between these two forces. The negative 
 qualities are developed in accordance with a definite 
 and absolute law. Failure is the inevitable result of 
 their development. The positive qualities are also de- 
 veloped in accordance with a law which is just as def- 
 inite and just as absolute. The development of these 
 qualities means success and a well-rounded life. A 
 man fails or succeeds in life as the negative or posi- 
 tive qualities are in the ascendency. It is, to begin 
 with, simply a matter of thinking. The Bible says, 
 "As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he." The 
 psychologist says, "Every idea which enters into the 
 mind immediately tends to express itself in action." 
 In the beginning, personality is simply a matter of 
 choice and thinking. If a man thinks pessimistic 
 thoughts, nothing in the world can keep him from be- 
 ing a pessimist ; and the world is not very kind to pessi- 
 mists. If one never permits pessimism to enter his 
 mind, but always thinks optimistic thoughts, no fate 
 can make him anything but an optimist. If he thinks
 
 36 Salesmanship and Business Efficiency 
 
 disagreeable thoughts, he will have disagreeable peo- 
 ple to deal with, and he will be disagreeable. "Cour- 
 age is the chief attribute of manliness," says Web- 
 ster, while fear and other negative thoughts paralyze 
 usefulness. 
 
 CI state an absolute fact when I say that every 
 individual possesses all the positive qualities, although 
 some of them may be in embryo. It is possible to so 
 develop all these qualities, as to drive out the negative 
 qualities and build up a splendid positive personality. 
 
 CThis ought to encourage us all, ought it not? 
 I believe it possible in the course of a few years' time 
 to practically revolutionize the whole personality. This 
 can be done only by a course of positive thinking and 
 acting. It takes will-power, but I believe will-power, 
 is a magic wonder worker. As will-power, in my mind, 
 is the greatest word in the English language, so in 
 the human life, will-power is the greatest quality. 
 "Will-power is the engineer. We sink or swim, survive 
 or perish, just in accordance with his wishes. Let us 
 remember that thoughts are powerful. If we put a 
 drop of red or black ink into a bottle of water, it 
 colors the water. Thought has a transforming effect 
 upon the individual. The nerves, brain cells, and, 
 in fact, the body, change and are continually chang- 
 ing at the dictation of thought. If you are angry, you 
 lose your appetite. You secrete a poison which takes 
 the body several hours to eliminate. Hate actually 
 kills. In their acute stages, love, fear and bad news 
 are also paralyzing to the digestion. The hair turns 
 gray in response to thought. Thought is the most 
 powerful agent known to man. It cures or it sickens. 
 It makes man a servant or it makes him master. 
 
 iCtlf you would have a magnificent personality 
 begin to live the positive qualities. Say, "I can, I
 
 Personality and How to Develop It 37 
 
 will, and I must," where previously you said "I 
 can't." Do that and at the end of the year you will 
 be doing things with ease which it was absolutely 
 impossible for you to do at the beginning of the year. 
 Kemember that as surely as the sun shines you possess 
 these positive qualities, although they may be covered 
 up and almost hidden by the mountains of negative 
 thoughts which have always been permitted to have 
 the ascendency. If you have ever seen the gold mines 
 in Colorado or California you will know what I mean. 
 Away beneath the granite rocks and mud and gravel, 
 the prospector finds the gold sparkling and brilliant, 
 and only waiting for a chance to glitter in the sun- 
 shine. It was there all the time, but it was so covered 
 up that it wasn't seen. My friend, go prospecting 
 for the nuggets of gold which lie hidden in your own 
 life, only waiting to be liberated from the weight of 
 melancholy boulders which have been permitted to 
 accumulate. It takes desire, it takes faith, it takes 
 confidence to eliminate the debris, but it can be done. 
 The word "impossible" does not belong to the man 
 of positive personality. He has forced it, with every 
 other negative quality, to leave for parts unknown. 
 He has eliminated the negative qualities by substi- 
 tuting the better qualities. The way to banish the 
 negative qualities is not to think of them at all. Do 
 all your thinking about the positive qualities, and the 
 negative qualities will die a natural death. I have 
 given you the formula. I have told you how it is 
 done. The law which leads to the development of 
 personality is just as sure and certain as the law of 
 gravitation. 
 
 QDo you want to have this personality? If you 
 do, begin at once to develop the positive habit. Notice 
 these two words, positive habit. When a habit has
 
 38 Salesmanship and Business Efficiency 
 
 been formed it is hard to change it. Habit is to life 
 what rails are to the railroad train. The train runs 
 where it had run before. Thoughts become actions, 
 actions become habits, and habits grow into character 
 and character is immortal. It is easy for the honest 
 man to be honest. It is easy for the man who is 
 habitually truthful to tell the truth. It is easy for 
 the man who works hard to keep on working. It is 
 easy for the man who gets up at six every morning 
 to continue to get up at that hour. It is easy for 
 the moral man to live a moral life. It is easy for 
 the man who thinks and studies to keep on thinking 
 and studying. These things may all be hard at first, 
 but when the habit is formed, it is just as hard to 
 do otherwise. I say begin now, to-day, to get the 
 habit. 
 
 QLet me repeat, personality is the result of right 
 thinking. It is not produced by following the line 
 of least resistance. It is produced by doing the thing 
 that ought to be done when it ought to be done, 
 whether we like it or not. Doing what most people 
 think can't be done is not only the glory of living, 
 but is the stuff out of which personality is molded. 
 
 CDo you desire a forceful, winning personality? 
 Do you wish to stand for something positive, mas- 
 terful, God-like? Do you wish to make of yourself 
 everything which God intended you should be? The 
 world wants men great men, manly men, men in 
 whom the fire of a great life burns brightly. Do you 
 want to be the champion of some great cause? Do 
 you want to be a George Washington or an Abraham 
 Lincoln to your generation? If you do, dare to de- 
 velop your personality to its highest efficiency. The 
 great business men of our generation, the men who 
 have done things, have been men of vital, vigorous and
 
 Personality and How to Develop It 3& 
 
 aggressive personality. They have been men who pos- 
 sessed the conquering spirit. They had faith in the 
 power of their personalities. They never stopped at ob- 
 stacles. They wrestled with the lion of opposition 
 and forced a victory. They developed strong, cour- 
 ageous personalities, because they dared attempt to do 
 whatever they believed should be done. Have you the 
 courage to build such a personality? Most assuredly 
 you have, although you may not believe it. You are 
 a man made in the image of the Almighty. You owe- 
 it to your fellows to begin to-day. It will take time, 
 but you have the time on your hands anyway. "When 
 nature wants a squash, it produces it in a season. 
 When it wants an oak it asks for time it wants a 
 century. You are not a squash, you are an oak. 
 
 C[In order that we may better understand just 
 how the positive qualities are developed and under- 
 stand the relation of their development to success in 
 salesmanship, or business in general, we must analyze 
 man. We must pick him to pieces, so to speak, and 
 find out what relation his mind bears to his body, and 
 vice versa. Man, we all know, possesses a three-fold na- 
 ture which is divided into the following parts: the 
 physical, the mental, and the spiritual. These three 
 natures, while separate in one sense, bear a 
 direct relation to one another. Let us consider the 
 first, the physical nature. Of course, we have nothing 
 to do here with the different cells, tissues, bones, etc., 
 but we are directly interested in health. Health is 
 the basis of all success in life, and especially in sales- 
 manship, as the salesman requires a tremendous amount 
 of energy. 
 
 QHealth is that normal condition of the three- 
 fold man which enables the physical organs to cor- 
 rectly perform their functions, and contribute to the
 
 40 Salesmanship and Business Efficiency 
 
 highest development of the positive qualities, physical, 
 mental and moral, i ' 
 
 ,Q There is such a thing as physical health, men- 
 tal health, and spiritual health. The salesman whose 
 arguments are not strong, forceful, energetic and 
 backed up by a magnetic, healthful body filled with 
 pure red blood, and whose functions are performed 
 normally, is greatly handicapped. 
 
 CBut speaking more definitely, what do we mean 
 by "three-fold man," by so minutely analyzing the 
 individual? We do it in order that we may the more 
 rationally and carefully study ourselves. "We desire 
 to know where our weak points are, and how to elimi- 
 nate them. We also wish to know just what our 
 strong points are, and how to strengthen them. We 
 must admit we all have our weak points as well as 
 strong ones. The difference between the successful and 
 unsuccessful man lies in the fact that the successful 
 man has more of the positive qualities developed than 
 his less fortunate neighbor. The positive qualities 
 are a man's capital, his assets. They are salable in 
 any market where brains are needed. The more they 
 are developed, the higher the price they command. 
 
 ,C[I have known salesmen who would over-eat 
 and over-drink and over-sleep, who would hardly ever 
 study anything relating to their business. They would 
 talk hard luck, and the blues, and poor territory, 
 etc., etc. The negative qualities were given the as- 
 cendency so long that positive, forceful, energetic and 
 enthusiastic manhood was never permitted to have 
 the ascendency. We can revolutionize our lives and 
 if we are ever going to make the success of which we 
 are capable, we must begin work to-day, now to stamp 
 the negative qualities out of our lives and develop the
 
 Personality and How to Develop It 41 
 
 positive ones. This must be done at any cost of work, 
 determination or sacrifice. I believe in elimination by 
 substitution, I believe in eliminating the negative 
 qualities by substituting and using the positive ones. 
 I believe in driving bad thoughts out of the mind by 
 immediately thinking of something good. "But what 
 has the mind to do with all this?" you ask. I spoke 
 of the mental nature and the spiritual nature. You 
 thoroughly understand what I mean by mental nature, 
 but you may not all exactly agree with my third di- 
 vision. So for convenience, I shall use the psycholo- 
 gist's terms, and instead of spiritual nature, I shall 
 use the term subjective mind. 
 
 (T The human mind is divided into two parts as fol- 
 lows : the objective mind, and the subjective mind. The 
 objective mind is the seat of reason, of judgment, of 
 logical thinking, and of the five senses. 
 
 C[The subjective mind is the habitation of memory. 
 It is the seat of the emotions, love, patriotism, re- 
 ligion, and some of the positive qualities which mean 
 most in salesmanship qualities which a salesman 
 should thoroughly understand and must develop. The 
 power and secret of influencing are largely the result 
 of the development of these subjective positive quali- 
 ties. There is a peculiar relation existing between these 
 dual minds. The objective mind makes suggestions to 
 the subjective mind. The subjective mind accepts and 
 believes the suggestions and performs its functions ac- 
 cordingly. "The subjective mind is constantly amen- 
 able to control by the power of suggestion," says Dr. 
 Hudson. 
 
 C[To thoroughly understand this law of sugges- 
 tion in its relation to business and its power in in- 
 fluencing people, is to increase one's earning capacity
 
 42 Salesmanship and Business Efficiency 
 
 and ability by leaps and bounds. What do we mean 
 when we say that the subjective mind controls the 
 functions and sensations of the body? Scientists tell 
 us that anger, jealousy or hatred, which are distinc- 
 tive negative qualities, secrete a poison in the system 
 which it takes several hours to eliminate, besides leav- 
 ing an indelible impression upon the individual. If you 
 are distressed you refuse to eat, you lose your appe- 
 tite. If you get bad news after dinner, your food re- 
 fuses to digest. Your emotions are affected, your sub- 
 jective mind has taken control of your functions. Let 
 me say in this connection that every thought which 
 is permitted to find its resting place in the mind, the 
 objective mind, is commjunicated to the subjective 
 mind, and, as the subjective mind governs the func- 
 tions and sensations of the body, our every thought, 
 good or bad, optimistic or pessimistic, is always at 
 work, building up or tearing down body, nerve and 
 mind. 
 
 C Doesn't this law of physiological effect mean 
 everything to us? When we get blue that very fact 
 is communicated from our objective to our subjective 
 mind, and from there to our body, where it immediate- 
 ly begins to secrete the poison which does its deadly 
 work on our whole life. Didn't the ancient writer 
 arrive at a great scientific truth when he said, "As 
 a man thinketh, so is he?" In all reason, then, ought 
 we not to begin to think right? It follows that if 
 we think right we will act right and our success will 
 be assured providing we exercise our will power. 
 Knowledge is power. Definite knowledge of yourself 
 and your business is the central force in the develop- 
 ment of an effective and powerful personality. As 
 a matter of fact, many of the other elements of suc- 
 cess have their rise in this one. The salesman who
 
 Personality and How to Develop It 43 
 
 knows his business from A to Z is confident, coura- 
 geous, and generally irresistible. He not only thinks, 
 but he knows, that he has something it would pay the 
 customer to buy. He has this knowledge fortified by 
 a multitude of reasons which he can talk fluently, 
 logically, and with the fire and enthusiasm of a "nat- 
 ural-born orator." The consciousness of this knowl- 
 edge banishes hesitation, gives him self-possession, an 
 easy bearing, and a conquering spirit. He is satur- 
 ated with conclusive evidence. He has a splendid 
 story. He is overflowing with inspiration and enthusi- 
 asm because he knows he can tell it well. Such a man 
 with such a personality can approach the railroad 
 magnate as easily as the clerk. It is simply a matter 
 of choice, bull-dog determination, and will power. 
 
 Qlf I were to ask a man how old he is he could 
 instantly tell me. If I were to ask him where he lives 
 he could tell me that. If I were to ask him what 
 nationality he is he could inform me. If I were to 
 ask him what his business is he could tell me that. 
 But if I were to ask him to write out an analysis 
 of his own self, tell me about his own personality, 
 describe his mind and soul faculties, I would cer- 
 tainly not get a very satisfactory answer. 
 
 QThe thing men know least about in this world 
 is their own individual selves, and that is what they 
 should know most about. The average man hasn't con- 
 fidence in himself because he isn't acquainted with 
 himself. He has never analyzed himself. He knows 
 practically nothing about his own capacity, about his 
 own mental and spiritual faculties. 
 
 QMen have learned to use the microscope to 
 study plant and insect life. They have learned to 
 use the telescope to study the stars. Miners have
 
 44 Salesmanship and Business Efficiency 
 
 learned to recognize nuggets of gold in the rough. 
 Geologists have so studied the stones of the earth that 
 they can easily recognize a fortune in a few rough 
 looking uncut diamonds. But scientists have not yet in- 
 vented a microscope or a telescope that will turn the 
 search-light upon their own minds and search out 
 the unknown continent within. 
 
 CIt is amazing the amount of dormant power that 
 is wrapped up, unused, in the average man's life, that 
 he knows nothing about. The greatest discovery the 
 average man makes is not through the microscope or 
 the telescope, or in the gold mines or the diamond 
 beds, but in himself. 
 
 CWe are teaching Salesmanship but that is only 
 one phase of the work we are doing. The greatest 
 work we are doing is helping you to discover yourself. 
 We help you to find yourself by showing you how to 
 analyze yourself, how to discover your own faculties, 
 and then how to develop them. Our aim is to put 
 you on the right track. Then progress is practically 
 assured. 
 
 COur aim is to show you that you possess in 
 some measure both the negative and positive quali- 
 ties, and also show you how the negative qualities 
 can and must be eliminated, and how the positive 
 qualities must be developed. In this process of de- 
 velopment the life of the individual is necessarily 
 revolutionized. Let me illustrate. Water is composed 
 of two different gases. It is different from either of 
 the gases but a product of their union. The chemical 
 formula for water is fizO. When two atoms of hy- 
 drogen and one atom of oxygen are combined in that 
 proportion they produce a third element, different from 
 either, and which we know as water.
 
 Personality and How to Develop It 45 
 
 QThe chemical name for salt is Sodium Chloride. 
 It is composed of two substances which are radically 
 different. Sodium is a soft white substance, and 
 chlorine, when separated from salt, is a green colored 
 poisonous gas. When these two substances unite they 
 form an entirely different product. That proves that 
 two substances may and do chemically unite and pro- 
 duce a third substance which is not a mixture but a 
 result of the union of both. 
 
 QLet us leave chemistry and get back to the 
 brain. Scientists tell us there are over two billion 
 brain cells and that they are continually changing at 
 the dictation of thought. I am not so much inter- 
 ested in the number of brain cells as I am in their 
 development, and how they are developed. The man 
 of two billion brain cells, well developed, is much su- 
 perior to the man of three billion brain cells poorly 
 developed. The point I wish to emphasize here is that 
 you have enough brain cells to make you successful 
 if you will only develop and use them. -%* 
 
 QWhen an idea comes in contact with the brain 
 cells, we have two substances which are entirely dif- 
 ferent coming in contact with each other, and what 
 do we find as a result? In chemistry we find a chemi- 
 cal change, in man we find a physical change. We 
 find that the union of the two products produces a 
 third which may be different from either. We find, 
 in other words, that if a negative idea comes into the 
 human mind, the action resulting from that negative 
 idea will be negative, and the mind is to that extent 
 paralyzed. Let me illustrate. A fear thought comes 
 in contact with a brain cell. The two unite. The re- 
 sult is inaction and the paralysis of initiative. Had the 
 idea been positive and the opposite of fear, the mind 
 would have produced an immediate desire for action.
 
 46 Salesmanship and Business Efficiency 
 
 Initiative or action is the result of reason, reason is 
 the result of thinking, and thinking is the result of an 
 idea. And let us remember that whether negative or 
 positive, "Every idea that enters into the mind 
 immediately tends to express itself in action." 
 
 Qlf the thoughts are negative and along the 
 line of dishonesty, immorality, fear, failure, false- 
 hood, etc., the brain cells will inevitably be demoral- 
 ized into that kind of action. But when a positive 
 idea comes in contact with a brain cell there is created 
 a positive force that results in positive actions, and 
 the individual becomes to that extent a new individual 
 and possesses new power that he knew nothing of be- 
 fore. 
 
 C Therefore, if enough of these positive ideas are 
 brought in contact with the brain cells, a revolution 
 is bound to take place in the human life, and the in- 
 dividual develops from a man of mediocrity to a man 
 of great power. He changes from a rollicking, good- 
 for-nothing Webster on the farm, to Webster the 
 statesman, and one of the greatest orators the world 
 has ever known. But what brought about this revo- 
 lution? A certain kind of thinking. 
 
 Qln this connection and to emphasize what I 
 have said, I desire to quote the following from the pen 
 of Lyman B. Sperry, M. D. Dr. Sperry has an inter- 
 national reputation as a writer and lecturer. He says: 
 "Ordinary, habitual, unemotional mental activities do 
 not perceptibly influence the action of the organic 
 nerves; but whenever mental activity arises to a 
 point which produces unusual emotion, then countless 
 vibrations or thrills, which are in effect definite mes- 
 sages, flash from the cerebrospinal nerves over into 
 the organic nerves, and increase, diminish, or in some 
 way modify their action.
 
 Personality and How to Develop It 47 
 
 Q"A11 forms of fear, and all passions in which 
 fear is an essential element, such as anxiety, worry, 
 grief, envy, jealousy, anger, hatred, revenge, remorse, 
 despondency and despair, are mental emotions of such 
 a nature that their nerve vibrations or messages, flow- 
 ing over upon the sympathetic system, necessarily de- 
 range its action. Some of the vital functions may be 
 unduly stimulated by certain emotions, while others 
 may be benumbed, even to the point of paralysis. 
 
 Q" Every form of fear tends to depress organic 
 energy, derange the nutritive processes, produce dis- 
 ease and shorten life; hence, fear is the natural and 
 constant foe of vitality, health, longevity and efficiency 
 of everyone who experiences it. 
 
 C["This is true, remember, because of the fact 
 that all such emotions or passions produce discharges 
 of nerve force, which inevitably interfere with the 
 normal workings of the organic nervous system the 
 special machinery that directs the vital functions of 
 the body. 
 
 Q"A11 mental states characterized by even a 
 slight degree of anxiety, sorrow or regret, not only 
 naturally and inevitably tend to produce disease, but 
 also to prevent recovery from diseased conditions, how- 
 ever they may have been produced. All anticipated 
 harm, all trouble, whether real or imaginary, and all 
 forms of discontent, inevitably devitalize and derange 
 the organic processes. 
 
 C["On the other hand, faith, by which I mean 
 the Assurance of things hoped for trust, confidence, 
 contentment, peace, good-will, loving kindness, and an 
 approving conscience is a constant friend, a healthful 
 regulator and a positive energizer of the organic 
 system.
 
 48 Salesmanship and Business Efficiency 
 
 C["It is a physiological law, as well as a psycho- 
 logical law, that all emotions akin to faith contribute 
 not only to one's daily comfort and happiness but also 
 tend to establish habitual health, insure mental and 
 physical efficiency, and promote longevity. Hence 
 such Scriptural declarations as 'A merry heart doeth 
 good like a medicine'; 'Godliness, with contentment is 
 great gain'; 'Thy faith hath made thee whole'; etc., 
 are scientifically sound.'" 
 
 CI would like to discuss every positive quality 
 in this lesson show how it can be developed and also 
 show how its opposite, the negative quality, can be up- 
 rooted and eliminated. But it would take a book of 
 several hundred pages to do all this. The quotation 
 from Dr. Sperry shows you the physiological effect of 
 fear. Just realize that every other negative quality 
 affects you similarly. You will notice also the phys- 
 iological effect of faith, according to Dr. Sperry. 
 Just realize that you are affected in the same way by 
 every positive quality. I desire to further emphasize 
 what Dr. Sperry says about fear. It robs us of the 
 best there is in life. It steals from us so much per 
 day or week or month of the earnings that rightfully 
 belong to us. If we submit, it will hold us in poverty, 
 misery and despair; it will dig a bottomless pit under 
 us and equip it with a suction pump that continually 
 pulls us down. Fear is the fatal bugaboo of the imag- 
 ination. But thank the Lord we can drive it out of 
 our lives. "We can release, and forever, its slimy hold 
 upon us. But it takes courage to do it. 
 
 C[ Knowledge is the antidote for fear as surely 
 as light is the antidote for darkness. Courage and self- 
 confidence are the results of knowledge. Fear is the 
 result of ignorance. We are afraid of the darken- 
 ing shadows in a room, but turn on the light and fear
 
 * Personality and How to Develop It 49" 
 
 vanishes. Fear, if we will permit it, makes cowards 
 of us all. There are multitudes of men who could in- 
 crease their earning capacity, in a better position, but 
 they are afraid to try it. They are afraid to leave- 
 the position they have, even though it is not worthy 
 of their best efforts, for fear they will not get a bet- 
 ter one. Isn't that so? Hasn't it been true in your- 
 own case during some period of your life? Stop and 
 think ! Isn 't it true right now ? It is fear, fear, fear 
 all the time. Fear is based upon ignorance as cour- 
 age is based upon knowledge. Eliminate ignorance and 
 fear will vanish. Acquire the right kind of knowl- 
 edge, then courage and self-confidence become a pos- 
 session. 
 
 CWhat are you going to do about iff I know 
 what you are going to do, you are going to summon, 
 your will power, throw off this slimy incubus and fight 
 life's battles like the real man God intended you to be. 
 The developed positive qualities will help you do it. 
 They will become a real mental battery of invincible^ 
 personal power. 
 
 C[I am going to indicate a Character Chart. I want 
 you to make one for yourself. I want you to check 
 up every positive quality every day for a month, then 
 keep it up for a year. Find out your weaknesses and 
 eliminate them. 
 
 C[Let us choose nine positive qualities and con- 
 sider that they make the following individual aver- 
 age for a month Optimism 71 per cent., Enthusiasm 
 70, Energy 70, Honesty 95, Cheerfulness 85, Careful- 
 ness 80, Neatness 90, Initiative 75, Courage 75. 
 
 C[By adding these percentages together and di- 
 viding them by nine, as we find there are nine quali- 
 ties, we find that we get an average of 79 per cent-
 
 50 Salesmanship and Business Efficiency 
 
 That means we were 79 per cent, successful that month, 
 that we were only 79 per cent, of our maximum possi- 
 bility that month. It means that we were 21 per cent, 
 failure during that month. It means we were only a 
 little more than three-fourths as successful as we should 
 have been and could have been. It means we must be 
 mentally systematic; it means we must check up our 
 weaknesses, catalog them and then kill them. 
 
 C[We kill the negative by practicing the positive. 
 We kill laziness by continually hustling. We kill 
 cowardice, by doing the thing that needs to be done, 
 regardless of whether we like it or not. We kill dis- 
 honesty by compelling ourselves to be honest about 
 every transaction. 
 
 C Possibly you never before realized it was pos- 
 sible to check up and speed up your brain forces and 
 increase your efficiency and therefore your income, at 
 least 21 per cent. Did you? You possibly did not 
 realize that a study of this science meant such an analy- 
 sis of your brain forces that you could liberally check 
 up and finally control them. This is only a beginning 
 of what you can do for yourself as a result of this 
 marvelous study of Mental Science. 
 
 Q Apply this same process of elimination and 
 substitution to every negative and positive quality 
 you possess, and you will notice a marvelous change in 
 yourself within a very few months. Your possibilities 
 are really unlimited. 
 
 QMany salesmen get the foolish notion that Mon- 
 day is not a good day for business, consequently they 
 use that as an excuse to waste the forenoon around the 
 house and the afternoon around the pool halls, or other 
 places. From Tuesday morning until Friday night 
 they waste enough odd hours to amount to another
 
 Personality and How to Develop It 51 
 
 whole day. They do not pretend to work at all on 
 Saturday. Half of the week is absolutely lost. 
 
 QLet us suppose a salesman is selling typewriters 
 and is working on a salary of thirty dollars a week. 
 He works only half of the week. He therefore earns 
 only fifteen dollars instead of thirty. He defrauds 
 his employer out of fifteen dollars. 
 
 QBut suppose he is working on a commission 
 and his commission amounts to thirty dollars for half 
 a week's work. He is satisfied with what he has made 
 and justifies himself by feeling that he has done bet- 
 ter than a whole lot of other salesmen anyway. What 
 about him? He has defrauded himself out of thirty 
 dollars that he could have earned, and possibly more, 
 as a man can do more when he is working under a 
 full head of steam. He has also defrauded his em- 
 ployer out of the profits he would have made on the 
 sale of the extra goods. 
 
 CMy experience as a salesman and as a sales-man- 
 ager has convinced me that most of the salesmen of the 
 country waste anywhere from one to three days a 
 week. Such men always wonder why they do not get 
 along faster. 
 
 C[A recent writer has said: "In the soliciting busi- 
 ness the one force or quality that counts for more than 
 all others in getting business is personality. We do 
 not wish to enter into a discussion of what personality 
 really is or how it is developed, but suffice it to say 
 it is the sum-total of our personal attractions or win- 
 ning qualities, but in many of us they have been so 
 sadly neglected that they cannot be recognized. You 
 cannot be a great success as a salesman until you 
 bring these winning qualities out where they can be 
 seen. They vouch for your honesty, your sincerity,
 
 52 Salesmanship and Business Efficiency 
 
 and are a proof of your interest in others. They are 
 your letter of introduction and will gain you admission 
 when everything else fails." 
 
 CA Avriter in "Success" says: "A pleasing per- 
 sonality is of untold value. It is a perpetual delight 
 and inspiration to everyone who comes in contact with 
 it. Such a personality is capital. Very few people 
 ever come into your home, or see your stocks, or bonds, 
 or lands, or interest in steamship lines, or corporations, 
 but your personality you carry everywhere. It is your, 
 letter of credit. You stand or fall by it." 
 
 C Another recent writer has said: "A man's per- 
 sonality does not come by accident; it is a natural 
 gift, just as his mind and muscle are natural gifts. 
 and, like them, it must be cultivated. Develop it by 
 eliminating everything that is bad and cultivating 
 everything that IB good. Cut out the blues, and worry, 
 and jealousy, and envy, and all their relatives; they 
 are man's worst enemies. Fill your whole mind and 
 lips with energy, hope, and sunshine and an invincible 
 determination to do things. Feel every minute of the 
 day that it is the best day you ever had. Like thoughts 
 are always attracted to each other. To think and feel 
 enthusiasm, confidence and success, will develop in you 
 a splendid personality and set in motion the forces 
 that will bring prosperity and power. Every man 
 carries the price of a splendid, noble and successful 
 life within himself. Be in dead earnest and your prize 
 can be the world." 
 
 CBut what direct relation do these positive 
 qualities bear to salesmanship? They bear the same 
 relation which blood and nerves bear to the human 
 body. Let us consider one of these positive qualities 
 which I have named, viz.: preparedness. Around this
 
 Personality and How to Develop It 53 
 
 quality adhere the principles which are the very heart 
 and soul of Salesmanship. In further analyzing the 
 word preparedness, which means the state of being 
 prepared, a sub-division is necessary, together with an 
 analytical outline showing how to begin the preparation, 
 QWhen an individual is prepared, it means these 
 three things to him: Faith, confidence and his ability 
 to sell goods. It means confidence in himself and both 
 confidence and faith in his business, together with a 
 knowledge of the construction and selling qualities of 
 his goods, of which the following is the analytical 
 outline. This outline is deemed broad enough to cover 
 almost any kind of manufactured product. 
 
 Analysis. 
 
 Cl. Who produced or manufactured it? 
 
 (a) What was the method of production? 
 
 (b) Where was it produced? 
 
 (c) Of what is it composed? 
 
 C2. How does it compare, as to finish, material, 
 workmanship and price, w r ith competitive articles put 
 out for the same purpose? 
 
 Q3. Can it be shown that its value to the pur- 
 chaser compares favorably with its cost? 
 
 C4. What is its purpose? In other words, what 
 is it good for? 
 
 CT5. How can it be analyzed in such a way as to 
 appeal by a logical process of argument to the reason 
 and judgment of the customer? What portions of it 
 can be used to appeal to the emotional or spiritual 
 nature of the customer? 
 
 C[6. To what class of people can it be sold? 
 
 Q7. If it can be sold to several classes of peo-
 
 54 Salesmanship and Business Efficiency 
 
 pie, is there a distinctive line of argument for each 
 class ? 
 
 CT Study and apply analysis in order that you 
 may be able to analyze all kinds of goods, your com- 
 petitor's as well as your own. What appears to be 
 a small point of difference will often close the sale if 
 the point is shown to be superior. The ability then to 
 so analyze two or several propositions, that the point 
 of superiority, although small, is clearly brought out, 
 very often closes the sale. 
 
 C Everything else being equal, a customer buys 
 where he can buy cheapest. Be sure to watch the 
 "Everything else being equal." People will not 
 buy at a cheaper store if it is dirty, or the service 
 poor, or the clerks incompetent. They will not buy 
 from a traveling salesman who is slouchy and poorly 
 groomed, or discourteous, or a poor salesman, if he 
 has a good competitor. 
 
 ^Everything is not equal as long as you have a 
 better personality and are a better salesman. A dol- 
 lar a day hotel may serve just as good meals as the 
 $2.00 a day house. In fact the meat and groceries 
 may have been bought from the same store, and be 
 of the same grade, but if the bill of fare is fly 
 specked, the napkins dirty and the table cloth stained 
 with coffee, the traveling public will go to the $2.00 
 a day house, and pay the difference, because it is clean. 
 
 C Without this preparation failure would be al- 
 most sure and inevitable. My reasons are based upon 
 the following conclusions: I have hired hundreds of 
 men and trained or supervised the training of thou- 
 sands of college men in the United States and Canada. 
 I picked the very best class of young men living in
 
 Personality and How to Develop It 55 
 
 this generation. This I proved by comparison with 
 other men from other walks of life whom I have 
 hired. Out of every hundred men I hired, I feel safe 
 in saying that ninety-five lacked confidence in them- 
 selves to begin with and said they believed they 
 couldn't do the work. They would invariably say, "I 
 have never sold goods and I don't believe I have any 
 ability along that line. I'm afraid I'd make a failure 
 of it. I haven't much confidence in myself. I'm. 
 afraid to try it. ' ' 
 
 QWhat is this first step in the development of 
 the confidence which this man must have; first, in 
 himself, and secondly, in his proposition? He 
 knows absolutely that he cannot talk the goods, 
 either successfully or at all. He tries to think what 
 he might say or how he might say it, and his imagin- 
 ation conjures up failure because he cannot yet see 
 through the misty labyrinth of argument which he 
 knows is necessary in order to convince a customer 
 that he ought to buy his goods. He cannot see into 
 or through this argument to begin with, because he 
 does not know it and hence he lacks confidence. You 
 can not convince a man that cake is made out of the 
 product of wheat by showing him the wheat and letting 
 him taste the cake, if this man has never seen or 
 heard of wheat, flour and cake. He would ask for 
 evidence. He would have to be shown. 
 
 <The first thing for you to do in beginning 
 this study, which leads both to confidence in your 
 goods and confidence in yourself, is to begin an analyti- 
 cal study of your subject. The whole thing must be 
 picked to pieces in the same way a jeweler picks a 
 watch to pieces, a mechanic a self-binder, or a gram- 
 marian a sentence. If you are selling a binder you
 
 56 Salesmanship and Business Efficiency 
 
 must know what each piece is composed of, why it is 
 made so and so, and why it is made of a certain kind 
 of iron or wood, and why it is made in just that 
 shape. You must thoroughly understand the construc- 
 tion of your machine. You must learn to think the 
 same thoughts which the man had who made it. If 
 you can do that, if you can find out his reasons for 
 taking every step, you are getting a basic knowledge 
 which, after you have learned how to talk it, will fill 
 your heart with courage and confidence, and your 
 mouth with words which are not only the result of 
 skill but which will be skillfully put. It is a great thing 
 to thoroughly understand every point in the talk or 
 argument you are going to make, but it is a much 
 greater art to be able to talk these ideas effectively. 
 How many times have you seen a man get up in a 
 meeting and in a stammering way say, "I know what 
 I want to say, but I can't find the words," and then 
 sit down in confusion? I have even known college 
 graduates to be affected in this way. 
 
 C[The fundamental principles of salesmanship 
 are all the same. A principle which can be used in 
 selling one article can be used in selling any other 
 article, no matter whether it be real estate or chickens. 
 A friend of mine sold books successfully as a student. 
 'The book had different bindings. He developed skill 
 in changing from a higher to a lower, or a lower to 
 a higher priced binding. Later he went into the 
 horse business. He sold a team one day. The man 
 came back the next day to trade one of them for an- 
 other, which he thought would make a better matched 
 team. He traded and gave a nice sum to boot. The 
 horse man turned to me and said, "I did that just 
 as easily as changing from a two-fifty to a three-fifty 
 binding."
 
 Personality and How to Develop It 57 
 
 ,C[In order to have this confidence in yourself 
 you must have faith in what you are going to sell. 
 Faith is the essential condition of confidence, and con- 
 fidence is the essential condition of success. This is 
 not merely opinion or guess work, it as a scientific fact. 
 Faith is the mental attitude essential to successful 
 business- getting. "Faith is the central idea and es- 
 sence of the law of suggestion." Without this faith, 
 without this belief there would be no basis for suggest- 
 ing to the other man that he should make the pur- 
 chase. "The prayer of faith shall be answered" has 
 a firm scientific basis. Be sure you have absolute 
 faith in the article you are going to sell. If you 
 have not that faith, if you do not think the arti- 
 cle is worth the money, your conscience will go back 
 on you, and you will most assuredly end in failure, 
 together with a considerable loss of self-respect. No 
 man can long succeed in selling goods which he knows 
 are not worth the money. His better nature soon re- 
 volts. 
 
 Q While there are a great number of positive 
 qualities, they are not all of equal importance in the 
 development of the salesman. I shall name here some 
 of the positive qualities and faculties which it is ab- 
 solutely essential a salesman should develop to a high 
 degree : Preparedness, faith and confidence, the con- 
 quering spirit, cheerfulness or good cheer, courtesy, 
 initiative, courage, perseverance, determination, concen- 
 tration, will-power, desire, health, character, judgment 
 and expression. 
 
 C America's great men have been of commanding 
 personality. What were the qualities in the life of 
 James G. Blaine which made him great? What were 
 the qualities of personality which made Grant and 
 Lincoln and McKinley great? What are the qualities
 
 58 Salesmanship and Business Efficiency 
 
 which make Roosevelt great in spite of his party lead- 
 ers? What are the qualities which have made Mr. 
 Bryan the leader of his party for a longer time, in 
 defeat, than any other man the party has ever pro- 
 duced? We have stated all these qualities of superb 
 manhood in this lesson. We will approximate unto 
 the greatness of these men as we develop self-mastery 
 and use our will power not only to develop these quali- 
 ties but to drive out the negative qualities. 
 
 QA salesman's general education may be poor, 
 while his special education may be good enough to 
 make him a great salesman. Every quality of the 
 individual, except initiative, might be marked 100 per 
 cent, but if that is poor, if the salesman is lazy, he 
 will still be a failure. If every quality but appearance 
 is marked 100 per cent, the salesman will sti'll be a 
 failure if he presents a seedy and uncouth appear- 
 ance. The same is true in regard to personality the 
 salesman might be able to speak or read a dozen 
 languages and still be a failure if his personality is 
 weak, vacillating, and negative. One thing in this 
 connection is worthy of the salesman's careful con- 
 sideration, that is this, a salesman may have de- 
 veloped every positive quality but one, honesty for in- 
 stance, and that one negative quality may defeat 
 him in the long run. Look out for every quality. Be 
 sure that you do not harbor any enemies. You simply 
 must weed out the negative and develop the positive 
 qualities. A great and glorious success depends up- 
 on it. Pick out one new positive quality every Mon- 
 day morning and determine that at any cost you will 
 live that quality during the week and forever after- 
 wards. It may hurt a little at first to pull up some of 
 the weeds, but your manhood demands that you do 
 it. You can do anything you desire.
 
 Personality and How to Develop It 
 
 59 
 
 Below are the positive qualities of the In- 
 tellect, of the Sensibilities, and of the Will, which 
 must be highly developed in order to insure a 
 man of (1) Ability, of (2) Reliability, and (3) 
 Leadership : 
 
 Observation 
 
 Concentration 
 
 Memory 
 
 Imagination 
 
 Reason 
 
 ^Judgment 
 
 Honesty 
 
 Loyalty 
 
 Faith 
 
 Ambition 
 
 Enthusiasm 
 
 Optimism 
 
 Sincerity 
 
 ['Decision 
 I Punctuality 
 | Courage 
 [initiative
 
 60 Salesmanship and Business Efficiency 
 
 Suggestive Questions and Exercises 
 
 1. What is personality ? 
 
 2. What is meant by positive qualities'! 
 
 3. What is meant by negative qualities? 
 
 4. Which positive qualities do you think are 
 most important ? 
 
 5. Name the three different qualities of man? 
 
 6. The human mind is divided into how many 
 parts? 
 
 1. What are the functions of each? 
 
 8. What effect, according to Hudson, does the 
 subjective mind have upon the body? 
 
 9. Why is a good personality dependent entire- 
 ly upon the development of the positive qualities? 
 
 10. Why is a good personality absolutely essential 
 in order to become a success? 
 
 11. Why is "preparedness" or preparation ab- 
 solutely essential to success in Salesmanship? 
 
 12. Give from memory what you can of the 
 analytical outline. 
 
 13. What do you mean by confidence? 
 
 14. How is faith developed? 
 
 15. Is it possible to develop all the positive quali- 
 ties but one and then fail as a salesman 6 / Give ex- 
 ample. 
 
 16. Write one hundred words on the positive qual- 
 ties which you consider most important in the develop- 
 ment of your personality. 
 
 17. Write one hundred words showing the neces- 
 sity of preparation for success.
 
 LESSON III. 
 
 efficiency 
 
 N the first lesson I said we were in the 
 midst of a business revolution. That means 
 we are in the midst of a mental revolution. 
 One of our prominent thinkers has said 
 that the human mind, as a result of 
 a knowledge of modern psychology, has made more 
 progress during the last thirty years than during all 
 previous history. In this lesson I want to discuss 
 some of the positive and negative qualities which go 
 to build up or tear down character. 
 
 Loyalty. 
 
 ( Loyalty consists in giving faithful allegiance 
 to your employer; it consists in giving whole hearted 
 uiitiring service to the concern that furnishes you 
 with bread and butter. Loyalty consists in working 
 during business hours and after business hours and 
 before business hours for the best interests of the con- 
 cern. Loyalty consists in doing everything within 
 your power to figure out some new idea or some new 
 method that will in some way advance the interests of 
 your concern. Every wise manager is on the alert to 
 get a new idea or a better method of doing business. 
 He is also on the alert to promote any employe who is 
 so loyal as to render such service. I know a young col- 
 
 [61]
 
 62 Salesmanship and Business Efficiency 
 
 lege professor who was so loyal to his university last 
 year, who responded to so many calls for help that he 
 not only reflected glory upon the university, but was 
 offered the presidency of four different colleges. 
 
 CBut loyalty is its own reward. The man who 
 will not do his best under all circumstances, who will 
 not render the highest service of which he is capable, 
 is not only disloyal to his employer, but he is dis- 
 loyal to the dictates of his own highest self. Re- 
 member that it is an infinitely greater thing to build 
 a life, than to make a living. Remember that what- 
 ever you do for the interests of your employer reacts 
 upon your own life and character. Remember that 
 every new idea or new method you originate and every 
 bit of exceptional service you render, is worth in- 
 finitely more in the way of building your own char- 
 acter and developing your own ability for a larger 
 future service than it can possibly be worth in the 
 way of immediate financial reward. The man who is 
 disloyal to his employer defrauds him, but what is much 
 worse, he goes a long way toward ruining his own char- 
 acter. 
 
 (The salesman or employe who extravagantly 
 spends his employer's money for high priced meals 
 and high or highest priced hotel rooms is not loyal 
 to his house. I know one traveling man who rarely 
 pays more than a dollar for a room in a hotel, often 
 eats a twenty-five cent meal and walks when he might 
 pay bus fare. He is getting a salary of over four 
 hundred dollars a month and expenses and many side 
 privileges which cost his associates money. But he 
 is loyal to his house. On the other hand, I know 
 scores of salesmen who pay from $1.50 to $2.50 for a 
 room and from seventy-five cents up for meals, but 
 they are getting from seventy-five to a hundred dollars
 
 Efficiency 63 
 
 a month and expenses. They are disloyal to their con- 
 cern and, therefore, disloyal to themselves. They pay 
 their own expense accounts in reduced salary, but they 
 do not realize it. 
 
 C[If you cannot render your employer the most 
 enthusiastic loyal service, then quit. But while you 
 are taking his money, your own self-respect requires 
 you to boost for him and his business. You owe it to 
 your employer and to yourself to either get in line and 
 stay in line, or get out. 
 
 Honesty. 
 
 CI do not believe there ever was a greater de- 
 mand for men who are thoroughly honest and re- 
 liable, than there is to-day. I do not believe there 
 ever was a time when business men were willing to pay 
 such a premium for honesty as they are to-day. There 
 is a mania to get rich quick in these days and in 
 practically every case it ends in failure, remorse and 
 despair. It is said that a young man in Marshall 
 Field's store had made an exceptional record. He was 
 marked for a prominent position. They decided to 
 test him in every way, during a period of six months, 
 before promotion. They tested him as to his morality, 
 his ability and his honesty. They left money lying 
 around in order to tempt him. One day he picked up 
 and kept a fifty-cent piece that was put in his way 
 in order to tempt him. He never got the promotion. 
 Your character will be submitted to the same gruel- 
 ling tests in the future. Don 't you think it will pay to 
 develop the character to pass the required tests? 
 
 CA prominent retail merchant recently told me 
 that dishonesty caused more trouble in his store 
 than anything else. He said, "We used to expect
 
 64 Salesmanship and Business Efficiency 
 
 twenty-four honest men out of every twenty-five, now 
 it seems difficult to find more than one out of the 
 twenty-five who is thoroughly honest." Of course I 
 think his case was extreme, but I know he had lost a 
 lot of money in his business through theft, on the part 
 of his clerks. The first qualification for success, in 
 his mind, is honesty. 
 
 QThe manager of one of the great department 
 stores in the middle west, a store employing nearly a 
 thousand sales people, told me that dishonesty and 
 indifference were the "twin demons" in his store. 
 
 QWhen you work for a man on a salary, you 
 owe him all your loyalty, all your ambition, all your 
 enthusiasm and all your ability; and to engage in any 
 outside enterprises when all your time and efforts are 
 sold to him, is not honest. 
 
 QI know a young man who works in an office 
 where his employer is absent a good deal of the time. 
 It is necessary for him to be in the office at eight in 
 the morning, but he is seldom there before ten, al- 
 though he tells his employer he is always there at 
 eight. This is another phase of dishonesty to be de- 
 plored. But the employe who resorts to it is wreak- 
 ing vengeance on his own life and character, and it 
 is simply a question of days until he loses his position. 
 
 Initiative. 
 
 COne of the qualities most highly valued and 
 most highly paid for by the business world is initiative. 
 Initiative is going ahead and doing the thing that 
 needs to be done without being told. Hubbard 
 says, "The world reserves its big prizes for but one 
 thing and that is 'initiative.' ' Initiative is the re- 
 sult of constructive thinking. In fact, constructive
 
 Efficiency 65 
 
 thinking plus initiative gets results. A country bank- 
 er said to me one day, "Can you send me a young 
 man of initiative, a young man who will sweep out 
 without being told, who will do his bookkeeping with- 
 out being told, who will do his own work of his own 
 accord without being told, over and over and over 
 again?" The young man who lacks initiative is lazy, 
 purposeless and unwilling to do his part in life's work. 
 Initiative is going ahead and doing to a finish what 
 you ought to do in the position you are now in, and 
 doing it without being told. When you do that and 
 do it well, you will have a chance to do the big things 
 later on. 
 
 QNot many young men have enough initiative 
 to stay at home in the evening, after a hard day's 
 work, and study, when the lure of the park, the pool 
 hall and the skating rink is upon them. Those who 
 have that kind of initiative are eagerly snapped up 
 by the business world. 
 
 xQW C. Brown was a section hand in Waterloo, 
 Iowa, one out of a million who had initiative enough 
 to study at night and sacrifice the pleasures of the 
 crowd. But it paid him. He is to-day the president of 
 the New York Central Lines. 
 
 C Initiative consists in working six days a week 
 when you are your own boss, instead of loafing two or 
 three days a week. The average salesman who works 
 on a commission basis wastes at least two days a week 
 and many times he wastes more. That is the reason he 
 remains an average salesman. When a man refuses 
 to take the initiative and must have a superintendent 
 over him to force him to keep busy, he must pay that 
 superintendent 's salary.
 
 66 Salesmanship and Business Efficiency 
 
 Service. 
 
 CA great philosopher has said, "He that is great- 
 est among you shall be your servant." I believe the 
 time is near at hand in this country when that match- 
 less philosophy will be fulfilled. The man to-day who- 
 renders the greatest public service is the public's great- 
 est benefactor, and such a one is entitled to the great- 
 est profit. To-day we ask, "What kind of service can 
 you render?" not "How much money do you want?"" 
 If you render the service, you are sure of the money. 
 We constantly hear the remark, "It isn't a question of 
 what it costs but a question of what it is worth." 
 
 C[I know a bright ambitious young man who said 
 to the superintendent of a great concern, "I will come 
 in and work for you two months, you to pay what 
 you think I am worth at the end of that time. Then 
 we will talk over a proposition for the future. I know 
 I can satisfy you. All I want now is an opportunity 
 to prove my value to you." That young man wasn't 
 thinking of money, but of service. The young man 
 who thinks only of his salary and the clock, hasn't 
 yet learned the meaning of the word service. 
 
 QThe employe who is careless or indifferent or 
 who thinks of his own affairs during business hours,, 
 is not giving good service; neither is the employe who 
 chews gum or uses tobacco in any form during busi- 
 ness hours. I honestly believe that to smoke during 
 business hours is to reduce your value at least ten 
 per cent, or more. President John H. Patterson of the 
 National Cash Register Company has possibly preached 
 as much or more against smoking than any great ex- 
 ecutive in this country. He says: "Don't do it, boys, 
 it will make you satisfied. I gave it up for that rea- 
 son. I couldn't afford to be satisfied."
 
 Efficiency 67 
 
 CThe measure of your service will be the meas- 
 ure of your future profit. The hardware company 
 that sent a team two miles for a broken boiler lid and 
 made one to order for a quarter, then delivered it, 
 was rendering a service with an eye to future business. 
 
 Indifference. 
 
 C[Self satisfaction and indifference are two of 
 the greatest obstacles that stand in the way of success 
 to-day. I sometimes think that seventy-five per cent, 
 of the people of this country are asleep half of the 
 time. You will find evidence of self-satisfaction 
 among people who work inside more often than those 
 who work in the open air. Possibly the most indiffer- 
 ent class of sales people to be found anywhere are 
 found in the retail stores. 
 
 QThe indifferent man is unconcerned about either 
 the present or the future. He is satisfied to exist. I 
 have spent some years analyzing indifference and I am 
 convinced that it is due largely, if not altogether, to 
 ignorance. The indifferent man doesn't know and he 
 doesn't know he doesn't know, and furthermore he 
 doesn't care. He permits little mental stimulus to 
 enter his life. His brain is dormant and unde- 
 veloped. He has no ideal. He has little purpose and 
 he has little ambition. I have talked to thousands of 
 such people. They have simply blinked at me. They 
 did not really understand and they were too lazy to 
 investigate. Indifference is a habit born of laziness. 
 It is the natural result of an untrained and sluggish 
 brain. The only hope for such a man is to wake up and 
 feed his impoverished brain or he is doomed. I often 
 step into a retail store and ask if they have a
 
 68 Salesmanship and Business Efficiency 
 
 certain article. The clerk says, "Yes," and sometimes 
 stirs himself enough to say, ' ' Did you want one ? ' ' 
 
 Ambition. 
 
 QThe world hasn't yet realized that ambition is 
 quite largely a matter of development ; that the brain 
 must be fed or it will die just as surely as corn 
 tassels die before a hot wind in July. When an idea 
 comes to the brain the blood brings nourishment to 
 that brain cell and it develops, but when no ideas 
 come the blood does not flow that way and the un- 
 nourished cell atrophies and dies. 
 
 Money. 
 
 Q Money is not everything, but we need some of it 
 in order to enjoy happiness and the comforts of life. 
 Gage Tarbell, the great Life Insurance man, has said 
 that "Wealth is an intellectual achievement." I agree 
 with him and so do you. The man of untrained in- 
 tellect cannot produce wealth. To be able, therefore, 
 to produce wealth honestly and legitimately is cer- 
 tainly an intellectual achievement to be -coveted. 
 
 C[A man is only worth two dollars a day from 
 his chin down selling muscle, but as high as a hundred 
 and forty-four thousand a year from his chin up sell- 
 ing brains, as President of the National Cash Register 
 Company. Which do you want to sell, brains or mus- 
 cle? It pays a good deal better to sell brains so you 
 better decide to be a chin upper, rather than a chin 
 downer. 
 
 CA steel rail is only worth about twenty-four 
 dollars a ton, but put it through the proper refining 
 processes and it is worth twelve million a ton when
 
 Efficiency 69 
 
 made into watch springs. Our minds improve accord- 
 ingly when put through the proper mental processes. 
 
 CTA large prize was once offered in England for 
 the best definition of money. Many definitions came 
 in but the one that won first prize was written by a 
 woman who was a bedridden invalid. It is as follows: 
 "Money is a commodity that will buy anything but 
 health and happiness, and is a universal passport to 
 everywhere but heaven." 
 
 CT Every man owes it to himself to so equip himself 
 that he can support himself and a family if he has 
 one; take a vacation when he needs it, retire any time 
 after sixty if he so desires, and have enough left to 
 provide for his needs during the remaining years of 
 his life. 
 
 Courtesy. 
 
 G[ There is no other one thing which costs so little 
 and is worth so much as courtesy. It is an outward 
 expression of an inward kindness. It is an indication 
 that the heart is right and that we delight to serve. 
 
 QA young man by the name of John Boyd was 
 brought up in Pella, Iowa. He had a high school 
 education and believed he could succeed in life. He 
 believed in courtesy. In fact it was a part of his par- 
 ticular philosophy. He received an appointment as 
 assistant doorkeeper in the House of Representatives. 
 One day a prominent looking business man approached 
 the doorkeeper and asked if he knew where he could 
 find Senator Sargent of California. This doorkeeper 
 did not particularly believe in the philosophy of court- 
 esy anyway, and in a very pompous manner gave the 
 stranger to understand that they had all they could 
 do to take care of the members of the House without 
 running after Senators. Mr. Boyd heard the conver-
 
 70 Salesmanship and Business Efficiency 
 
 sation and it did not agree with his theory of courtesy, 
 so he followed the stranger and told him he could 
 find the Senator for him if he was in the building. 
 His kindness was greatly appreciated. He hurried 
 away, soon found the Senator, and took the stranger 
 to him. Boyd then started to leave. The stranger gave 
 him his card and asked him to meet him that after- 
 noon at the hotel. When Mr. Boyd looked at the 
 card, he was surprised to learn that the stranger was 
 none other than Collis P. Huntington, the famous rail- 
 road president. 
 
 CWhen they met at the hotel that afternoon, 
 Mr. Huntington learned that Mr. Boyd was getting 
 twelve hundred a year. He immediately offered him 
 $1,800. "But," said the young man, "I don't know 
 anything about the railroad business." "But you do 
 know how to be a gentleman," said Mr. Huntington, 
 "and that is what a lot of fellows around here don't 
 know enough to be." Mr. Boyd accepted the position. 
 He became Huntington 's greatest lobbyist and his 
 salary was raised to ten thousand dollars a year. Does 
 it pay to be courteous? It pays bigger dividends in 
 proportion to the investment than anything else I 
 know of. 
 
 Thrift. 
 
 CWe are living in an extravagant, spend-thrift 
 age. That is one reason so many men are penniless 
 at the age of sixty. The idea of poverty in old 
 age ought to haunt every young man and make him 
 feel the necessity of saving every dollar he can possi- 
 bly get along without. When you receive an income 
 from money invested, you multiply your earning power. 
 When you have money invested you have more re-
 
 Efficiency 71 
 
 spect for yourself. You feel you are a capitalist. You 
 are a better citizen and a better patriot. 
 
 ,CIf eighty million people save a nickel a day it 
 would amount to $1,550,200 a year. Save ten cents 
 a day and invest it at six per cent, compound interest 
 and it will amount to $6,000 in forty years. And 
 yet we handle the nickles and dimes as if they did 
 not amount to anything. 
 
 QLook out for "wild cat" investment schemes 
 that offer big dividends. There is an enormous amounl 
 of money lost that way every year. 
 
 Q Every young man should take out some in- 
 surance. That is a safe investment. An insurance 
 agent once crossed the Atlantic ocean with Cyrus W. 
 Field in order to get a chance to talk insurance to 
 him. He was rewarded with a $450,000 policy. Field 
 was worth twenty millions then, but afterwards lost 
 it all except the insurance policy. 
 
 Concentration. 
 
 CIt takes the average young student nearly a 
 year to learn how to concentrate his mind upon his 
 work. I know a boy of thirteen who was an expert 
 with the typewriter, considering his age. He was 
 demonstrating at a county fair and a business man tried 
 his best to disturb him. The man asked him several ques- 
 tions but the boy never looked up or paid the least 
 attention to the questions until he was through. He 
 then asked the man what he wanted. The man at 
 once offered him a position and asked him how he 
 could work that way while being disturbed. The boy 
 told him he had learned to concentrate his mind by 
 continual practice.
 
 72 Salesmanship and Business Efficiency 
 
 saw a machine at the World's Fair in St. 
 Louis that so concentrated the sun's rays that it actual- 
 ly melted iron. The mind which concentrates is power- 
 ful, and usually routs opposition. You must first pay 
 attention to what you are doing, then concentrate the 
 mind upon it. This takes both energy and will power. 
 This will be taken up in a later lesson. 
 
 (1 have discovered that I can write just as well 
 with a crowd talking or playing all around me, but 
 I have also discovered that it doesn't pay to do it as 
 it takes energy to counteract the disturbance. In study- 
 ing, in writing or in making a sale, I focus all the 
 power of my mind on what I am doing. I entirely 
 shut out the outside world. It takes practice to do 
 this, but it pays big. Begin immediately to concen- 
 trate upon what you are doing. Concentration means 
 success, while " scatteration " means failure. 
 
 Time. 
 
 CThe hardest thing to teach a young man is to 
 appreciate the value of time. It is said that Joseph 
 Cook, the great thinker and lecturer, carried a little 
 dictionary in his pocket when a student, in order to 
 have something to study when waiting for his meals 
 or at other odd moments of leisure. Many of the 
 world's great men, Gladstone among them, have car- 
 ried books in their pockets in order to utilize spare 
 moments. 
 
 CIf you were held up on a street and robbed 
 of five dollars, you would call the police, but you 
 fritter away diamond minutes and golden hours doing 
 nothing of value, and your conscience doesn't hurt 
 you. Time is money and knowledge is power. But 
 we will never get either the money or knowledge until
 
 Efficiency 73 
 
 we learn how to utilize our time and especially our 
 spare moments. A reputation for ability as a pool 
 player will not help you any and it may advertise you 
 adversely sometime when you want a position. 
 
 Habits that Reduce Efficiency. 
 
 CThe business world judges a man either favor- 
 ably or adversely because of his qualifications or his 
 habits. As a whole, the business world looks askance 
 at a man who drinks. A prominent business man of 
 Omaha, Mr. F. W. Heron, president of the Royal In- 
 demnity Company says, "Liquor and business will 
 not mix between seven o'clock in the morning and 
 seven in the evening, if at all." Col. Ingersoll very 
 well voiced the opinion of the business world when 
 he said, "I am aware there is a prejudice against 
 any man engaged in the manufacture of alcohol. I 
 believe that from the time it issues from the coiled and 
 poisonous worm in the distillery until it empties into 
 the stream of death, dishonor and crime, that it de- 
 moralizes everyone who touches it, from its source 
 to where it ends. I do not believe anyone can con- 
 template the subject without becoming prejudiced 
 against the liquor crime. All we have to do, gentle- 
 men, is to think of the wrecks on either bank of the 
 stream of death, of the suicides, of the insanity, of 
 the poverty, of the ignorance, of the destitution, of 
 the little children tugging at the faded and weary 
 breasts of weeping and despairing wives, asking for 
 bread; of the talented men of genius it has wrecked, 
 the men struggling with imaginary serpents, produced 
 by this devilish thing; and when you think of the 
 jails, of the almshouses, of the asylums, of the prisons, 
 of the scaffolds on either bank, I do not wonder that
 
 74 Salesmanship and Business Efficiency 
 
 every thoughtful man is prejudiced against this stuff 
 called alcohol." 
 
 QThe gospel of maximum efficiency, as preached 
 by the big leaders to-day, finds no place for either 
 strong drink or cigarettes. This is not a question of 
 morality, but of business efficiency. Neither you nor 
 I can afford to receive this information with preju- 
 diced minds. In fact, we cannot afford to let our 
 prejudice either stand in the way of our opportunities 
 or chloroform our judgment. 
 
 CIt takes a wise man to profit from the ex- 
 perience of wise men. Any fool can learn from ex- 
 perience, no matter how costly it may be. 
 
 QThe following quotations on the cigarette are 
 from the pens of Elbert Hubbard and Orison Swett 
 Harden, both world-famed writers and employers of 
 men. 
 
 The Cigarette. 
 
 Q Elbert Hubbard says, "If you want a man who 
 will train on, flee the cigarettist as you would a 
 pestilence. As a close observer of men and an em- 
 ployer of labor for over twenty-five years, I give you 
 this: Never advance the pay of a cigarette smoker 
 never promote him never depend upon him to carry 
 a roll to Gomez, unless you do not care for Gomez 
 and are willing to lose the roll. 
 
 C"I say, do not promote the cigarette smoker for 
 the time will surely come when you will rue the day 
 you ever placed him in a position where he can plague 
 you by doing those things which he ought not, and 
 by leaving undone those things he should have done. 
 
 Q"I am aware that in some parts of Europe 
 cigarette smoking is almost universal and that no 
 special deleterious effects are noticeable. This im-
 
 Efficiency 75 
 
 munity is owing to the temperament of the people and 
 the peculiarities of the climate. My argument herein 
 has America and Americans in mind. Poison affects 
 different people differently, and American nerves can- 
 not stand artificial stimulants. The dull and phleg- 
 matic Russian can do things we cannot. The Don. 
 Dago, Greaser and Turk are built on different 
 lines from us. Americans need all the brain power 
 they possess in their business. 
 
 C[" Cigarette smoking is not periodic it is con- 
 tinuous, a slow, insidious, sure poison. Its result can 
 be foretold as accurately as the expert chemist can 
 foresee the end of incipient locomotor ataxia. urO-^U 1 ^ ^^ r> 
 
 C"But for the young man who has become so 
 calloused that he smokes cigarettes in the presence of 
 his mother, sister or sweetheart, there is little hope. 
 The poison has already tainted his moral nature and 
 for him the work of dissolution, disintegration and 
 degeneration has begun. He is a defective a physi- 
 cal, mental and moral defective. Hope is only for 
 the youth who is ashamed of his lapses. 
 
 C["In preparing a culture bed for vice germs, do 
 not omit cigarettes. Cigarettes stupefy the conscience, 
 deaden the brain, place the affections in abeyance, and 
 bring the beast to the surface. The burning of tobacco 
 and paper together in contact with the saliva distills 
 a subtle chemical poison that has its sure effects even 
 upon the strongest constitutions. 
 
 C["0ne marked peculiarity of the cigarette fiend 
 is that invariably he makes a great discovery. It is 
 that cleverness, astuteness, trickery, and untruth are 
 good substitutes for simplicity, frankness and plain 
 common honesty.
 
 76 Salesmanship and Business Efficiency 
 
 C"The difference between mine and thine is a 
 very hazy proposition to the cigarettist. Larceny and 
 lying are sprouts that grow from the same soil. 
 
 (" Dishonor, perfidy, disappointment, disgrace are 
 the end of all. And so I close by again sounding a 
 warning note to the employer of labor. Place no con- 
 fidence in the cigarettist, never promote him he is an 
 irresponsible being a defective. Love him if you can; 
 pity him if you will, but give him no chance to clutch 
 you with his nicotine fingers and drag you beneath the 
 wave." 
 
 QThe above from Mr. Hubbard is very strong 
 language. The following from Orison Swett Harden, 
 himself a doctor of medicine, and also one of the world 's 
 greatest writers on Success, is even stronger. 
 
 CHe says, "I leave it to others to discuss the 
 moral side of cigarette smoking. I denounce it simply 
 because of its blighting, blasting effect upon one's suc- 
 cess in life. 
 
 C"The whole tendency of cigarette nicotine poi- 
 son in youth is to arrest development. It is fatal to 
 all normal functions. It blights and blasts both health 
 and morals. It not only ruins the faculties, but it 
 unbalances the mind as well. Many of the most piti- 
 able cases of insanity in our asylums are cigarette fiends. 
 It creates abnormal appetites, strange longings, and in 
 many cases an almost irresistible inclination to crime. 
 The moral depravity which follows the cigarette habit 
 is something frightful. Lying, cheating, impurity, loss 
 of mind, of courage and manhood, a complete drop- 
 ping of life's standards all along the lines are its gen- 
 eral results. 
 
 (" Magistrate Crane of New York City, says: 
 'Ninety-nine out of a hundred boys between the ages 
 of ten and seventeen years who come before me charged
 
 Efficiency 77 
 
 with crime have their fingers disfigured by yellow cigar- 
 ette stains. I am not a crank on this subject, I do 
 not care to pose as a reformer, but it is my opinion 
 that cigarettes will do more than liquor to ruin boys. 
 When you have arraigned before you boys hopelessly 
 deaf through the excessive use of cigarettes, boys who 
 have stolen their sisters' earnings, boys who absolutely 
 refuse to work, who do nothing but gamble and steal, 
 you cannot help seeing that there is some direct cause, 
 and a great deal of this boyhood crime is, in my mind, 
 easy to trace to the deadly cigarette. There is some- 
 thing in the poison of the cigarette that seems to get 
 into the system of the boy which destroys all moral 
 fiber.' 
 
 C[ ' ' He gives the following probable course of a boy 
 who begins to smoke cigarettes: 'First, cigarettes. 
 Second, beer and liquors. Third, craps, petty gamb- 
 ling. Fourth, horse racing gambling on a bigger 
 scale. Fifth, larceny. Sixth, state prison.' 
 
 C["Dr. J. J. Kellogg says: 'A few months ago 
 I had all the nicotine removed from a cigarette, mak- 
 ing a solution out of it. I injected half the quantity 
 into a frog with the effect that the frog died almost in- 
 stantly. The rest was administered to another frog 
 with like effect. Both frogs were full grown and of 
 average size. The conclusion is evident that a single 
 cigarette contains poison enough to kill two frogs. ' 
 
 Q"A boy who smokes twenty cigarettes a day 
 has inhaled enough poison to kill forty frogs. Why 
 does the poison not kill the boy? It does kill him. 
 If not immediately, he will die sooner or later of weak 
 heart, Bright 's disease, or some other malady which 
 scientific physicians everywhere recognize as a natural 
 result of chronic nicotine poisoning.
 
 78 Salesmanship and Business Efficiency 
 
 ,0["A chemist, not long since, took the tobacco 
 used in an average cigarette and soaked it in several 
 teaspoonfuls of water and then injected a portion of 
 it under the skin of a cat. The cat almost immediate- 
 ly went into convulsions, and died in fifteen minutes. 
 Dogs have been killed by a single drop of nicotine. 
 
 Killed Both. 
 
 C["A young man died in a Minnesota State insti- 
 tution not long ago, who five years before had been 
 one of the most promising young physicians of the 
 west. ' Still under thirty years at the time of his com- 
 mitment to the institution,' says a newspaper account 
 of the story. He had already made three discoveries in 
 nervous diseases which had made him well known in 
 his profession. But he smoked cigarettes, smoked in- 
 cessantly. For a long time the effects of the habit 
 were not apparent, in fact, it was not until a patient 
 died on the operating table under his hands, and the 
 young doctor went to pieces, that it became known that 
 he was a victim of the paper pipes. But then he had 
 gone too far. He was a wreck in mind as well as in 
 body, and ended his days in a maniac's cell. 
 
 Effect of Cigarette Smoking. 
 
 C" 'You smoke thirty cigarettes a day?' 
 
 C[ 'Yes, on the average.' 
 
 C 'You don't blame them for your run down con- 
 dition ? 
 
 C[ 'Not in the least. I blame my hard work.' 
 
 CTThe physician shook his head. He smiled in a 
 vexed way. Then he took a leech out of a glass jar.
 
 Efficiency 79 
 
 C 'Let me show you something,' he said. 'Bare 
 your arm. 
 
 cigarette smoker bared his pale arm, and 
 the doctor laid the lean, black leech upon it. The leech 
 fell to work busily. Its body began to swell. Then, all 
 of a sudden, a kind of shudder convulsed it, and it fell 
 to the floor dead. 
 
 Q 'That's what your blood did to that leech,' 
 said the physician. He took up the little corpse be- 
 tween his finger and thumb. 'Look at it,' he said. 
 'Quite dead, you see. You poisoned it.' 
 
 C 'I guess it wasn't a healthy leech in the first 
 place,' said the cigarette smoker, sullenly. 
 
 Cf 'Wasn't healthy, eh? Well, we'll try again.' 
 
 C[And the physician clapped two leeches on the 
 young man's thin arm. 
 
 Q ' If they both die, ' said the patient, ' I '11 swear 
 off or, at least, I'll cut down my daily allowance from 
 thirty to ten.' 
 
 CEven as he spoke the smaller leech shivered and 
 dropped on his knee dead, and a moment later the 
 larger one fell beside it. 
 
 (J 'This is ghastly,' said the young man; 'I am 
 worse than the pestilence to these leeches.' 
 
 C 'It is the empyreumatic oil in your blood,' said 
 the medical man. 'All cigarette smokers have it.' 
 
 C 'Doctor,' said the young man, regarding the 
 three dead leeches thoughtfully, 'I half believe you're 
 right.' "
 
 80 Salesmanship and Business Efficiency 
 
 University Records. 
 
 ,C{"It is said that within the past fifty years not 
 a student at Harvard University who used tobacco has 
 been graduated at the head of his class, although 
 on the average five out of six used tobacco. 
 
 Q"An investigation of all the students who en- 
 tered Yale University during nine years shows that 
 the cigarette smokers were the inferiors both in weight 
 and lung capacity of the non-smokers, although they 
 averaged fifteen months older. 
 
 C["Dr. Fiske of the Northwestern Academy has 
 asked all pupils who will not give up cigarettes to 
 leave the academy. In one year, not one of the boys 
 who used cigarettes stood in the front rank of scholar- 
 ship. 
 
 Q" 'This is our experience in teaching more than 
 fifty thousand young people,' says the principal of a 
 great Business College, ' cigarettes bring shattered 
 nerves, stunted growth, and general physical and men- 
 tal degeneration. We refuse to receive users of tobacco 
 into our institution.' 
 
 Q" Cigarette smoking is no longer simply a moral 
 question. The great business world has taken it up 
 as a deadly enemy of advancement and achievement. 
 Leading business firms all over the country have put 
 the cigarette on the prohibited list. In Detroit alone, 
 sixty-nine merchants have agreed not to employ the 
 cigarette user. In Chicago, Montgomery Ward & Com- 
 pany, Hibbard, Spencer, Bartlett & Company, and some 
 of the larger concerns have prohibited cigarette smoking 
 among all employes under eighteen years of age. Mar- 
 shall Field & Company, and the Morgan & Wright 
 Tire Company have this rule: 'No cigarettes can be
 
 Efficiency 81 
 
 smoked by our employes.' One of the questions in 
 the application blanks at Wanamaker's reads: 'Do you 
 use tobacco or cigarettes ? ' 
 
 C"The superintendent of the Lindell Street Rail- 
 way, of St. Louis, says: 'Under no circumstances will 
 I hire a man who smokes cigarettes. He is as dangerous 
 on the front of a motor as a man who drinks. In fact, 
 he is more dangerous; his nerves are apt to give way 
 at any moment. If I find a car running badly, I im- 
 mediately begin to investigate to find if the man smokes 
 cigarettes. Nine times out of ten he does, and then 
 he goes for good.' 
 
 C["E. H. Harriman, the late head of the Union 
 Pacific Railroad system says: 'We might as well go 
 to a lunatic asylum for our employes as to hire cigar- 
 ette smokers.' 
 
 <J"The New York, New Haven and Hartford, the 
 Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific, the Lehigh Valley, 
 the Burlington, and many others of the leading rail- 
 road companies of this country have issued orders posi- 
 tively forbidding the use of cigarettes by employes 
 while on duty. 
 
 C " If there is anything the youth should regard as 
 sacred and should preserve intact at all hazards, as 
 it affects his future more than anything else, it is his 
 will power, and this is affected very early in the 
 cigarette smoker, so that he finds himself a slave to 
 a practice which was once absolutely within his volition. 
 
 Q" Cigarette smoking early impairs the digestive 
 organs. It causes a gradual loss of appetite, and the 
 wretched victim substitutes more cigarettes for food. 
 In fact, he finally gets to a point where he becomes 
 such a slave to the cigarette that he cannot do with- 
 out it.
 
 82 Salesmanship and Business Efficiency 
 
 Q" Herein lies one of the greatest dangers of the 
 cigarette. It creates a longing which it cannot satisfy. 
 
 C"A physician in charge of a large sanatorium 
 in the West says that three-fifths of all the men who 
 come to the institution within a year, to be cured of 
 the opium, morphine, or cocaine habit, have been cigar- 
 ette smokers, and that sixty per cent, of these pleaded 
 as their only excuse, the need of a stronger stimu- 
 lant than the cigarette. 
 
 C[" Excessive cigarette smoking increases the 
 heart's action very materially, in some instances, twen- 
 ty-five or thirty beats a minute. Think of the enor- 
 mous amount of extra work forced upon this delicate or- 
 gan every twenty- four hours ! The pulsations are not only 
 greatly increased, but also, very materially weakened 
 so that the blood is not forced to every part of the 
 system, and hence the tissues are not nourished as 
 they would be by means of fewer but stronger, more 
 vigorous pulsations." 
 
 CWe are willing to give so much space to this 
 discussion of the cigarette, because no intelligent young 
 man wants to continue a habit that will jeop- 
 ardize his whole career. The young man who per- 
 sists in smoking the cigarette in the face of this violent 
 opposition of the greatest business men of the country, 
 is willing to commit business suicide rather than give 
 up the little "coffin nail." 
 
 C Health is the first requisite of success in this 
 strenuous age, and no man who is wise will do anything 
 to impair his health and therefore handicap himself. 
 Many cigarette smokers are not aware of the fact that 
 the cigarette is harmful, and they will welcome this 
 authoritative discussion. It isn't a question of opin- 
 ion, but a question of facts and the facts seem to be 
 against the cigarette.
 
 Efficiency 83 
 
 Suggestive Exercises 
 
 Write an essay of one hundred words showing 
 how you would increase your efficiency. 
 
 Write an essay of one hundred words on the value 
 of rendering good service.
 
 LESSON IV. 
 
 "fcTalue of tme 
 
 Shall we have clerks and order-takers, mere autom- 
 atons or live salesmen who can create business and 
 are expert advisers f 
 
 TEPPING into a large furniture store one 
 day to make a purchase and while waiting 
 for the change I asked an idle clerk, a man 
 about forty, the price of a handsome leather 
 chair. He looked it all over for the tag, 
 couldn't find it and said: "Bill, what is the 
 price of this chair?" Bill said, "You will find it 
 marked on the tag." He looked again, found the tag 
 and said, "Fifty-nine dollars." That is all he had 
 to say and he was a so-called salesman in one of the 
 finest furniture stores on this continent. 
 
 ;CLet us analyze this situation just a little. If 
 ;you were to ask this man I will not say salesman 
 to make a scientific study of salesmanship he would 
 likely tell you he did not believe in it. But this 
 same man spent several hours each day in that furni- 
 ture store doing absolutely nothing. When I came in- 
 to the store he and several others were sitting in the 
 corner talking. Instead of wasting his time that way 
 let us suppose he had been making a careful study of 
 every piece of furniture in his department. In that 
 ase he would have been within call when needed. Let 
 us suppose he had studied the price of every article 
 
 184]
 
 The Value of Time 85 
 
 in the room. Then suppose he had gone further and 
 found out where each article was manufactured, just 
 what material it was made of, what was the process 
 of manufacturing and everything which he could possi- 
 bly have found out about the manufacture of this 
 furniture. He would have had to write the factory 
 for some of this information. You may say all 
 this would have required some time, and work, and 
 study. The reason men get small salaries all their 
 lives is because they do not utilize their time in proper 
 study. And then when a crash comes they are out in 
 the street helpless. 
 
 QLet us suppose this man had gone still further 
 and made a study of the furniture in relation 
 to a color scheme, either in a home or office. Then 
 let us suppose he had gotten clear over on his cus- 
 tomer's side of the fence, on my side of the fence, and 
 taken a personal interest in me. He could have in- 
 duced me to sit in that large comfortable chair and 
 suggested the comfort I would get out of such a chair 
 at home in the evening; how easy it would be to 
 enjoy life and forget my cares while thus resting. 
 Or, if I desired to study, how delightful it would be to 
 sit in that chair. Why, I could think much better 
 thoughts. I could think out more ideas in one hour 
 while sitting in that chair than in two hours in any 
 other kind of a chair. Let us suppose he had used his 
 imagination and made me feel these things and led me 
 to believe I couldn't afford not to get it, and then had 
 told me what kind of leather the chair was made of, 
 how it was tanned and how durable it was and how long 
 it would last me but he didn't. He didn't even know 
 the price of the chair. This incident occurred in San 
 Francisco a few days before the earthquake. How 
 competent do you think Bill was to face the future
 
 86 Salesmanship and Business Efficiency 
 
 'while looking into the ashes of his employer's store? 
 It is any wonder someone has said, "Not one sales- 
 man in a hundred behind the counter is any good. ' ' 
 
 ( CWhat lesson does this teach us? It teaches us 
 that we must systematise our work and waste no time. 
 It is a business crime to be idle when we have work 
 to do. 
 
 Suggestive Written Exercises 
 
 Write one hundred words on the value of time.
 
 LESSON V. 
 
 p Zlmlptiiti 
 
 N beginning this study, you ask the ques- 
 tion a good many ask who say, "What is 
 there in this Science of Applied Salesman- 
 ship anyway?" An insurance man recent- 
 ly said to me, "There is absolutely noth- 
 ing to salesmanship but a knowledge of human 
 nature." He was partially right. But the average man 
 knows very little about human nature. The ability 
 to thoroughly understand human nature, to organize, 
 manipulate, and control it, is the most valuable knowl- 
 edge a doctor, lawyer, preacher, salesman or business 
 man can have. This knowledge cannot be gotten by 
 experience alone. It requires study. But a knowledge 
 of human nature alone will no more make a man a 
 successful salesman than it will make him a successful 
 lawyer. He must learn how to sell, just as he must 
 learn how to practice law. 
 
 What Is Salesmanship? 
 
 C Salesmanship is the power to convince. Sales- 
 manship is the power, or ability to influence people 
 to buy at a mutual profit that which we hare to sell, 
 but that ivhich they may not have thought of buying 
 until we called their attention to it. 
 
 [87]
 
 88 Salesmanship and Business Efficiency 
 
 ,C[This definition brings out an idea which joins 
 honesty and business in an indissoluble union. I have 
 reference to the mutual profit idea. Profit means 
 mutual benefit. Success in business is based upon this 
 idea. The old business philosophy as practiced by 
 many and as practiced by some to-day, had as its cardi- 
 nal principle: "Do the other fellow and do him first 
 and do him just as long as he will stand for it." 
 Morally, this idea is wrong. In practice it leads not 
 only to failure but to human degradation. 
 
 CIn order to make my meaning clearer, I will 
 illustrate: If I make a sale and make all the profit, 
 I am not a salesman, I am a robber. On the other 
 hand, if I make a sale and you, or the party of the 
 second part, make all the profit, I am still not a 
 salesman. I am either a philanthropist, an adver- 
 tiser or a fool. A sale must be made at a profit, 
 or it is not a sale, but a service. On the other hand, 
 the sale must benefit the one who buys or it is tak- 
 ing money without rendering an equivalent, and this 
 is robbery, even if sanctioned by law. 
 
 QThis idea of mutual benefit goes even deeper; 
 its tap root is embedded in the very heart of brother- 
 ly love. It is in harmony with the highest develop- 
 ment of the individual and of humanity. Its outward 
 manifestation is found in human service. The highest 
 type of service is shown in man's desire to benefit and 
 help his fellows. It has therefore come to be a truism 
 that the man who gives the best service makes the 
 most profit. In other words, "The man who serves 
 best, profits most." This is as true of the professions 
 as of business. The highest appreciation as well as the 
 most profit should be given to the man who serves the 
 public best.
 
 Salesmanship Analysis 89 
 
 Salesmanship is the Ability to Manipulate 
 the Other Man's Mind. 
 
 C[My next definition brings out a different idea. 
 The definition follows: Salesmanship is the ability to 
 so manipulate the other man's mind as to make him 
 think as you think, feel as you feel and act as you 
 would like to have him act. This definition indicates 
 that the salesman has a training in logic, psychology 
 and expression, otherwise he would not be able to ma- 
 nipulate the other man's mind. It also indicates that 
 the salesman is the party of the first part, and that 
 the individual or group he is talking to is the party 
 of the second part. This is true whether the party 
 of the first part is a clerk behind the counter, a 
 salesman on the road, a lawyer before a jury, a 
 Governor of a State or a President of the United 
 States, seeking an election. Don't you see that in 
 each case the party of the first part is doing the same 
 identical thing? He is trying to convince and induce 
 action in his behalf. 
 
 The Ability to Influence, the Secret 
 of Success. 
 
 CWe now discover that the ability to influence 
 is the secret of success, and that every man and woman 
 in the country is a salesman, as every individual has 
 to use salesmanship in selling his services. The prin- 
 ciples of salesmanship are operating in every trans- 
 action wherever it is necessary for one individual to 
 influence another. 
 
 Salesmanship a Battle of Organized 
 Knowledge. 
 
 QThe next definition broadens our vision still 
 more. It is this: Salesmanship is a battle of organ-
 
 90 Salesmanship and Business Efficiency 
 
 ized knowledge against unorganized ignorance. Let me 
 illustrate: I was very much interested one time in 
 "The Horse Fair" by Rosa Bonheur in the Vander- 
 bilt Art Gallery in New York City. These beautiful 
 horses with champing bits and flowing manes were 
 just as clear in the mind's eye of the artist before the 
 picture was painted as they are to the human eye 
 now. And why? Her art was organized in her own 
 mind; all she had to do was to transfer the picture 
 from her mind to the canvas. The doing of that is 
 what we call art. The salesman must have his own 
 knowledge as thoroughly organized as the artist. He 
 must then be as able to transfer the picture from his 
 own mind to the mind of his would-be customer as 
 the artist is able to transfer the picture from his mind 
 to his canvas. 
 
 QThe last definition is more complete and more 
 scientific. It includes both the man side and the 
 material side of the subject. It shows that man must 
 develop his positive qualities in order to be able to 
 lead and influence to a maximum degree. The defi- 
 nition is as follows: Salesmanship is that power or 
 ability which is the product of the development of 
 certain positive qualities and faculties, and which en- 
 ables its possessor to influence and convince a large 
 per cent, of those whom he solicits to buy at a mutual 
 profit that which he has to sell, but that which they 
 may not have thought of buying until he called their 
 attention to it. This definition includes so much that 
 it will take several lessons to really make its meaning 
 clear. The power to influence and convince people is 
 not only the result of the development of certain posi- 
 tive qualities and faculties in the salesman, but it 
 is the result of a great deal of knowledge, not only 
 in regard to the article to be sold, but a knowledge
 
 Salesmanship Analysis 91 
 
 of commercial conditions in general. The direct re- 
 sult of the development of these brain forces is char- 
 acter; a real positive, aggressive, magnetic and dynam- 
 ic character. The direct result of character is the power 
 or ability to influence. 
 
 The Study of Salesmanship Fascinating 
 as Well as Practical. 
 
 C[The study of this definition leads us immediate- 
 ly to analyze salesmanship. In making a sale there are 
 four factors to take into consideration, viz: 
 
 QThe Salesman, the Prospective Cus- 
 tomer, the Article to be Sold, and the Sale 
 Itself. 
 
 QWe must analyze these four factors. In analyz- 
 ing the salesman we divide him into three parts, viz: 
 the physical, the mental and the spiritual. 
 
 CNo man can expect to make much of a success 
 who has not good health. The body is the dwelling 
 place of the mind. A strong mind is not possible 
 without a strong body. The salesman, whether behind 
 the counter or on the road, who moves about with vim 
 and vigor, whose eye flashes and whose every motion 
 denotes energy, who walks with head erect and shoul- 
 ders thrown back, inspires confidence and courage and 
 can get business where the weak man fails. 
 
 C[In analyzing the mind we find that in reality there 
 are two minds, the objective or reasoning mind the 
 mind which makes use of the five senses and the sub- 
 jective mind. The subjective mind is the seat of the 
 emotions and the finer sensibilities. It is the abiding 
 place of the soul. The subjective mind can only rea- 
 son deductively, while the objective mind reasons both 
 inductively and deductively. The subjective mind is
 
 92 Salesmanship and Business Efficiency 
 
 the seat of love, joy, patriotism, religion, ambition, 
 intuition and many of those qualities which mean most 
 to the salesman. Too many salesmen state their 
 proposition to the objective mind alone. Their argu- 
 ment is directed solely to the head when, if they only 
 knew it, their appeal to the heart would be far more 
 effective. A salesman should state his proposition in 
 such a way as to appeal to the reason. But his solar- 
 plexus blow, his real appeal, is made to the heart. 
 
 C Suggestion is, in my mind, one of the most 
 powerful factors in salesmanship. It is a marvelous 
 power and that power is exercised through the sub- 
 jective mind, the mind that never sleeps. "We cannot 
 devote space in this lesson to discuss suggestion and 
 auto suggestion so they will be taken up in a later 
 lesson. The man who understands this great power 
 of suggestion can not only double his income but his 
 influence. A suggestion is made to the objective mind; 
 the objective mind conveys it to the subjective mind, 
 and the subjective mind tends to produce action. You 
 may make a proposition to a man to-day and it will 
 have no effect upon him. The suggestion is lodged in 
 his subjective mind. He cannot shake it off. To-night 
 while his objective minds sleeps the subjective mind 
 considers the suggestion. To-morrow he has changed 
 his mind and comes around to your way of thinking 
 because he could not help himself. But the salesman 
 must understand suggestion and understand just how 
 to properly give this suggestion, if it is to have the 
 proper effect. 
 
 Salesmanship Covers a Vast Field. 
 
 QThis subject of salesmanship is such a broad 
 one that it is impossible to do more in this lesson 
 than touch some of its many and varied phases. Sales-
 
 Salesmanship Analysis 93 
 
 manship not only covers the work done by the man 
 behind the counter, or the one who goes from door to 
 door, or from office to office; but it enters into all the 
 activities of the selling end of business. It does more 
 than that; its roots permeate every avenue of the 
 factory and go clear back and are deeply imbedded in 
 the subsoil of the producer. 
 
 C Advertising is one form of salesmanship. It 
 is salesmanship by the literary method. The princi- 
 ples which hold good in salesmanship are also funda- 
 mental in advertising. Business-getting letters are 
 purely salesmanship by another form. Strange as it 
 may be, many salesmen who seem to understand how 
 to arouse the interest in a personal interview forget, 
 when writing a letter, to use the same method. The 
 man who has mastered the science of selling by per- 
 sonal contact, by letter writing and by advertising, 
 wields a power that few possess. 
 
 C[ Knowledge is the basis for all action. The 
 man who acts does so because he knows and feels. 
 Action is always the result of knowledge. Enthusiasm 
 is the direct result of intelligence. An individual must 
 know in order to do. So let us dig down a little 
 deeper and consider four more factors. These four 
 factors are so broad that they cover the whole field 
 of business activity. They are as follows: The pro- 
 ducer, the manufacturer, the trader or salesman, and 
 the consumer. 
 
 QThe producer may be a Chinaman who produces 
 silk from the worm. He may be a Southern cotton 
 raiser who produces the raw cotton. In either case, his 
 raw product is sold to the local dealer, from him it 
 goes on to the larger dealer and from there to the 
 factory. From the factory it goes to the (jobber or
 
 94 Salesmanship and Business Efficiency 
 
 wholesaler, from him to the retailer, and from the re- 
 tailer to the consumer. 
 
 C[The merchant and salesman of the future will 
 understand, as far as possible, every process through 
 which this material goes from the time it leaves the 
 producer until it is sold finally to the consumer. The 
 salesman and when I say salesman let it be under- 
 stood that I consider every man who has handled these 
 goods a salesman, from the producer who sold them 
 first, to the retailer who finally sold them to the con- 
 sumer the salesman who understands all these pro- 
 cesses together with the processes of manufacture, as 
 far as it is possible for him to learn them, knows what 
 he is talking about. When he is selling a suit of 
 clothes, he will know just what they are made of and 
 something about the weave formation. He will be able 
 to give the customer expert advice in regard to them. 
 He will be able to give him the reasons why. His aim 
 will be not only to satisfy the customer then, but to 
 have that satisfaction continue until the goods are 
 worn out, so that the customer will return again for 
 another suit. 
 
 C[Let us remember that no salesman can be en- 
 thusiastic over selling anything unless he thoroughly 
 understands it. The salesman who knows and is en- 
 thusiastic, other things being equal, is the one who 
 gets the results. Let us suppose our salesperson is 
 selling lace. This point was brought up in one of 
 our classes in San Francisco by the head of a de- 
 partment in a large store, who was one of our students. 
 He wanted to know what good it would do for the 
 saleswoman to know where the lace was made or how it 
 was made. He said she might have three different 
 kinds of lace before her when the customer came in. 
 The customer didn't know the difference between lace
 
 Salesmanship Analysis 95 
 
 manufactured in Zion City, in England, or in any other 
 part of the world and neither did the saleswoman, and 
 he didn't see why she needed to know. The reply to 
 that question is very simple. The aim of the sales- 
 person should be to act as an expert adviser to his or 
 her customer. How can the salesman be an expert 
 adviser if he doesn't know? Furthermore, how can he 
 have any interest in the article, or any enthusiasm 
 in making the sale if he doesn't know? This same 
 principle holds good no matter what you are selling. 
 It is fundamental. Just stop a moment, my reader, 
 and apply this test to the work you are doing and see 
 how nicely it will fit. Once we learn the fundamental 
 principles of salesmanship and learn how to apply 
 them, we are in a fair way to master this great Science 
 of Distribution. 
 
 CIn studying this great subject we take excur- 
 sions into nearly all the fields of learning and of life. 
 We must make a scientific study of man, and a scien- 
 tific study of selling, and a scientific study of the 
 goods, so you see this study of salesmanship is not 
 only broad and deep but very interesting. In study- 
 ing the individual we are led into making a scientific 
 study of human nature. "We are obliged to call to 
 our aid the principles of logic, of psychology, of phil- 
 osophy and of ethics. 
 
 First Principles in Selling. 
 
 QMany salesmen have never thought there was 
 such a thing as a psychology of selling, a series of 
 mental processes through which the mind of their cus- 
 tomer must be taken before the sale was consum- 
 mated. I have asked many of them, and some who 
 were college graduates, how they make a sale and they 
 said they didn 't know they just made it if they could.
 
 96 Salesmanship and Business Efficiency 
 
 If I were to ask a physician what he would do in 
 treating a case of diphtheria he would soon tell me. 
 If I were to ask a lawyer what kind of a brief he would 
 make out in preparing to defend a man accused of 
 murder, he could easily tell me as soon as he had all 
 the facts in the case. If I were to ask a famous pianist 
 how he became noted he would tell me he first made 
 a study of the underlying principles of music, of har- 
 mony and when that was done he practiced. But when 
 a salesman is asked how he makes a sale he says he 
 just makes it if he can. 
 
 The Seven Mental Processes. 
 
 QHere are the seven mental processes though 
 which the mind of the prospective customer must be 
 taken before the sale is made: 
 
 C[ First, He must be met; the introduction 
 is the first step. 
 
 C[ Second, His attention must be attracted toward 
 the article to be sold. To do this the salesman must be 
 able to create an immediate favorable mental sensation 
 in the Prospective Customer's mind. The reason many 
 salesmen do not get a hearing is because they are un- 
 able to create this favorable mental sensation im- 
 mediately. 
 
 C Third, The salesman must arouse the Pros- 
 pective Customer's interest. 
 
 C Fourth, He must convince him that it is to 
 his advantage. 
 
 fl[ Fifth, He must create his desire for it. 
 
 C[ Sixth, He must make his prospective customer 
 resolve to get it. 
 
 C[ Seventh, And most important, he must know 
 how to close the order.
 
 Salesmanship Analysis 97 
 
 (TMany salesmen succeed in doing six-sevenths 
 of the work very well but fail on the last seventh. 
 
 CEach one of these processes is separate and dis- 
 tinct. The man who does not understand them and 
 understand just how to carry his customer through 
 each step is simply working at random. Remember 
 that to fail in handling one step is to fail in all of 
 them. You may do everything but fail to produce 
 an absolute conviction as to the value of the product, 
 and that one little failure will cost you the sale. Re- 
 member that no chain is stronger than its weakest 
 link; and remember that all the mental processes are 
 no stronger than the weakest one. In other words, 
 your ability to handle all the mental processes is no 
 stronger than your ability to handle the one you 
 are least able to handle. No mental process is stronger 
 than its weakest mental link. Faliure, therefore, may 
 be the result of a little weakness. BEWARE OF 
 THAT LITTLE WEAKNESS! 
 
 Get on Customer's Side of Fence. 
 
 C While these processes will be discussed fully 
 in future lessons, we wish to call attention to one 
 or two interesting features here. The first thing for 
 a salesman to do is to get over on the customer's side 
 of the fence. This is very vital. Your prospective 
 customer doesn't care one cent for you or for what 
 you have to sell until you can show him that you have 
 something that will benefit him. Your customer is 
 not working himself gray-headed for his health. He 
 is doing it for what there is in it, for money to sup- 
 port himself, or himself and family. The first state- 
 ment you make to this man must be a statement which 
 you know will interest him. That statement won't 
 be about yourself and it won't be about your goods.
 
 98 Salesmanship and Business Efficiency 
 
 The patent medicine ad is a good illustration of this. 
 It just makes a man feel sure he has consumption. 
 When it has done that the poor victim will ask for 
 a remedy. If you can prove to a man that a certain 
 proposition will enable him to earn a good per cent, 
 on his investment he will ask you what it is and where 
 he can get it. If you first try to sell him such an 
 invention he will laugh at you. You must first create 
 his desire for what you have to sell before you begin 
 your appeal. 
 
 C0nly a few salesmen have the right concep- 
 tion of just how to become salesmen. No man can 
 become a great artist, a great musician or a great 
 orator who works contrary to the laws of nature. 
 Trained men have studied the action of the human 
 mind for centuries and they have worked out what 
 is called psychology, which ie a study of mind, a study 
 of the mental processes. Every salesman should make 
 a study of psychology because he is succeeding only 
 as he is working in harmony with the laws of the 
 human mind. He may break a good many of those 
 laws and still make a fair success, but if he disregards 
 too many of them he will end in failure and the worst 
 of it is he doesn't know why. "The Science of Ap- 
 plied Salesmanship" applies the principles of logic 
 and psychology in making every conceivable kind of 
 a sale, but it does vastly more than that. Our aim has 
 been to teach the student the fundamental principles 
 of salesmanship and psychology so that he would al- 
 ways know how to so organize his own mind that he 
 might work in harmony with and take advantage of 
 nature's laws as they govern the human mind. 
 
 CMy teacher of oratory, who is himself a bril- 
 liant orator and lecturer, told me once that no lec- 
 turer could prepare a good lecture in less than two
 
 Salesmanship Analysis 99 
 
 years a lecture that would stand the test and win 
 popular favor. A lecture is after all simply a selling 
 talk that produces results. If a lecturer must spend 
 in the neighborhood of two years preparing his sell- 
 ing talk before the public will accept it, and pay him 
 from fifty to a hundred dollars a night for it, how ir 
 the world do you expect to win maximum success as 
 a salesman after spending but a few days at best on 
 your argument? 
 
 Arguments Scientifically Prepared 
 Get Business. 
 
 CThe first thing you must do is to prepare your 
 material. When you have that done you must analyze; 
 it and organize it. You must remember that your cus- 
 tomer's mind is a blank to your proposition. If you 
 would create a perfectly clear picture in the mind of 
 your customer, that picture must first stand out clearly 
 and distinctly in your own mind. If the picture of the 
 sale you wish to make is in a hodge-podge, unanalyzed 
 condition in your own mind, your prospective cus- 
 tomer will get a muddy, hodge-podge idea of it and, of 
 course, you will neither create his desire nor arouse 
 his conviction. 
 
 C[ There is a good and a best way to present 
 every argument. You can't expect to sell many goods 
 until you have built up such a logical selling talk and 
 know how to present it in such an earnest, enthus- 
 iastic manner as to thoroughly convince your 
 prospective customer as you go along. Before you 
 approach your customer you must have your argu- 
 ments so logically arranged that they stand out as 
 clear as crystal in your own mind. If an objection 1 
 comes up it should be disposed of at once, but the
 
 100 Salesmanship and Business Efficiency 
 
 talk should be so clear and convincing as to antici- 
 pate and answer any possible objection before it is 
 made. 
 
 QOne great value of committing a selling talk to 
 memory lies in the fact that such an argument is sup- 
 posed to be the best argument, one that is getting 
 the best results, and an argument which is logical de- 
 velops a logical mind in the one who commits it and 
 uses it. No man can, or should, expect great success 
 as a salesman until he so learns the laws of the human 
 mind, the great principles of logic and psychology, that 
 he can prepare and present a logical argument him- 
 .self, and know just what kind of an argument is need- 
 ed in order to produce conviction. A good salesman, 
 a good talker, must first be a clear thinker. Remem- 
 ber always that your customer's mind is a blank. 
 Think of yourself as an artist. Remember that an 
 artist sees the completed picture in his mind's eye, 
 liis imagination, before he begins to paint. He 
 sketches the outline first and then begins to fill it in. 
 If he daubed on the paint promiscuously he would 
 spoil the picture; a little touch here and a red line 
 there puts life and reality into the picture and soon 
 it stands out as plain and natural to the onlooker as 
 it first appeared to the painter. The aim of the sales- 
 man should be to paint his picture on the human mind 
 with the skill of the artist; every argument should 
 come in the right place. The salesman should not 
 present his strongest points first as that might excite 
 suspicion. He should work up to a final climax. 
 
 C[The student should study this course in the 
 same way. He should become thoroughly grounded 
 in the basic principles first, in order to thoroughly 
 understand and appreciate the framework later on.
 
 Salesmanship Analysis 101 
 
 (TNo salesman can become a good talker until 
 he first becomes a clear and logical thinker. He must 
 know his goods, he must have his knowledge analyzed 
 and know how to present it simply, clearly and logic- 
 ally. He cannot do this unless he develops a logical 
 mind and becomes a clear thinker. With this as a 
 basis he can, with the aid of trained expression, be- 
 come a great salesman. 
 
 iCThe schools and churches, and places of public 
 entertainment might close for one month and there 
 would be little suffering, but let the salesmen of the 
 world all go on a strike for one month and the in- 
 dustries of the whole round world would be paralyzed. 
 The salesman supplies the necessities of life ; he is one* 
 of the world's greatest civilizers and educators. 
 
 A Group of Suggestive Paragraphs. 
 
 CTThe salesman convinces the customer when he 
 makes him see the situation as he sees it; just as the 
 lawyer convinces the jury when he makes them see 
 the crime as he sees it. Merely pounding away at a 
 man will not convince him. To convince a man you 
 must make him believe what you believe. To do this 
 you must give him the same evidence which compelled 
 your conviction. 
 
 QCan you so express your thought that your 
 customer will see the same mental picture you see and 
 feel the same conviction you feel? We convert men 
 to believe as we believe, not by urging them but by giv- 
 ing them the evidence, the reasons, in such vivid lan- 
 guage, so logically arranged, so skillfully organized 
 and grouped and with so much burning enthusiasm 
 that they appeal to the imagination, the mind's eye, 
 as vividly as a work of art appeals to the human eye.
 
 102 Salesmanship and Business Efficiency 
 
 on't try to get the order until you have your 
 prospective purchaser convinced. Thousands of orders 
 are lost by so doing. If you do by chance get his order 
 before he is thoroughly convinced, he may back out 
 later. When a man is under the power of conviction he 
 is bound to act. Convince him. 
 
 QWhen trying to sell an individual goods never 
 make a negative suggestion to him. Untold thousands 
 of dollars' worth of sales are lost in this way. If you 
 are showing him hats and think you might sell him a 
 panama don't say, "I don't suppose you would want a 
 panama?" How do you expect to sell a panama if 
 you suggest to him that he doesn't want it? Instead 
 you might say, "I have some handsome panama hats 
 here that I consider very fine." 
 
 Q Don't say to a person when showing an arti- 
 cle, "That doesn't look bad." It would be better to 
 say, "That looks very fine." When you think he has 
 bought all he desires don't say, "Now will that be all?" 
 This is a suggestion that it is all he wants. It is bet- 
 ter to say, "Now what else?" or, "Isn't there something 
 else you would like?" This last induces the mind of 
 the customer to think of what else he might want. Al- 
 ways ask the question in a positive manner. 
 
 CT Many insurance men are bores, not because they 
 do not understand insurance but because they do not 
 understand the human mind. They continually say, 
 "Take some insurance; you ought to have some insur- 
 ance." They might just as well go out and bay 
 at the moon. They don't seem to realize that the pros- 
 pect's mind is an absolute blank as far as insurance is 
 concerned; just as much a blank as a painter's canvas 
 before the painter applies the brush. The insurance 
 man must learn how to sketch the picture of insurance 
 on the blank mind of his customer with as much skill
 
 Salesmanship Analysis 103 
 
 as the artist uses on his canvas. He paints in vivid and 
 brilliant colors the customer's duties to his wife and 
 family. He draws in brilliant lines the value of his 
 particular policy. Stroke by stroke he fills in the pic- 
 ture until finally his prospect sees the need for insur- 
 ance just as clearly as the salesman. Conviction has 
 been produced and the policy is issued. 
 
 Q Imagination is the image-making power of the 
 human mind. Imagination is the seat of constructive- 
 ness. Our great railroads and steamships and factories 
 and corporations and inventions were at one time sim- 
 ply air castles of the imagination. The man who builds 
 no air castles, who dreams no dreams, who sees no 
 great possibilities for himself in the future, who does 
 not think of himself as one of the leaders in some great 
 enterprise in the future, will in all probability never be 
 a leader. Columbus discovered a new world by using 
 his imagination. The student who reads and studies 
 these lessons should feel hourly and daily that this Sci- 
 ence of Applied Salesmanship will enable him to ascend 
 the ladder which leads to great success. He should 
 daily suggest to himself that he can and will become a 
 great business man, and a great leader. If he does this 
 he will see himself day by day growing into the image 
 which his imagination created. 
 
 C[ Imagination, Will, Eeason and Judgment are 
 primal faculties of the human brain and can be devel- 
 oped by proper use. Of all the faculties of the human 
 mind the "Will" means most to the salesman. The 
 man of aggressive determination can compel himself 
 to do whatever he desires to do. There is the aggressive 
 will, the punctual will, the conquering will, the dogged, 
 persistent will, the assent-compelling will, and the tact- 
 ful or diplomatic will which enables one to adjust him-
 
 104 Salesmanship and Business Efficiency 
 
 self to another, who may be distasteful to him, for the 
 other's pleasure and their mutual profit. 
 
 CThe traveling salesman of the future must not 
 only know his goods and how to sell them, his custom- 
 ers and how to convince them, but he must be a travel- 
 ing educator in addition. Our salesman must know 
 how to teach the merchant the best methods of selling 
 goods. In this way the merchant will sell more goods, 
 the salesman will sell more goods, the house will sell 
 more goods and they will all profit by it. The salesman 
 who knows how and acts upon this suggestion will find 
 competition dwindling to the diminishing point. Who 
 wants to quit dealing with a salesman who has business- 
 getting ideas to offer free of charge ? 
 
 C[The greatest salesman is the one who is learn- 
 ing all the time and thinking all the time, continually 
 digging deeper into his subject for better ideas and bet- 
 ter arguments. The cry of the hour is for a broader 
 knowledge and more thoroughness. 
 
 ,01 The ability to use the English language well is 
 one of the great objects of a true education. A sales- 
 man should continually study to improve his English, 
 and his method of expression. He should strive to in- 
 crease his vocabulary. Nothing so marks the man of 
 good education as his ability to use good English and 
 give good expression to it. 
 
 C[ Inability to close an order to-day now is the 
 millstone around the neck of nearly every salesman. 
 Men and women refuse to decide to-day they want to 
 put it off. After making your plea and coming up to 
 the order point you may be met by this common objec- 
 tion : ' ' "Well, I will think it over and let you know in 
 a few days." The salesman who can produce convic- 
 tion and compel decision immediately is earning a large
 
 Salesmanship Analysis 105 
 
 salary. The following line of argument is very effective 
 in meeting this objection : 
 
 QI appreciate your desire to give the mat- 
 ter further thought, but you are really better 
 prepared to make a decision to-day than you 
 will be in a week from now. You see we have 
 talked over every point carefully. The points 
 are clearer in your mind now than they wUl 
 be later. Your good judgment tells you that 
 to decide NOW is the wise thing to do. It 
 may take a little courage on your part to do 
 it. You know it is the easiest thing in the 
 world to put off making a decision. But you 
 
 will agree with me, Mr. , that one of the 
 
 strongest characteristics of successful men is 
 their ability to decide and act after once de- 
 ciding that it is the wise thing to do; and that 
 is just what you are going to do. Your judg- 
 ment and intelligence tell you this is the thing 
 you ought to do; your feelings and best in- 
 terests make you realize it. It is only neces- 
 sary now for your will to act and that 
 can be done by putting your name on this line 
 right here. 
 
 QThe best way to defeat competition is not to 
 talk about it. Do all your talking about your own 
 proposition. Remember that every knock is a boost. 
 I believe in elimination by substitution. Eliminate 
 the other fellow's proposition by putting up one which 
 is so much better that your prospective customer will 
 forget all about what the other salesman said. 
 
 ,C Watch every minute in the day as carefully 
 as if it were actual money. You would have a man
 
 106 Salesmanship and Business Efficiency 
 
 arrested who deliberately stole your money but how 
 often do you permit your friends to steal your time, 
 and how often do you permit yourself to idle away an 
 hour without accomplishing anything. 
 
 C Remember that good appearance, good person- 
 ality, aggressiveness, enthusiasm, earnestness, sincerity, 
 and hard work will work wonders. 
 
 ,C[ Cheerfulness, courtesy, and tact are the lubri- 
 cators of business. Cultivate a smile and a cheerful 
 countenance. It pays. 
 
 ,0^1 care not whether you have much or little 
 talent for selling goods, the only way you will ever 
 make a great success as a salesman is to carefully 
 and assiduously study the science and art of sales- 
 manship and put into practice at the first opportunity 
 the new ideas you have learned. Thousands of sales- 
 men cannot originate first-class business-getting ideas 
 but they can use to great advantage ideas which have 
 been originated by others. One aim of this course is 
 to furnish salesmen with some of the best selling argu- 
 ments ever originated, but another and larger aim is 
 to teach salesmen how to originate and how to use 
 first-class business-getting arguments of their own. 
 
 iQMen in this day and age haven't time to hear 
 long arguments and long debates. Boil down what you 
 have to say. Remember that ideas sell goods always, 
 but long drawn-out words never do. Be brief and to 
 the point. Try your best to make your sale at the first 
 interview. First sell the article to yourself. Be- 
 lieve in it. Believe in your company and believe in 
 yourself. Be full of conviction, then you will saturate 
 your argument with conviction. Determine always to 
 make the sale now. Let your mental attitude be one 
 of positive conviction.
 
 Salesmanship Analysis 107 
 
 ,( Lincoln took up the study of geometry when in 
 the midst of a busy life in order that he might be 
 more logical in answering the arguments of his 
 adversaries. If the study of salesmanship ever 
 appears dry to you remember the value which the 
 great Lincoln derived from studying a subject as dry 
 as geometry. Our success is largely ioi proportion to 
 the efforts we put forth. By putting forth great ef- 
 forts we will accomplish great results. 
 
 C There is a science of salesmanship and there 
 is an art of salesmanship. They are both vital, es- 
 sential, and distinctly separate from one another. 
 Science, according to Herbert Spencer, means "Organ- 
 ized knowledge." Science as it relates to salesman- 
 ship means the organization, correlating, and system- 
 atizing of the principles of salesmanship which have 
 stood the test of reason and experience. Art consists 
 in doing. As it relates to salesmanship, art is the 
 application, or making such use of the scientific prin- 
 ciples of salesmanship as to gain the largest measure 
 of success, or make the highest possible percentage of 
 sales to those solicited. 
 
 G[ Every successful salesman, whether consciously 
 or unconsciously, uses some of the scientific principles 
 of salesmanship, but not being understood they are 
 used at random and the results are uncertain. A clear 
 understanding of the science of salesmanship, and the 
 best methods of applying that knowledge produces dou- 
 ble the results with half the effort. 
 
 ,CIn this lesson we have stated some of the funda- 
 mental principles of salesmanship, but the corner- 
 stone upon which this beautiful super-structure must 
 rest is character. The finest trained mind in all the 
 world is simply a mockery if it is not builded on the solid 
 rock of character. Of what value is a brilliant intel-
 
 108 Salesmanship and Business Efficiency 
 
 lect, a great fortune, and national fame, if the guilt 
 of grafting drives its owner to a premature grave? 
 Such a life is worse than wasted. When young men 
 learn that trickery, crooked dealing and graft are in 
 every case absolutely suicidal, and that true and last- 
 ing success never has and never will be builded on 
 anything less than absolute old-fashioned honesty, they 
 have taken the first step toward a successful and self- 
 satisfying career.
 
 Salesmanship Analysis 109 
 
 Suggestive Exercises 
 
 1. How should a clerk best occupy his idle time 
 in a store f 
 
 2. What do you expect to gain from this study f 
 
 3. What is salesmanship? 
 
 4. How many factors enter into the making of 
 a sale? 
 
 5. What have you to say about health as it re- 
 lates to success in business? 
 
 6. What do you believe the study of this subject 
 will do for you? 
 
 7. In making an exhaustive study of business, 
 what four classes of business men do we discover? 
 
 8. What can you say about selling goods which 
 the salesman knows nothing about? 
 
 9. Why should a salesman work in accordance 
 with the laws of the human mind? 
 
 10. What can you say about holding the picture 
 of the sale in your own mind? 
 
 11. Why should a salesman commit a selling talk 
 to memory? 
 
 12. What is the difference between science and 
 art? 
 
 13. Write a fifty word essay on how you would 
 introduce yourself and apply for a position.
 
 LESSON VI. 
 
 jfflental 
 
 GREAT thinker has said, "The greatest of 
 all industries is the making of men, to 
 strengthen, ennoble, and render mighty the 
 race of human intelligence. The rational 
 mode of procedure must depend upon a 
 knowledge of the faculties of the mind and the most 
 effective condition for their employment." To do this 
 we must study and think. Theodore Roosevelt said 
 in one of his foreign lectures, "Now I am fifty years 
 old, and if I had stopped learning, if I felt now that I 
 had stopped learning, had stopped trying to better my- 
 self, I feel that my usefulness to the community would 
 be pretty nearly at an end." 
 
 ,CWe see it is absolutely necessary to study and 
 keep up with the times as well as down to earth. You 
 cannot afford to worship your ideas and methods be- 
 cause they are good. The fact that they were good 
 yesterday, and are good to-day does not mean that 
 they will be practical and most successful five years 
 from now. Business conditions and business methods 
 have undergone a great change in the last ten years. 
 Conditions in this country are changing so rapidly that 
 business methods will be revolutionized during the 
 next ten years. Only those who have sufficient cour- 
 
 [110]
 
 Mental Analysis 111 
 
 age and foresight will be successful. The others will fall 
 by the wayside. Some of the greatest selling organiza- 
 tions of the country have almost entirely changed their 
 methods during the last five years. They have been 
 successful because they changed in order to meet chang- 
 ing conditions. Others clung tenaciously to the old 
 methods, believing they could be applied to the new 
 conditions. They failed before they realized what was 
 wrong. 
 
 QMan is the foundation of all business success. 
 If he is built right and works rights he is bound to 
 be successful. 
 
 ,Q[I am going to so analyze man that you can 
 readily tell how to analyze yourself, eliminate your 
 weaknesses and develop your strong points. 
 
 C0ne of our great thinkers has given us this 
 analysis. He says, "By means of the intellect we know, 
 by means of the sensibilities we feel, and by means of 
 the will we choose; and in their co-operative action 
 there is the movement and experience of man's mental 
 life." One of the objects of this course is (1) the 
 development of a keen analytical intellect as a result 
 of a study of knowledge that is organized, tested, 
 practical and successful. (2) The ability to appeal 
 to people and persuade them through an analytical 
 knowledge of the emotions or sensibilities. (3) The 
 ability to choose and decide and induce other people 
 to do the same at our suggestion, as a result of a de- 
 veloped will that makes a man a commanding leader 
 in the affairs of life. 
 
 Q These three are the great mental trinity. As 
 a result of their proper development and use, man can 
 transform himself from a weakling into a brilliant, 
 capable leader. Dare to let this thought grip your 
 life. Use it as a leverage to place yourself in the posi-
 
 112 Salesmanship and Business Efficiency 
 
 tion which you know in your own heart you are capa- 
 ble of filling. Remember, "No being can be great with- 
 out making himself great. He is, therefore, forced to 
 depend upon his own resources so that there may be a 
 continuous development of his powers." 
 
 :CIn order that I may help you to get a clearer 
 idea of the three great mental factors, the intellect, 
 the sensibilities, and the will, I have prepared the 
 following chart for you. It shows the proportionate 
 development of the three great mental factors in the 
 various types of people. It is understood that will 
 means both choice and action, as it requires will to 
 choose, decide and act. 
 
 C[ Analyze yourself in accordance with this chart 
 and determine to which of "the seven types you belong. 
 Determine which type you will strive to belong to. De- 
 termine which brain force now dominates you, and 
 where you are deficient. "When you find out where 
 you are weak, do everything in your power to over- 
 come it. 
 
 QFrom the mental types indicated you realize 
 that a man may have a splendid intellect but still be 
 a failure because he hasn't developed leadership. He 
 does not take the initiative because his will is not de- 
 veloped. Every man who has ever spent four years 
 in a college or university will tell you about some of 
 the brightest students in school, young men who were 
 brilliant students of Latin, Greek or mathematics, 
 young men whom the student body thought had great 
 careers ahead of them, but who later on were found 
 raising a few chickens, doing carpenter work or some- 
 thing similar. And why? Simply because they had 
 only developed their intellects. They had done noth- 
 ing toward developing their wills. A man without a 
 will is about as helpless as a ship without a rudder.
 
 Intellect, Sensibilities and Will as Found in Different Indi- 
 viduals. Choice and Action Are a Part of Will. 
 
 Thought Emotion Will 
 
 
 
 mr 
 
 Thought Emotion 
 
 Will 
 
 Thought 
 
 Emotion Will 
 
 Thought 
 
 Emotion 
 
 Will 
 
 Thought Emotion Will 
 
 
 pr* 
 
 Thought Emotion 
 
 Will 
 
 Posi- 
 tive 
 
 Nega- 
 tive 
 
 Posi- 
 tive 
 
 Nega- 
 tive 
 
 ^K" 
 Posi- SS^y 
 
 tive Nega- 
 tive 
 
 Thought Emotion Will 
 
 
 
 IV" 
 
 Jfiflf^^p" 
 
 Intellect Feelings Choice 
 and and and 
 Thought Emotion Action 
 
 Small decision and 
 action. 
 
 Aggressive and im- 
 nulsive but with poor 
 judgment and poor 
 sense. 
 
 The theorist, who 
 thinks much, has slight 
 emotion and does little 
 small action. 
 
 Influenced by envi- 
 ronment. Goes with 
 the crowd. 
 
 The man who suc- 
 ceeds, right or wrong. 
 
 The man who is al- 
 most as much negative 
 as positive a failure. 
 
 The equally devel- 
 oped man, who suc- 
 ceeds according to the 
 Golden Rule.
 
 114 Salesmanship and Business Efficiency 
 
 ,C[One more illustration. You occasionally hear 
 a scholarly sermon from a preacher who does very 
 well in the pulpit, but who is a failure as a leader 
 and an organizer. He, too, has failed to develop his 
 will. Again you hear a poor sermon from a preacher 
 who is a' .splendid leader and organizer. His will 
 is developed but his intellect is neglected. The ideal 
 man, like the ideal preacher, is the man whose intellect, 
 emotions and will are developed equally; the man 
 who can both think and act. He is a thinker of 
 thoughts and a doer of deeds. 
 
 Analysis of Types 
 
 1. Thought and Emotion Developed 
 but Weak Willed. 
 
 QWeak in decision and action, and without defi- 
 nite purpose. Such a man may be bright, intelligent 
 and capable except that he is lacking in initiative, 
 lacking in constructiveness and perseverance. He does 
 not seem to possess the mental energy to decide and 
 act promptly. He lacks nerve. He is apparently 
 either too much afraid or too lazy to try. 
 
 2. Thinks Little but has Strong Emotion 
 and Action. 
 
 iC[The loud-mouthed man who is lacking in judg- 
 ment and common sense.
 
 Mental Analysis 
 
 3. The Thinker who has Little 
 Feeling and Will. 
 
 ,C[The thinker, philosopher, theorist, talker and 
 perpetual motion man who has a fantastic remedy for 
 everything; who is lacking in feeling but not aggres- 
 sive enough to either decide or act. 
 
 4. Has Excess of Feeling but Thinks Little 
 
 and is Weak Willed. 
 
 QThe sentimentalist swayed by his emotional 
 nature. Lacks concentration and ability to think logi- 
 cally. Is slow to decide or act, and because of un- 
 trained judgment is as likely to make an unwise de- 
 cision as a wise one. Drifts with his environment. 
 Such people are effeminate, changeable and capricious. 
 They lack the power to think and act. They are harm- 
 less, purposeless people who depend upon luck and 
 whine because of their bad luck. They lack the ability 
 to recognize an opportunity, and the courage to act 
 if it is pointed out to them. Such men lack thought, 
 originality, concentration, purpose and perseverance. 
 They look for something to turn up instead of turning 
 it up. 
 
 5. Thought Power and Will Power Large, 
 
 Emotion and Conscience Small. 
 
 ,C[The man of intellectual equipment and strong 
 will, the man of keen analysis, good judgment, concen- 
 tration, ambition, determination, and unlimited will
 
 116 Salesmanship and Business Efficiency 
 
 power. The man who cares little for conscience, whose 
 ideal is the dollar and who proposes to get it by fair 
 means if he can, but some other way if he must. The 
 man who thinks business is war, and that all is fair 
 in war. The man of the cold intellectual type of 
 Caesar and Napoleon and some of our modern Cap- 
 tains of Industry. 
 
 6. Where Negative and Positive Qualities 
 Nearly Equalize Each Other. 
 
 ( QThis is simply an illustration of the negative 
 qualities to be found in the other six types. A man's 
 intellect, sensibilities and will are strong simply in 
 proportion to the development, separately or united- 
 ly, of their positive forces and the elimination of their 
 negative qualities. The object of this chart and 
 analysis is to give you a better foundation for 
 your study of man building, and a clearer under- 
 standing of personality development through the de- 
 velopment of the positive qualities and the elimination 
 of the negative, as found in Lesson II. 
 
 7. The Man of Symmetrical Development. 
 
 ,CThe all-around, normally developed man. The 
 man of intellect, the man of heart and conscience, and 
 the man of will. The man who wins success in accord- 
 ance with honesty and not in spite of dishonesty. The 
 man who is the brains and conscience of this country. 
 The man, who, like Marshall Field, built a reputation 
 for absolute reliability and honesty rather than the 
 man who disgusts trade and drives it away by mark- 
 ing $1.00 shirts up to $1.50 and then marking them
 
 Mental Analysis 117 
 
 down to ninety-five cents. Honesty of the Marshall 
 Field kind made Field the greatest merchant in the 
 world. Dishonesty of the other kind, while sometimes 
 temporarily profitable, usually drives a man, either 
 out of business entirely, or else into the junk dealing 
 class. 
 
 ,QThe law of mental growth is the same as the 
 law of physical growth. It is this, "Correct exercise- 
 of any organ develops that organ." 
 
 .QThis lesson could be continued indefinitely, but 
 enough has been said to show you that to be success- 
 ful a man must build himself and his business upon 
 the foundation shown in type seven. In building a 
 business we consider the profit we make to-day as in- 
 cidental to the profit we expect to make. It is one 
 thing to get business, but it is quite another thing to 
 hold it. If we are ambitious to get all the profit w^ 
 can out of to-day's transaction, regardless of the effect 
 upon the future we cannot call ourselves business 
 builders, but business killers. Business building is 
 based upon the law of mutual benefit, good service 
 and satisfaction. Business killing aims to "do the 
 other fellow" as soon as possible and as long as he 
 will stand for it. It registers its own doom. 
 
 iQ Salesmanship is a mental battle between the man 
 who wishes to sell and the man who isn't sure he 
 wants to buy. "When a salesman and a prospect come 
 together the one with the best and strongest argu- 
 ments usually wins. A salesman always meets an argu- 
 ment and a lot of objections in opposition to his own. 
 A strong salesman always batters down these objec- 
 tions and overcomes the arguments. The weak sales- 
 man listens to them and forgets his own. Instead of 
 influencing his prospect he permits his prospect to in-
 
 118 Salesmanship and Business Efficiency 
 
 fluence him. When two men come together to consider 
 a proposition the best man usually wins. Be that best 
 .man. 
 
 Suggestive Written Exercises 
 
 Write a hundred word essay on the mental fac- 
 tors you feel that you need to develop. 
 
 Write a hundred word essay on the man whose 
 intellect predominates. 
 
 Write a hundred word essay on the man whose 
 emotions predominate. 
 
 Write a two hundred word essay on the man whose 
 will is his predominating characteristic. 
 
 Question: Is a man whose will power is highly de- 
 veloped best adapted for an inside detail position or 
 tan outside leadership position f
 
 LESSON VII. 
 
 Cental iato of feale 
 
 Why Mental Science is Behind 
 Physical Science. 
 
 AM going to make the statement, and I do 
 not expect to have it disproven, that Material 
 or Physical Science is at least fifty years 
 ahead of Mental Science, which includes 
 Business Science. 
 
 the knowledge and use of physics and 
 chemistry, mineral ore is made to give up the last 
 particle of value. As a result of the same knowledge 
 every particle of the steer and hog are utilized. As a 
 result of the knowledge of the science of mechanics ma- 
 chines have been invented which have doubled and quad- 
 rupled production. As a result of this same knowledge, 
 machines, like the cash register and the adding machine 
 have been devised which have revolutionized modern 
 systems and modern business organizations. 
 
 Lack of Individual Efficiency. 
 
 CBut during all this time the efficiency of the 
 individual worker back of the machine has not been 
 greatly increased. 
 
 [119]
 
 120 Salesmanship and Business Efficiency 
 
 ,CGro into any first-class store and you will find 
 an up-to-date National Cash Register standing in front 
 of the counter. The tools to make this machine cost 
 $600,000.00. It cost nearly half a million more to in- 
 vent and perfect it. Here is a machine that has cost 
 a million dollars, and look what it does! It gives the 
 merchant a complete system, an absolute record of his 
 day's business. It gives a total record of cash sales, 
 credit sales, money received on account and money 
 paid out, for the day. It even gives an itemized record 
 of each transaction for the day and who is responsible 
 for it. It has been called "A human brain in a steel 
 box." 
 
 Machine More Perfect Than Man. 
 
 QHere is this machine in front of the counter, that 
 has cost a million dollars and simply records the sales, 
 but how about the man behind the counter who makes 
 the sales? Practically nothing has been spent on_him 
 in special training in order to make him as efficient 
 in getting the business as the machine is in recording 
 it. Don't you see the inequality and business ab- 
 surdity in the comparison? Will copper and steel 
 alone do the work of the Cash Register? No, certainly 
 not, unless they are first mixed with the million dol- 
 lars' worth of brains. At first they are only the raw 
 material. Will raw brains do the work of a first-class 
 salesman or business man? Why, it is unreasonable 
 to expect it until this raw grey matter is first mixed 
 with the right kind of education. 
 
 ,C[ Steel rails are worth in the neighborhood of 
 $28.00 a ton. This same steel, when put through the 
 proper processes of refining is worth $12,000,000 a 
 ton as watch springs.
 
 Mental Law of Sale 121 
 
 Man can Increase His Efficiency. 
 
 average man apparently does not realize 
 that he, too, can increase his value similarly by proper 
 processes of refining. But it can be done. A man can 
 either remain in the steel rail class and be good only 
 for things to run on, or he can get into the watch 
 spring class and run the whole works. I wish I might 
 in some way so impress this statement that you just 
 you who read it now could and would take this home 
 to yourself and realize that it means you. That you 
 can do it if you will. 
 
 C[I will now show you why the mental world is 
 so far behind the mechanical world. "Mechanics is 
 the science of the actions and functions of machinery." 
 "The science of mind action and function is psy- 
 chology." Machinery is something practical, tangible, 
 something that for generations men have been able 
 to see and feel and handle with the hands. Therefore 
 the rapid advance. The mind has been something in- 
 tangible, unseen, therefore unknown, and by the major- 
 ity, supposedly unknowable. 
 
 Man has been Ignorant of Self. 
 
 QThe reason man has failed to advance mentally 
 is because he has failed to understand himself and his 
 fellows. He has failed to understand the laws govern- 
 ing his mind. He has failed to understand human nat- 
 ure, the feelings, habits, instincts and thought processes 
 of himself and his fellows. 
 
 C[0f course, we have had psychologists but they 
 have been mostly theoretical men and for that reason 
 they have been unable to show the average man how
 
 122 Salesmanship and Business Efficiency 
 
 to connect their theoretical principles to his practical 
 job. In other words, the psychologists have been, in 
 large part, so far "up in the air" that it has been 
 almost impossible for the average man to see any re- 
 lationship between their theory and his practice, and 
 there is a good reason for that, too a reason which 
 neither class has apparently understood. 
 
 Average Business Man Has Little 
 School Education. 
 
 am safe in saying that fully 90% of the busi- 
 ness men of this country have received little better 
 than a grammar school education. For that reason 
 they have difficulty in learning the principles that un- 
 derlie business, and how to apply a principle to differ- 
 ent transactions. Right here is a good principle. 
 I have found that the retail salesman cannot at first 
 appreciate the mental law of sale when applied to special- 
 ty salesmanship, and that the specialty salesman does 
 not appreciate the value of the mental law of sale when 
 he sees it applied to the sale of goods at retail. Neither 
 class of men is able at first to make the application 
 of the principle until shown how. For that reason 
 we make the application so clear that it is easily un- 
 derstood by all classes. 
 
 The Mental Law of Sale. 
 
 C[With this preliminary explanation I propose to 
 discuss the Mental Law of Sale, the mental processes 
 through which the mind must be taken while the sale 
 is being made, and make the application so clear from 
 many points of view that anybody can understand it.
 
 Mental Law of Sale 123 
 
 CIn order that I may throw a little more light 
 on this subject, right at the beginning, I am going to 
 quote from two great specialists. The one is Prof. 
 Walter Dill Scott, head of the Department of Psy- 
 chology of Northwestern University. The other, Hugh 
 Chalmers, President of the Chalmers Motor Company. 
 Prof. Scott has made a deep study of business and has 
 written more and better on the subject of business 
 psychology than any other psychologist. Hugh Chal- 
 mers, on the other hand, is one of the most brilliant 
 young salesmen, general managers and business gener- 
 als of this generation. Their opinions are valuable. 
 
 Man Neglected Factor in Business. 
 
 QProf. Scott says: "Man is the one neglected 
 factor in business, and the most important. Men who 
 know how to get maximum results out of machines 
 are common. The power to get the maximum of work 
 out of subordinates or out of yourself is a much rarer 
 possession. Of the elements involved in production or 
 distribution, the human factor is to-day the most serious 
 problem confronting the business man. The individual 
 remains to be studied, trained and developed to be 
 brought up to the standard of maximum results al- 
 ready reached by material and processes. The develop- 
 ment of the efficiency of the individual worker has 
 remained stationary. The reason lies in man's lack of 
 real knowledge of his fellows knowledge of their feel- 
 ings and mind workings, habits and instincts." 
 
 Easier to Make Things than to Sell Them. 
 
 CHugh Chalmers says: "I have been in the 
 manufacturing business nearly all my life and I have
 
 124 Salesmanship and Business Efficiency 
 
 - * 
 
 found that it is much easier to make things than it is 
 to sell them. It took me some time to figure that out. 
 It finally dawned upon me that the difference is caused 
 through the fact that in one case you deal mostly with 
 machinery and metals while in the other you deal en- 
 tirely with the mind. Machinery is a fixed quantity, 
 You know exactly what a machine can do and ex- 
 actly what it will do under given conditions. It is 
 very often automatic and requires little attention from 
 anyone. It is nearly always the same. It never 
 changes its mind. It is seldom influenced by outside 
 conditions. When you get on the other side and try 
 to deal with humanity you face very different prob- 
 lems. Humanity thinks. It has feelings. It has sen- 
 sations, decisions, prejudices. It changes its mind. It 
 is influenced by environment and the conditions sur- 
 rounding it." 
 
 CDo you realize how similar the two opinions 
 are? The one from a professor, the other the presi- 
 dent of a great manufacturing concern. 
 
 A Sale Takes Place in the Mind. 
 
 believe with Hugh Chalmers that "a sale does 
 not take place in a man's pocket, or in his pocket- 
 book, or his check-book, but it first takes place in his 
 mind. In order to make a sale you must convince a 
 man's mind. When you approach him he feels that 
 he does not want your goods. Ybu feel that he should 
 have them and would buy them if he knew as much 
 about them as you do. In order to sell him you must 
 change his mind and bring it around to agree with 
 yours. When we once put salesmanship on this broad 
 plane of convincing the other man's mind, it doesn't
 
 Mental Law of Sale 125 
 
 make any difference whether we are trying to sell a 
 house and lot or a paper of pins." 
 
 The Mental Processes. 
 
 ,(TI will now enumerate the mental processes 
 through which the mind goes while the sale is being 
 made. These processes are so important that if one of 
 them is skipped the result will very likely be failure. 
 
 QThe first step in making the sale is the intro- 
 duction or approach, the next is getting the attention, 
 then arousing interest, producing conviction, creat- 
 ing desire, creating resolve to buy, and last and most 
 important, closing the order. 
 
 Q There are several processes here enumerated and 
 some of them blend very closely into the others, but I 
 consider them all essential in order to make this law 
 as clear as crystal to every salesman who studies it. 
 It can be abridged as follows: Attention, interest, 
 conviction, close, but in so doing it omits the intro- 
 duction and the desire to purchase. It just gives one 
 kind of conviction and there are really two. The man 
 is first convinced that the proposition is a good one. 
 He becomes satisfied of this, then he desires it. He next 
 resolves to get it, which means that he is convinced he 
 ought to get it. 
 
 The Introduction. 
 
 QWe will first consider the introduction and what 
 may be called the approach. The two individuals meet. 
 The salesman greets his prospective customer and 
 sometimes shakes hands with him, but not always. I 
 want you to think of this salesman as the party of 
 the first part. His sole object is to convince and per-
 
 126 Salesmanship and Business Efficiency 
 
 suade the party of the second part to think as he thinks, 
 feel as he feels, and act as he would like to have him 
 act. But how? Here is where the laws governing the 
 mind must be considered. If they are not considered. 
 either consciously or unconsciously, or if only part of 
 them are broken, the interview is likely to result in 
 failure. 
 
 QWhen the party of the second part is met he 
 is curious. He is anxious to know what his visitor wants. 
 If the salesman sells pianos, and says: "My name is 
 Jones, and I want to show you a piano, or I want to 
 know if you don't want to buy a piano," his prospect 
 will very likely say, "No, I do not," and walk away, 
 simply because the salesman has failed to approach 
 him in the right way, and has therefore broken one 
 of the first laws leading to the successful culmination 
 of the transaction. He has failed to address his pros- 
 pect favorably. He has antagonized him just a little, 
 by failure to get over on his side of the fence and 
 address him from his point of view. 
 
 QLet us suppose that he addressed him like this, 
 "Mr. Brown, my name is Jones, I represent the Blank 
 Piano Company and I was referred to you by Mr. So 
 and So who said you were in the market for a piano. 
 The object of my visit is to show you that the Blank 
 Piano will give you better service for the money than 
 any piano made. ' ' 
 
 Appeal to Customer from His Point of View. 
 
 on't you see that in this case the salesman 
 immediately talks to his customer from the standpoint 
 of his customer's interests and needs, and not from 
 the standpoint of his desire to sell? It is one thing. 
 therefore, to meet a man and greet him, but to get his
 
 Salesman and Customer 
 
 The crooked lines on the left indicate where the 
 prospective buyer's mind left the Arrow as result of ob- 
 jections. The straight lines back to Arrow indicate 
 power of Salesman. 
 
 Too busy 
 
 Called to 
 phone 
 
 Continuity 
 Broken 
 
 Price too 
 high 
 
 Don't want 
 it 
 
 Can't af- 
 ford it 
 
 Not now 
 Later on 
 
 INTRODt 
 
 INT 
 
 CONN 
 
 CTION 
 
 ICTION 
 
 DESIRE! 
 
 SI 
 
 Mind goes off on tangent. 
 
 Mind goes back to arrow , 
 but leaves when called 
 away. 
 
 Interested, but price too 
 high. 
 
 Mind brought back to ar- 
 row when convinced of 
 value, but not sure he 
 wants it. 
 
 Desires it, but not sure he 
 can afford it. 
 
 Decides to buy later on. 
 
 Mind forced to arrow at 
 Resolve, but left it by 
 deciding not to buy till 
 later. 
 
 ID ORDER Decides to do it now. 
 
 RESOLVE:
 
 128 Salesmanship and Business Efficiency 
 
 attention away from you and directed favorably toward 
 your goods is a different thing. Getting the atten- 
 tion, therefore, I consider the second step. But what 
 do we really mean by attention? It is "The applica- 
 tion of the mind to any object," "Earnest considera- 
 tion," "Consciousness voluntarily applied to some de- 
 terminate object," it is "Consciousness concentrated." 
 
 Ct Suppose we see how to gain the attention in 
 selling goods at retail. I heard a clerk say to a cus- 
 tomer one day, "You wouldn't want any oranges would 
 you?" Of course the customer said, "No." Didn't 
 the clerk tell him he did not want any by giving him 
 a negative suggestion? 
 
 QHere is the way one of our students attracted 
 the attention and made the sale of a dozen oranges. 
 Note the contrast. "We have just received a carload 
 of large, juicy, sweet oranges direct from Florida. They 
 are only forty cents a dozen and I believe you would 
 like them." While saying this he picked up an orange 
 and handed it to his prospective customer. 
 
 A Negative and Positive Comparison. 
 
 QHere is another comparison. The one is nega- 
 tive, the other positive. The one is contrary to the 
 Mental Law of Sale, the other is in harmony with it. 
 The negative is doomed to fail. The positive leads in 
 the direction of success. The following is the negafive. 
 
 ,QA traveling man walked into a store and said 
 he represented So and So handling a certain line of 
 goods, and said to the merchant, "Are you in need 
 of anything in my line?" The merchant said, "No." 
 "Well", he said, "I have a very good price." The 
 merchant said he wasn't interested, so the traveling
 
 Mental Law of Sale 129 
 
 man said he would call again. The positive compari- 
 son follows: 
 
 C[ There was a circus in town and the small boy 
 rushed up to his father and said, "Papa, give me a 
 quarter. I want to go to the circus. ' ' The father said, 
 "Go away and don't bother me." "But", said the 
 boy, "the parade is coming right down Main street 
 now, elephants, lions, tigers, and everything, an3 I've 
 just got to go." The father said, "Here, take the 
 quarter and go on." The average boy uses better 
 salesmanship on his father when a circus comes to 
 town, than does many a salesman in selling goods. 
 
 QWe will now go back to our diagram. You 
 will remember that both men's minds are together at 
 the introduction and the salesman aims to hold his 
 prospect's mind on the arrow until the arrow hits 
 the bull's eye, which is the prospective buyer's will 
 and clinches the order. But he cannot always do 
 it. For instance, just after the salesman com- 
 menced to discuss his proposition the proprietor was 
 called to the phone, or to wait on a customer, 
 thereby taking his mind off on a different angle. When 
 he was through, the continuity of the salesman's talk 
 having been broken, the proprietor would likely say, 
 "No, I don't care anything about it." The salesman 
 would have to commence a new line of vigorous talk 
 in order to get his prospect's mind back to the arrow. 
 
 How Interest Is Aroused. 
 
 QThe next step is to carry his prospect's mind 
 from attention to interest. In other words, attention 
 sustained ripens into interest, and what is interest? 
 It is "Excitement of feeling, whether pleasant or pain- 
 ful, accompanying special attention to some object; to
 
 130 Salesmanship and Business Efficiency 
 
 arouse; to excite to action; to excite emotion or passion 
 in behalf of a person or thing. Interest expresses 
 mental excitement of various kinds and degrees. It 
 may be intellectual or sympathetic and emotional, or 
 merely personal." But notice, interest means to excite 
 to action. I want you to notice something very care- 
 fully right at this point. You must interest an indi- 
 vidual either in what you are saying or in how you 
 say it, your method of expressing it. You must do 
 this jn order to keep his attention. Concentrate on 
 what you are saying. It takes will power to do it, as 
 attention is the center of the will. 
 
 Q Interest sustained soon ripens into conviction 
 that the article under consideration is a good thing. 
 After a man is convinced that it is a good thing for 
 him, then the next step is for him to desire it. A 
 good many salesmen try to jump from interest to de- 
 sire without ever convincing the man. That is a fatal 
 mistake, as conviction, as to the value, or personal 
 advantage of the article, must mentally precede de- 
 sire. But before I go into this further, I want to 
 go back and make the subject of interest plainer to 
 you. I can do this by illustration better than any other 
 way. 
 
 CA great many salesmen have a fatal weakness 
 in their selling talk right at this point and I want to 
 point it out so clearly that every reader, no matter 
 whether a salesman or not, will fully appreciate it. 
 This fatal mistake consists in thinking that because 
 an individual is interested in a proposition he desires 
 it, and for that reason it is unnecessary to either pro- 
 duce conviction or create desire. I will show you the 
 difference between interest and desire. I have gazed 
 upon a pure white thoroughbred Arabian horse and I 
 was deeply interested, but had no thought of desiring the
 
 Mental Law of Sale 131 
 
 horse. I have stood before Niagara Falls for hours and 
 gazed upon nature 's marvelous work. I have stood there 
 because I was interested not because I had any idea 
 of desiring the Falls. I have stood on the top of 
 Pike's Peak and viewed the surrounding country with 
 a great deal of interest, but there was no semblance 
 of desire mingled with my interest. Don't think for 
 a minute that because you show your goods to an in- 
 dividual and he is interested in them and greatly ad- 
 mires them, that he is going to buy them without first 
 being convinced that they are worth the money, or to 
 his advantage. Conviction and desire are the result 
 of an appeal to entirely different mental emotions than 
 the appeal to mere human interest. The whole world 
 can be and is interested through curiosity, mere curi- 
 osity. Please remember that and try it, but do not 
 jump to the conclusion that because they are curious 
 they are necessarily going to buy. 
 
 CThe steps in the Mental Law of Sale are so 
 closely connected that the mind goes through the pro- 
 cesses sometimes with almost electrical rapidity, but 
 it consciously or unconsciously takes the steps just 
 the same. For instance : one of our students, a grocery 
 clerk, sold a customer all he wanted and when he was 
 going out the salesman called his attention to a bas- 
 ket of beautiful ripe peaches. He interested the man 
 by taking a peach out of the basket and telling him 
 how beautiful it was. It was sunkissed on one side 
 and an autumn brown on the other. He held it up 
 in his hand for the man to look at. As soon as the 
 customer saw it his mouth watered and he desired it. He 
 was convinced that it was good, and good for him. 
 At this instant the clerk said, "Take a bite of it." 
 One bite was enough to whet his appetite and make 
 him resolve to satisfy it. He asked the price of the-
 
 132 Salesmanship and Business Efficiency 
 
 basket, paid his money and took the peaches. Yon 
 can easily trace every step in the Mental Law of Sale 
 in this simple sale of a basket of peaches. 
 
 How Conviction is Brought About. 
 
 come now to the subject of conviction, and 
 conviction is the heart and center of the Mental Law of 
 Sale. If you fail here you fail entirely, at least for the 
 time being. This same thing can be said about the ap- 
 proach. If you can not induce your prospect to listen, 
 you have no opportunity to sell him. You are beginning 
 to realize the importance of each step or process in the 
 Law of Sale. 
 
 C Conviction comes next. Well, what do we mean 
 by conviction, and how do we bring it about? I have 
 asked two very hard questions and I will try to answer 
 them satisfactorily. 
 
 C" Conviction is the result of the operation of 
 the understanding; persuasion of the will; conviction 
 is a necessity of the mind, persuasion an acquiescence 
 of the inclination." 
 
 QBlackstone, the legal authority, says, "Convic- 
 tion may accrue two ways, either by the act of con- 
 vincing of error, or compelling the admission of a truth ; 
 confutation. ' ' 
 
 C"To convince is an act of the understanding; 
 to persuade, of the will or feelings." Therefore, a man 
 must know how to manipulate the understanding in 
 order to produce conviction. "The one is affected by 
 argument; the other by motives. There are cases, how- 
 ever, in which persuasion may seem to be used in refer- 
 ence only to the assent of the understanding, as when 
 we say, ' I am persuaded that it is so and so ' ; 'I cannot 
 persuade myself of the fact'. But in such instances
 
 Mental Law of Sale 133 
 
 there is usually or always a degree of awakened feel- 
 jing which has had its share in producing its assent 
 of the understanding." The foregoing may seem a 
 little technical to some so I will try to make it clearer. 
 
 Two Methods of Producing Conviction. 
 
 Q There are just two methods by means of which 
 we can induce a man to act, and action is what we 
 are after in salesmanship. The one is to convince 
 his understanding and his judgment and thereby get 
 the consent of his will to act; the other is through 
 persuading his emotions and inducing his feelings to 
 control his will and therefore his actions. 
 
 QThe problem of producing conviction is the 
 greatest problem in all salesmanship. This is true 
 because the reason and judgment must be satisfied. 
 Judgment is the supreme court of the human mind. 
 There is no higher court; reason and judgment must 
 be satisfied. It is one thing to have ideas but it is an- 
 other thing to organize them and still another thing 
 to present them to the mind in such a way as to sat- 
 isfy reason and judgment and produce conviction. 
 Let me illustrate. Suppose I ask a grocer for two 
 pounds of sugar and he places the weights on his old 
 fashioned scales and pours in the sugar, the beam 
 will come up when the two pounds are poured in. 
 But suppose he stood ten feet from the scales and 
 tossed the weights on the scales instead of plac- 
 ing them properly. The chances are that one 
 or both weights would fall off and the sugar would 
 not weigh right. So it is with evidence. If disor- 
 ganized and thrown at the mind in any way it cer- 
 tainly will not satisfy the scales of judgment and" 
 produce conviction.
 
 134 Salesmanship and Business Efficiency 
 
 The Effect of Judgment on Success. 
 
 ,C[I want you to pay particular attention to that 
 word judgment. Don 't you know that judgment is one of 
 the greatest causes of success or failure in life? I 
 knew a man to refuse a position that would have 
 paid him $500.00 per month when his time wasn't 
 worth $100.00, simply because he thought someone 
 Tie did not like might make a little profit out of his 
 work. His judgment did not dictate his decision but 
 his prejudice did. Men will make decisions based up- 
 on prejudice, jealousy, spite, hatred, like or dislike 
 and numerous other negative qualities. But just as 
 surely as man throws judgment to the wind when he 
 makes a decision he is leading straight toward the 
 Tocky reefs of destruction. You must take this into 
 consideration when making a sale. 
 
 QBut let us go back to judgment. How do we 
 form a judgment? Judgment is "that act of the mind 
 by which two notions or ideas which are apprehended 
 as distinct are compared, for the purpose of ascer- 
 taining their agreement or disagreement. It is that power 
 or faculty by which knowledge dependent upon com- 
 parison and discrimination is acquired. It is the act of 
 judging; the operation of the mind involving compari- 
 son and discrimination, by which the knowledge of the 
 values and relations of things, whether of moral quali- 
 ties, intellectual concepts, logical propositions, or ma- 
 terial facts are obtained." 
 
 Comparison, the Basis of Reason 
 and Judgment. 
 
 Q Comparison is the basis of judgment. You must 
 compare one thing with another in order to arrive at
 
 Mental Law of Sale 135 
 
 a judgment. In order to do that you must exercise 
 reason. We notice then that comparison is the basis 
 of reason as well as of judgment. You cannot reason 
 or think about an idea unless you have some other 
 idea to compare it with. Your judgment or conclusion 
 will not only be based upon reason but upon your past 
 experience. If I ask you to pass judgment on a horse, 
 your opinion or 'judgment will be valued in accord- 
 ance with your previous knowledge of horses. If I 
 ask for your judgment in regard to a suit of clothes, 
 a farm, or a business policy, the value of that judg- 
 ment will depend upon your previous experience and 
 your ability to draw accurate conclusions from it, as 
 well as your ability to reason. 
 
 CHere is an illustration of poor judgment, and 
 it may show how judgment can be developed. A coun- 
 try store-keeper bought a ton and a half of raisins. 
 The town he lived in had a population of only 500. 
 Had he consulted either his reason, judgment or the 
 needs of the town he would have known that he was 
 buying too many raisins. He evidently did neither. 
 He put nearly all the raisins down cellar and they 
 spoiled. At another time he bought enough window 
 curtains to do the community five years. No wonder 
 he did not make money. The man who sold him did 
 not apparently need to appeal to his judgment. He 
 pimply enthused and persuaded him into over-buying. 
 Apparently he had little buying judgment to appeal 
 to. But a salesman who will overload a buyer to the 
 buyer's evident loss, and the wholesale house that will 
 fill the order, are both guilty of legal robbery. The 
 salesman who profits most in the end is the one who 
 serves best and gives the best expert advice. But this 
 is simply an illustration on the development and value 
 of judgment.
 
 136 Salesmanship and Business Efficiency 
 
 CIn passing I want to call your attention to the 
 word reason. Reason exercises such a great part in 
 forming a judgment that I want to spend a little time 
 in getting a clearer understanding of reason and how 
 we go about it to reason. Comparison forms the basis 
 of judgment. It also forms the basis of reasoning. 
 We compare hard woods with oak as a standard. We 
 compare a good orator with Bryan. We compare one 
 hotel with another. We compare one line of goods 
 with another that is well known. This gives us a basis 
 of comparison as to which is better or worse. 
 
 QWe compare two ideas and therefore get reas- 
 sons for forming a judgment. We compare two more 
 ideas and get reasons for forming another judgment. 
 We then take the final judgments and compare them. 
 We again have reasons for making or forming a later 
 judgment. 
 
 ,C[ Reason is "the faculty or capacity of the human 
 mind by which it is distinguished from the intelligence 
 of the lower animals; the higher as distinguished from 
 {the lower cognitive faculties, sense, imagination, and 
 memory, and in contrast to the feelings and desires. 
 Reason comprises conception, judgment, reasoning and 
 the intuitional faculty. We have no other faculties 
 of perceiving or knowing anything, divine or human, 
 but by our five senses and our reason." 
 
 C"Due exercise of the reasoning faculties; ac- 
 cordance with, or that which is accordant with and 
 ratified by, the mind rightly exercised; right intel- 
 lectual judgment; clear and fair deductions from true 
 principles; that which is dictated or supported by 
 the common sense of mankind; right conduct; right 
 propriety; justice." 
 
 CJ"To exercise the rational faculties; to deduce 
 inferences from premises; to perform the process of
 
 Mental Law of Sale 137 
 
 induction or deduction; to reach conclusions by a sys- 
 tematic comparison of facts." 
 
 Inductive and Deductive Reasoning. 
 
 (T Before we finish this subject of conviction we 
 must go one step further with the subject of reason. 
 There are two kinds of reason, inductive and deduct- 
 ive. I simply want to define them and give this ex- 
 planation here. The objective mind reasons both in- 
 ductively and deductively, but the subjective mind only 
 reasons deductively. 
 
 C[ Inductive reasoning is "the act or process of 
 reasoning from a part to a whole, from particulars to 
 generals, or from the individual to the universal. ' ' 
 
 QJohn Stuart Mill, says: "Induction is the pro- 
 cess by which we conclude that which is true of certain 
 individuals of a class, is true of the whole class, or that 
 what is true at certain times will be true in similar 
 circumstances at all times." 
 
 C[It is "a process of demonstration in which a 
 general truth is gathered from an examination of par- 
 ticular cases, one of which is known to be true." 
 
 C["In induction we observe a sufficient number 
 of individual facts, and on the ground of analogy, 
 extend what is true of them to others of the same class, 
 thus arriving at general principles or laws. This is 
 the kind of reasoning in physical science. In deduction 
 we begin with a general truth, which is already proven 
 or provisionally assumed and seek to connect it with 
 some particular case by means of a middle term or 
 class of objects known to be equally connected with 
 both. Thus we bring down the general into the par- 
 ticular, affirming of the latter the distinctive qualities
 
 138 Salesmanship and Business Efficiency 
 
 of the former. This is the syllogistic method. By in- 
 duction Franklin established the identity of lightning 
 and electricity. By deduction he inferred that dwell- 
 ings might be protected by lightning rods. ' ' 
 
 Deductive Logic. 
 
 CI wish to give two illustrations of deductive 
 logic. The first is true the second is not, but they 
 are both logical. Logic is the science of correct rea- 
 soning. But logic does not stop to ask whether the 
 statement is true or false. 
 
 QHere is the first syllogism: 
 
 Q Roosevelt is a man. 
 
 QMan is mortal. 
 
 Q Therefore Roosevelt is mortal. 
 
 CYou see my first statement or premise is cor- 
 rect, therefore, the conclusion is correct. 
 
 CHere is the other: 
 
 C[ Every salesman is rich. 
 
 C[You are a salesman. 
 
 C Therefore, you are rich. 
 
 C[You see my first premise or statement is wrong, 
 and, therefore, my conclusion is wrong. 
 
 Success Based upon Truth of Argument. 
 
 Qlf the basis of your argument or selling talk 
 is wrong, your conclusion will be wrong and your work 
 will end in failure. 
 
 C[ Analyze your statements. See that they are 
 true. Unless they are you will end in failure. You 
 see how honesty leads to success. 
 
 CA very able salesman has offered this advice 
 and it is pertinent here. "You must get a man's con-
 
 Mental Law of Sale 139 
 
 fidence, but you will never get a man's confidence by 
 lying to him. You must tell him the truth, but what 
 good will it do to tell him the truth when he doesn't 
 know you are telling the truth? Tell him something 
 he absolutely knows is true and then he will believe 
 the rest." 
 
 QThis may seem like a long and difficult dis- 
 cussion on the subject of conviction, but it is abso- 
 lutely essential in order to do justice to the subject 
 and justice to the student. It will need a good deal 
 of study in order to be thoroughly understood. From 
 the time you get your man interested until he is 
 thoroughly convinced, he makes a great many ob- 
 jections, and it is difficult to bring his mind back to 
 the arrow. But conviction as to the value of the goods 
 will do it. 
 
 Creating Desire. 
 
 QThe next step for us to consider is creating the 
 desire. But some of us will say if we have already 
 produced conviction we must of necessity have created 
 desire. But that is not always true. I may be con- 
 vinced that a threshing machine is a good thing and 
 still not desire it. I may be convinced that an auto- 
 mobile is a good thing and still not desire it, because 
 I may not think it is to my advantage. I may be 
 convinced that a certain retail business is a profitable 
 business and still not desire it. And yet conviction 
 and desire are so closely related in the human mind 
 that in many cases they may seem almost inseparable. 
 
 C[In many cases an individual desires an article 
 as soon as he is convinced that it is a good thing and 
 to his advantage. But even then the conviction pre- 
 cedes the desire if only by a small fraction of time.
 
 140 Salesmanship and Business Efficiency 
 
 want to make this so clear that there will 
 be no misunderstanding, so that the student may be 
 able to bring about the desired result, not only because 
 he understands the processes but because he knows 
 how to create them by bringing about the correct in- 
 fluence. 
 
 Interest and Desire, Emotions Different. 
 
 (TWe have seen that the mental emotion that 
 arouses interest is an entirely different emotion from 
 the emotion that creates desire. One may be interested 
 through curiosity or because the subject or proposi- 
 tion is new and attractive, but still not desire it. De- 
 sire is "to long for, to hanker after, request, solicit, 
 entreat. The natural longing that is excited by the 
 enjoyment or the thought of any good, and impels 
 to action or effort for its continuance or possession; an 
 eager wish to obtain or enjoy." 
 
 CNote carefully the impulses and emotions that 
 must be excited and aroused in order to create desire. 
 Profit, pleasure, satisfaction, enjoyment, pride, envy 
 and a desire to make a showing and keep on an equality 
 with someone else. These are the prominent emotions 
 that must be appealed to. Study them and study the 
 best methods of reaching and controlling them. You 
 can do it now ten times as well since you have 
 had them not only pointed out, but the method of 
 controlling them made plain. 
 
 will illustrate this part of the Law of Sale. 
 
 young man came into a clothing store and 
 asked the clerk to show him a $15.00 overcoat. The 
 clerk showed it to him but did not exhibit much en- 
 thusiasm in doing it. After he had tried on that 
 overcoat the clerk induced him to put on a $20.00
 
 Mental Law of Sale 141 
 
 coat. He then commenced to use salesmanship. He 
 showed him it was a better fit, better cloth, and better 
 made and that he would have a better standing among 
 his business associates with this particular coat than 
 were he to take the cheaper one. He asked the man 
 to view himself in the glass. Finally he said, "come 
 up to the fitting room." He did not ask the young 
 man if he would go to the fitting room. He did not 
 ask him if he was going to take the coat, all of which 
 would have been negative suggestions and might have 
 killed the sale. He not only took it for granted the 
 man was going to the fitting room, but he took it for 
 granted he was going to buy the coat. So in starting 
 to the fitting room he not only said "Come" but made 
 a gesture for him to accompany him. The cutter meas- 
 ured the coat, taking it for granted all the time that 
 the man had bought the coat, and consequently made 
 suggestions accordingly. The man took the coat off 
 and left it to be adjusted, paid his $15.00 (all he had 
 with him) and left, saying he would pay the $5.00 yet 
 due when he came for the coat. 
 
 (That salesman made a $5.00 sale. The cus- 
 tomer came in after a $15.00 coat, bought a $20.00 
 coat and was better satisfied. He sold himself the 
 $15.00 coat. The clerk sold him the extra $5.00 
 worth. 
 
 QBut somebody says: "That won't happen very 
 often." Well, supposing it doesn't. How often has 
 a man been elected President of the United States in 
 recent years without putting forth every possible ef- 
 fort in order to win? Let us suppose this method 
 only wins once out of three times, or even once out 
 of ten times without in any way antagonizing his cus- 
 tomers. It just adds that much more value to the 
 selling ability of the salesman.
 
 142 Salesmanship and Business Efficiency 
 
 The Psychology of Putting the Garment on. 
 
 want to call your attention to one thing in 
 this connection that might escape your notice. This 
 salesman created his customer's desire for the coat 
 after the customer put the coat on. Do you realize 
 that as soon as an individual puts on a garment and 
 looks at himself in the glass, that garment immediately 
 and unconsciously becomes part of him. A feeling of 
 ownership immediately asserts itself. Put on a hat, 
 a coat, a pair of gloves or a pair of shoes and if they fit, 
 you want to keep them. Your spirit of ownership un- 
 consciously asserts itself. That is the reason every 
 good salesman induces his customers to put on the 
 shoes, gloves or garments, although he may not know 
 himself, what the psychological effect is. If you, as 
 a salesman, are not selling goods that can be put on, 
 a somewhat similar effect can be produced by letting 
 him handle them. 
 
 Operating Machine Helps Make Sale. 
 
 C[If I were selling automobiles I would get the 
 man into the car, not in the back seat, but into 
 the front seat, and if practical, would let him run the 
 machine part of the time. He would, in this way, 
 have his hands on the most vital part of it. The vi- 
 bration and pulsation of the machine would enter into 
 his whole system. He would unconsciously become a 
 part of it and it would become a part of him. There 
 would be an attraction between the two, an affinity. 
 if you please, and there would be an unconscious as- 
 sumption of ownership. Can't you apply this same 
 principle to the sale of any kind of goods? Certainly 
 you can. Have you ever seen a successful candidate
 
 Mental Law of Sale 143 
 
 for office shake hands with his left hand the day after 
 election? His right hand was lame from shaking. 
 Don't you see the same principle operating? Human 
 nature likes contact with the thing it is interested in. If 
 I were selling any kind of a machine, typewriter, cash 
 register, adding machine, etc., I would have the pros- 
 pect operate it. 
 
 The Value of Confidence. 
 
 C[A clothing salesman from Northern Missouri, 
 telephoned to a merchant in Southern Iowa, that he 
 was coming up to see him. The merchant said there 
 was no use in his coming as he had just bought all 
 he needed. He had bought $200.00 worth. This sales- 
 man was a man who understood the Mental Law of 
 Sale and he came anyway. I wanted to sell this mer- 
 chant a cash register, and I finally did, but when I 
 went into his store he was busy with the salesman to 
 whom he had telephoned not to come. I waited half 
 a day before I could see the merchant. Finally the 
 salesman got through and I asked him how much he 
 sold and he said $650 worth. What did it? A good 
 personality and the Mental Law of Sale, for he ad- 
 mitted to me that his goods were no better than his 
 competitors'. What will an individual not do when 
 desire has been aroused to white heat? 
 
 Q After the salesman left I thought I would find 
 out from the merchant just why he bought so heavily 
 when he had not intended to buy anything, so I said 
 to him: "That salesman is a very nice fellow, isn't 
 he?" The merchant said: "He certainly is. He is 
 the finest traveling man that makes this town." You 
 see he had the merchant's confidence, and confidence 
 is the corner-stone of success in both salesmanship and
 
 144 Salesmanship and Business Efficiency 
 
 business. This merchant felt that the salesman was 
 square, that he was honest, that he was interested in 
 him and in his success. 
 
 The Resolve to Buy. 
 
 fl[ Desire sustained ripens into resolve to possess, 
 and that is the next step in the Law of Sale. Resolve 
 to buy very often follows so closely upon the heels of 
 desire to possess, that some may think that resolve is 
 a part of desire. But it is not. It is a distinct step 
 in itself. 
 
 C[I may be convinced that a certain house and 
 lot would be a bargain. I may desire it and still not 
 resolve to get it because I do not care to either assume 
 the responsibility at that time or be bothered with the 
 property; or it may be fear that keeps me from buy- 
 ing a negative, baseless fear. My mind, therefore, 
 goes off on a tangent and it must be brought back to 
 the arrow. How can it be done? Here is a strenuous 
 method that I sometimes use. I say something like 
 this: ''Let us suppose that you and I are off here 
 in the corner of this room trying to figure out together 
 a method whereby we can both make some money. 
 Now if I make this sale I will make a little money, a 
 small profit once, but it will be very small in compari- 
 son with your profit which will be continuous. You 
 have made a careful study of this proposition. You 
 are absolutely convinced it is to your advantage. Your 
 reason and judgment absolutely assure you that this 
 is to your advantage. Your judgment is your court 
 of last resort. You are compelled to act in accordance 
 with it in order to do yourself justice. If you fail 
 to act in accordance with your own best interests and 
 your own best judgment, you become at once an enemy
 
 Mental Law of Sale 145 
 
 to your own best interests. You stand in your own 
 light. You simply rob yourself of so much money 
 that rightfully belongs to yourself, your wife and your 
 children. When I am absolutely assured that my prop- 
 osition is to a man's advantage and will make him 
 money, and then fail to urge him to take it, I feel 
 that I am not doing him justice. I am not giving 
 him a square deal. I feel just that way about this prop- 
 osition, and that is the reason I am so insistent. When 
 you get it and make the profit out of it these other 
 men are making whose recommendations I have shown 
 you, and who are similarly situated, you will thank 
 me for inducing you to decide and inducing you to 
 decide now." 
 
 C[This argument arranged to suit the particular 
 situation has helped me to induce a lot of people to 
 make the purchase. 
 
 Closing the Order. 
 
 C"A11 right," the prospect says, "I will take it 
 but not before the Holidays or Spring," or some such 
 time three or four months in the future. His mind goes 
 off on another tangent away past the bull's eye. You 
 have approached him correctly. You have gotten his 
 attention, aroused his interest, produced conviction, 
 created his desire, produced resolve to buy. In other 
 words you have done six-sevenths of the work. Are 
 you now going to lose the sale after doing all the 
 hard work and getting so close to the order? Here 
 now comes your supreme effort. You are to exercise 
 the supreme resolution of your mind to make the sale 
 and make it now, if it is best. 
 
 CLet us examine the situation a bit. If you are 
 selling a specialty, whether you have competition or
 
 146 Salesmanship and Business Efficiency 
 
 not, you should close the order and close it now if 
 you can. Right here is where the good salesman adds 
 largely to his income. 
 
 CBut let us suppose that you are not a specialty 
 salesman. Let us suppose, for illustration, you are 
 selling paint. Selling paint is very much like selling 
 any line of goods to the retailer. Let us suppose that 
 Mr. Merchant says he will take the paint but 
 he won't take it until such and such a time. What 
 are you to do? In some few cases it is wiser not to 
 push the sale than to push it. Let us suppose you 
 let him go, and when you come back three months 
 hence you find him stocked up with the other fellow's 
 paint. What would you think? That very thing will 
 happen many times unless you are such a master of 
 suggestion and can paint such a vivid picture on the 
 tablets of his memory that no other salesman can possi- 
 bly sell him. In order to hold a merchant you must 
 sell him more than mere paint. You must sell him 
 both service and information. In order to ap- 
 peal to him in such a way as to hold him, you must 
 show him that you are not only willing, but able to 
 give him such selling information that you will actually 
 help him to sell the paint. If you can show him that 
 a certain kind of paint applied to a certain kind of 
 shingle containing a certain kind of natural oil, will 
 rot and ruin the shingle, but that another kind of 
 paint acting in conjunction with the natural oil of 
 the shingle will preserve it, you have given that mer- 
 chant an idea that will aid him greatly in selling paint. 
 The merchant likes to deal with such a salesman. His 
 competitor who does not have this information will 
 have no chance to sell. 
 
 QThe above is one of the methods used by N. P. 
 Sturges, the famous paint salesman for Heath, Milli-
 
 Mental Law of Sale 147 
 
 gan & Co. Mr. Sturges captures the yearly prizes 
 offered by Heath & Milligan for their best salesman 
 in the United States. Mr. Sturges never urges a sate 
 when he is convinced the time is not ripe to sell, but 
 he is such an artist in the use of suggestion that the 
 merchant waits for him to return. It is a rare thing 
 for a competitor to sell to one of Mr. Sturges' cus- 
 tomers. That is the reason he gets such a big salary. 
 
 QWhat is true of the paint business is equally 
 true of shoes, dry goods, clothing, groceries, and simi- 
 lar lines. 
 
 CIf you persist in selling a man when your good 
 judgment tells you that it isn't wise for him to buy- 
 until you come around next time, the chances are 
 you will make him "sore." But if you are not ex- 
 tremely wise and careful you will be too easy and lose- 
 heavily for that reason. The fact that a man says 
 he does not want anything, does not mean much. The 
 salesman who sells only to the man who already wants 
 something will not make money enough to pay his rail- 
 road fare. Be diplomatic, but firmly persistent. If 
 you are going to overdo either side, by all means overdo 
 the side of persistence. I have spent seven days in a 
 man's store on five different occasions before I sold 
 him a Cash Register. If I had not fought it out with 
 him in this way I would not have made the sale. I 
 have known a specialty salesman to follow a man all 
 day in his store, watch every move in order to get in- 
 formation that would help him close the sale. Per- 
 sistent concentration and bulldog determination did it- 
 
 i 
 
 Evidence and How to Use It. 
 
 QThis lesson would not be complete without a 
 short discussion on the subject of evidence. Evidence,.
 
 148 Salesmanship and Business Efficiency 
 
 is that which is "clear to the understanding and sat- 
 isfactory to the judgment." Hume says: "To con- 
 form our language more to common use, we ought to 
 divide arguments into demonstrations, proofs, and 
 probabilities; by proofs meaning such arguments from 
 experience as leave no room for doubt or opposition." 
 
 ,CI hope the above statement will give a fairly 
 clear idea of what is meant by evidence. I will use 
 illustrations in order to make this subject of evidence 
 absolutely clear, practical and helpful to every sales- 
 man. There are two kinds of evidence, viz., evidence 
 which is sworn to by eye-witnesses, or direct evidence, 
 and circumstantial evidence. I want to illustrate what I 
 mean by circumstantial evidence. Part of a bolt of a pe- 
 culiar colored silk forty inches wide was stolen from 
 a store. A certain man's house was searched and what 
 seemed to be the silk was found, but the man declared 
 he bought the silk in a certain store in another town. 
 The silk was taken to the store and it was found that 
 it did not conform in either color or width to the 
 silk in the store where the man said he got it, as the 
 silk in that store was 36 inches wide, while that par- 
 ticular bolt was 40 inches wide. The silk was brought 
 back to the store from where it was supposed to have 
 been stolen and it was the same color, the same width 
 and the two torn ends exactly matched. This is cir- 
 cumstantial evidence. 
 
 QHere is the way I have used evidence in sell- 
 ing National Cash Registers. I have made a demon- 
 stration and showed how valuable the Register would 
 be to the merchant; then shown a list of recommen- 
 dations and said: "If what I have said is true and 
 what these people say is true, it would be to your 
 financial advantage to have this Register, would it 
 not?" "Yes, but how do I know it is true?" "Mr.
 
 Mental Law of Sale 149 
 
 Blank, here is a list of merchants who use this kind 
 of a Register and who live within twenty miles of here. 
 I will make you this proposition; visit any or all of 
 these merchants. If they tell you their Registers are 
 as profitable to them as they have indicated in their 
 endorsements, and even more so, you can afford the 
 trip because it is to your financial advantage to be sure 
 of it, isn't it? If. on the other hand they are not so 
 enthusiastic as I have indicated, or if they tell you 
 their Registers are not so profitable as I have tried 
 to make you believe, then I will pay your car fare 
 and $10.00 a day for your time when gone. That is 
 fair, isn 't it ? In the face of my offer you cannot afford 
 to turn this proposition down, can you?" You see 
 my proposition establishes the confidence that might 
 otherwise be lacking. 
 
 CThe evidence which I have to offer comes from 
 a multitude of merchants similarly situated. The evi- 
 dence is absolute, and no man or group of men could 
 or would ignore it in any court of law in the land. 
 And when a man does ignore it, he prostitutes reason 
 and judgment. He admits he is not considering the 
 proposition on the basis of intelligence and profit, 
 unless he has some particular reason for not buying. 
 
 Profit the Object of Business. 
 
 CT Selfishness is the controlling emotion in the- 
 average man's life in other words the desire for pro- 
 fit. Proof of this is seen in the fact that the prosperity 
 argument controls a national election. A man is in 
 business for profit and not for pleasure. As soon as 
 you show him your proposition will profit him you have 
 given him the main reason why he should buy.
 
 150 Salesmanship and Business Efficiency 
 
 CDid you ever realize that prosperity always 
 follows good judgment and that "out-of date methods 
 do not satisfy up-to-date employers?" 
 
 The Value of the Reserve Selling Talk. 
 
 C Reserve selling talk: Get the order as quickly 
 as you can and with as little talk as possible. Do 
 not go into details at first. Sketch the outline of your 
 proposition, simply giving the main points. If you 
 fail to get an order as a result of this preliminary 
 selling talk, then call on your reserve which should 
 be almost unlimited. Your first talk should be crisp 
 and right to the point. If you fail to land the order 
 with this talk, you will discover the objections and 
 that will guide you as to the kind of a reserve talk 
 to make. There are several good reasons for making 
 your first talk brief. First: what is the use of wearing 
 yourself out giving a long demonstration if it is not 
 necessary. Second: You cannot interest a boy for an 
 hour by showing him an elephant's head when the rest 
 of the body is near, but covered. He will get anxious 
 to see the whole elephant. Third: Give a bird's-eye 
 view of your whole subject first, or your hearer will 
 tire and you cannot hold his interest. Fourth: Going 
 into details as you go along gets tiresome; there is 
 not a mental conception of the whole, and a part will 
 not hold the interest. Fifth: When you give a bird's- 
 eye view at first you find out how and why your 
 hearer is interested. This gives you a clue to his in- 
 terests, desires, and needs. 
 
 Answering Objections Removes Reason 
 for Not Buying. 
 
 CWhen a man makes an objection for not making 
 the purchase, answer the objection and close the order
 
 Mental Law of Sale 151 
 
 at once. When you answer his objection, you remove 
 his reason for not buying, then why shouldn't you 
 close the order at once? 
 
 (TAsk yourself this question: What reason has 
 my prospect for making this purchase? You must 
 know the reasons, and then give them to him in such 
 a way that they are bound to produce conviction. 
 
 (^Objection: "I feel that I know a good deal 
 now." Yes, so do the Mayo brothers of Rochester, 
 Minnesota. Tfrey are the greatest surgeons in the 
 world, but in order to remain great they find it neces- 
 sary to have twenty-five assistant doctors. Some of 
 these doctors are away all the time. They send them 
 all over the world in search of new ideas and new 
 methods in surgery. In that way they have won a 
 large part of their international fame, and in that 
 way they propose to keep it. 
 
 Be Serious when Closing Order. 
 
 .QWhen coming up to the order point do not 
 joke or act as though you were working the fellow. 
 Do not make any remark about having a nice pen and 
 you want to see how it will write his name. That is 
 distracting and more or less demoralizing. You ought 
 to act with the same seriousness as when presenting 
 your arguments. 
 
 Coming Up to Order Point. 
 
 ,QI will give you a method that you can use in 
 selling any line of goods. At this point the prospect 
 is very much interested and acts as if he might buy, 
 but he hasn't said so. "Mr. Brown, this machine has 
 three finishes, the nickle, bronze and gold. Which fin-
 
 152 Salesmanship and Business Efficiency 
 
 ish appeals to you most or which do you like best?" 
 If he says, "Well, which do you consider best?" Give 
 him your opinion and your reason. That induces him 
 to express a preference one way or the other. Fall 
 in line with his opinion immediately, and say, "All 
 right, I will just make it this finish." When he asks 
 your preference you are pretty sure he has decided to 
 buy and if he permits you to put down that particular 
 finish without a protest, you are about nine-tenths sure 
 of him. You come in a little closer with your next 
 question. You might say, "Most people are satisfied 
 to wait and get their machine by freight, but a good 
 many are anxious to get it as soon as possible, and so 
 have it come by express. Would you want it by ex- 
 press, or are you willing to wait for about thirty days 
 until you can get it by freight?" 
 
 Two Affirmative Methods of Deciding. 
 
 iQYou see here I have given him two methods 
 of decision, but notice, neither one gives him a chance 
 to say no in regard to the proposition. I have abso- 
 lutely taken it for granted he is going to buy. I have 
 taken the idea of buying entirely out of his mind. I 
 have concentrated his mind on something else, the 
 method of getting it. This is a great point. Study 
 it carefully. Here is the way the greatest newsboy in 
 the world handles the same point. He meets me and 
 says, "Want a paper?" Oh, no, he doesn't. He 
 would not be the richest newsboy in the world if he 
 did. He says, "Which do you want, a Record- 
 Herald or a Tribune?" He takes it for granted 
 I want one of the papers, not that I might want a 
 paper.
 
 Mental Law of Sale 153 
 
 When You Satisfy Curiosity You Lose the 
 Interesl^-A Law of Human Nature. 
 
 ( CHere is a little point that lost an automobile 
 salesman a sale. The prospect got to the point where 
 he said, ''How soon can you get it for me?" Just look 
 at that question for a minute and think. The right 
 answer to that simple little question has made a lot of 
 profit; the wrong answer has lost a lot of sales. The 
 salesman said, "I can get it for you right away." 
 Doesn't that seem to be a good answer? Yes, but don't 
 you see it is likely to take the edge off a man's curios- 
 ity? Let us suppose he had resorted to the old ex- 
 pedient of answering the question by asking another 
 one. Let us suppose he had said, ""Well, how soon 
 do you want it?" Don't you see that such a question 
 would have put the prospect on the defensive and re- 
 quired a definite decision from him? It would give him 
 a definite chance to commit himself one way or the other 
 and left you free to take immediate advantage of 
 his decision. Suppose he had said, "I want it just 
 as soon as you can get it." The salesman's next move 
 would have been to say, "All right, we will rush the 
 order at once. Put your name right here, please." If 
 he had said, "I don't want it for a month," "All 
 right," you can say, "we will have it for you at that 
 time. Sign your name on this line here," or I have 
 very often simply handed the man the pen, pointed 
 to the line and said, "On this line, right here, please." 
 This is what I call "closing strategy." The princi- 
 ples I give you are fundamental and applicable to the 
 sale of anything. In this Mental Law of Sale I am 
 giving principles and their application. 
 
 QThe man behind the counter employs the same 
 methods in closing when he says, "Do you want to
 
 154 Salesmanship and Business Efficiency 
 
 take it with you or do you want it delivered?" You 
 haven't said you would take the goods but you act 
 that way and he decides for you by asking you a ques- 
 tion that can be answered either one of two ways, but 
 either way commits you. 
 
 The Leave Taking. 
 
 ,Q After closing an order or failing to close it, there 
 is one thing of considerable importance which we must 
 consider, and that is the leave taking. In leaving an 
 individual, treat him with courtesy and consideration. 
 Leave him with a good impression of you whether he 
 buys or not. We cannot lay too much stress upon 
 the appeal to the finer feelings and instincts. There 
 is nothing in the world that costs so little and is worth 
 so much as courtesy. It is an outward expression of 
 an inward kindness. It is the great lubricator of 
 business and of life. 
 
 ,C[I am going to give you another illustration of 
 the Mental Law of Sale. I pass by a tree of red ripe 
 cherries in June. They attract my attention. I am 
 immediately interested. I am convinced, as a result 
 of my past experience with cherries, that they are good. 
 I desire a bunch. I resolve to get them. I stop, reach 
 up and pick them. My mind went through these 
 processes almost instantly but the different steps or di-. 
 visions were there just the same. 
 
 Continuity of Thought. 
 
 iC[In this lesson I have referred slightly to thought 
 continuity, but I want you to realize how very im- 
 portant it is. Suppose, for illustration, that you start 
 a train on a track and that all of a sudden the train
 
 Mental Law of Sale 155 
 
 comes to the end of the track. You know as well as 
 I do that the train would land in the ditch in a 
 broken heap. Suppose you get a man greatly inter- 
 ested in a train of thought. Suppose his train of 
 thought is coming your way at the rate of an order 
 in half an hour, and he is abruptly called away for a 
 few minutes and must therefore concentrate his mind 
 on something else in the meantime. What happens? 
 Your train of thought is thrown into a heap in the 
 ditch. I might also say it is as hopelessly ditched 
 as the train of cars. 
 
 Planting an Idea and Seeing it Grow. 
 
 will go back to the beginning and show you 
 how this works. Every idea which enters the mind 
 immediately tends to express itself in action, unless 
 some other idea going in another direction cuts it off. 
 Or, as the psychologists say, "Inhibits it." To my 
 mind this is the most fundamental principle in psy- 
 chology for the salesman to consider. If we could 
 just get this principle thoroughly grounded in our lives 
 it would mean a great deal to us intellectually, and 
 financially as well. 
 
 C Remember when you are trying to sell a man 
 a bill of goods every idea you plant in his mind im- 
 mediately tends to make him act in accordance with 
 your suggestion, providing you give him real vital 
 ideas; then stop when you have given him enough to 
 make him want what you have to sell. When you do 
 this watch your customer, notice the effect of every 
 idea you give him; just as soon as you have his 
 desire created so that he is aroused sufficiently to act 
 in accordance with the ideas you have given him, close
 
 156 Salesmanship and Business Efficiency 
 
 the order at once before another idea going in an- 
 other direction makes him determine to change his- 
 mind. 
 
 Breaking the Chain of Thought. 
 
 CYou have had innumerable experiences of the- 
 kind indicated where your prospective customer was 
 called away from you. He had time to think inde- 
 pendently for a minute. The continuity of your argu- 
 ment was broken, another idea flashed through his mind r 
 and he said, "No, I guess I'll not decide to-day." You 
 have oftentimes lost your sale right on that incident. 
 Sometimes you have convinced him over again, after 
 using more effort than you did the first time, but 
 usually you lost the order. The loss of this sale was 
 due to the fact that the continuity of your thought 
 was broken, in fact, the spell, the atmosphere which 
 you had created around him, was broken. A new idea 
 flashed through his mind and you lost your order. I 
 consider the subject of continuity worth a year's study 
 and experiment in order to perfect it. 
 
 CIn this connection I wish to consider two other 
 points of vital importance, the ignorance of which 
 causes a salesman a lot of loss. 
 
 The Irrelevant Idea Dangerous. 
 
 CThe first consists in introducing an irrelevant 
 idea, an idea that bears no direct relation to the sub- 
 ject under discussion. This something which you in- 
 ject may seem insignificant, it may seem trivial, it 
 may be only a 'joke, but it breaks the continuity of 
 your thought. Your main argument is sidetracked. 
 The man changes his mind in an instant as if by in-
 
 Mental Law of Sale 157 
 
 tuition, because you aroused a different emotion, and 
 remember, you were the one who gave him the negative 
 suggestion which sent his mind running in a different 
 channel. Yiou were the unconscious cause of losing the 
 sale. You did not even know how it happened. Learn 
 to concentrate. 
 
 Talking Too Much. 
 
 :C[The other point I referred to consists in talk- 
 ing too much, getting so much interested in your propo- 
 sition that you are not paying attention to the effect 
 your talk is having upon your listener. A prize fighter 
 doesn't pound his antagonist until he is down and out 
 and then keep on pounding him. Even he knows better 
 than that, but many salesmen do not. A carpenter 
 doesn't drive his nail after it is clear in and clinched, 
 or he will loosen it. Many a salesman pounds away 
 at an order after it is thoroughly clinched in the other 
 man's mind. He talks the man into it and then bores 
 him so that he talks him out of it. Such a man fails 
 without ever knowing why, and believes that no one 
 ould have gotten the order. He made the sale and lost 
 it but did not realize it. Many such men do not believe 
 that salesmanship can ~be taught. They are ignorant of 
 certain laws of sale, and what is far worse, they are 
 ignorant of their ignorance. We do not need "human 
 windmills and verbal cyclones" but salesmen of alert 
 brains and quick judgment. 
 
 Knowing When to Close the Order. 
 
 have field-trained salesmen who did not know 
 when to take an order. I have seen them come up to the 
 point where their prospect was ready to buy, then
 
 158 Salesmanship and Business Efficiency 
 
 talk in a circle for two minutes and talk the prospect 
 out of buying. I found it necessary to form a signal 
 code with the salesman in order to get him to close 
 when he should. The salesman who works out his own 
 salvation on the field loses a lot of business and, there- 
 fore, a lot of profit that might be his. 
 
 Q" Every salesman knows the value of the actual 
 demonstration of having his goods on the ground so 
 that the prospect can see and feel and understand. 
 Give your man a definite idea of what you have to 
 offer. Picture the article, its use, its advantages so 
 vividly that it swims before his mental eye. 
 
 Proving Your Case Creates Desire. 
 
 XI "But your prospective customer must have proof 
 of your statements. Proof or argument follows logi- 
 cally after explanation. Its object is to create desire. 
 It is not enough to give your prospect an idea of the 
 nature or make-up or working principles of the thing 
 you are selling him. You must reinforce these by ar- 
 guments, proving to him the advantage of the purchase, 
 the saving that he will effect in his business, the in- 
 creased efficiency he can attain in his work, the pleasure 
 he will derive from the article. Proof may be pre- 
 sented by showing the satisfaction which the article 
 has given to other buyers or by some novel demon- 
 stration of its quality and value. 
 
 C[" Persuasion, on the heels of argument, inten- 
 sifies desire. Here the prospect must be shown tact- 
 fully how possession of the article will bring benefit to 
 him personally. 
 
 ,(" Possibly the best kind of persuasion is the 
 subtle suggestion which pictures to the prospect the 
 satisfaction or actual gain which ownership would
 
 Mental Law of Sale 159 
 
 bring. Argument is giving a man evidence that will 
 prompt him to act of his own volition. Persuasion is 
 the added influence of the salesman's personality that 
 brings action when the man himself hesitates. 
 
 The Final Advantage. 
 
 C"You know how the clever salesman manipu- 
 lates his talking points, always holding back till the 
 last some extra reasons why you should accept his 
 proposition. And it culminates in the climax or the 
 clincher. As you hesitate, undecided whether or not 
 to order, the shrewd salesman shoots at you one last 
 advantage which he has held in reserve." 
 
 Suggestive Questions and Exercises 
 
 1. Why is the science of mechanics so much better 
 known than the science of salesmanship f 
 
 2. Why has the business man failed to advance 
 as he should? 
 
 3. Which step in the Mental Law of Sale do you 
 consider most important, and whyf 
 
 4. How do you prove to a man that it is to his 
 advantage to buyf 
 
 5. Do you believe in going into details in your 
 first selling talk? 
 
 6. Write a selling talk of one hundred words. Use 
 as your subject a pair of shoes, a suit of clothes, a 
 typewriter, or some familiar article. Go to the shoe 
 shop, clothing store or typewriter office and have the 
 salesman give you a careful demonstration. Make a 
 critical study of your subject.
 
 LESSON VIII. 
 
 o+o- 
 
 jfWentai lato of feale-c 
 
 HE previous lesson, on the Mental Law of 
 Sale, will not only furnish food for a lot 
 of serious thought, but it will show you 
 clearly how the mind is analyzed and how 
 it can be influenced. It will take a lot of 
 real study to thoroughly understand the last lesson, 
 but when you once understand it, the knowledge gained 
 will enable you to wield a power and an influence over 
 people that you never dreamed possible. 
 
 C[The aim of this lesson is to throw more light 
 on the Mental Law of Sale and give you a clearer in- 
 sight into its use in influencing people in every walk 
 of life and every phase of society, business, politics 
 and diplomacy. The world's leaders are not necessarily 
 the great scholars, nor the men of commanding intel- 
 lect, but rather the men who understand human nature. 
 how to interpret it and how to influence people. 
 
 ( QHugh Chalmers says, "Next to the importance 
 of what you say, is the way in which you say it. It 
 is so in talking. It is so in advertising. It is so in 
 salesmanship." 
 
 Value of Having a Definite Object in Mind. 
 
 ,C[ Remember the arrow in the Mental Law of 
 Sale chart. You must have a definite object in mind
 
 Mental Law of Sale 161 
 
 when you attempt to make a sale. Why are you 
 going to make the sale? Get the object fixed 
 definitely in your mind and then work with all your 
 might to carry it out, or, hit the bull's eye. If you 
 haven't a definite object in mind you won't get any- 
 where. It will be like shooting with your eyes shut. 
 This "Object" business is applicable to advertising, 
 salesmanship, addressing an audience, committee meet- 
 ing, writing a book or selling anything. Why? Don't 
 you see it is because it is in harmony with the Mental 
 Law of Sale? 
 
 Success or Failure Depends Upon Quality 
 of Salesmanship. 
 
 G" Whenever we have dealings with one another, 
 whether on matters of business or otherwise, the natur- 
 al laws of salesmanship are operating, and the ulti- 
 mate result whether success or failure depends up- 
 on the quality of salesmanship exercised on our part." 
 "The impressions which we convey to others govern 
 our progress financially and otherwise. To make the 
 right kind of an impression, therefore, is the all im- 
 portant thing." Ex- Secretary Shaw says: "I have 
 won more law suits by my opening statements than in 
 any other way." Why did he exercise such care in 
 his opening statements? Kemember, he sold books 
 and fruit trees several summers when he was a student. 
 He says he succeeded by gaining the customer's con- 
 fidence. All through life he has realized the great 
 value of these fundamental principles which I am em- 
 phasizing so strongly, and he has used them to great 
 advantage in winning national fame as a lawyer, gov- 
 ernor, cabinet officer, orator and financier.
 
 162 Salesmanship and Business Efficiency 
 
 Don't Always Shake Hands. 
 
 When you call upon a business man introduce 
 yourself in a kindly, agreeable way. It is not best to 
 always shake hands with him. That must be decided 
 by circumstances. Some men will resent it, others will 
 appreciate it. The egotistical and self-important man 
 is likely to resent it. But if you do not shake hands 
 with a man when you meet him, you may do so when 
 the interview ends. In that way you leave a stronger 
 impression. 
 
 i C[ Always make an appointment with a man to 
 see your samples as soon as possible and at a time that 
 will be convenient for him. If the appointment is 
 during business hours, do not go to your sample room 
 and wait, for half of the business men will forget 
 about an appointment or forget to look at their watches, 
 and you cannot afford to lose the time. In order to 
 save time, call at his place of business at the appointed 
 time and have him go with you. 
 
 House to House Salesmanship. 
 
 CIf you are making a house to house canvass, the 
 ideal way is to ring the bell, step back about six feet 
 from the center of the door, or if anything a little 
 nearer the opening side. When the woman comes to> 
 the door she is mentally expecting a friend. She is 
 obliged to open the door wide in order to see you. 
 The moment you see her, catch her eye and hold it 
 for a moment; at the same time raise your hat, bow 
 politely, and move toward the door. You go through 
 these motions during a time that is too short to de- 
 scribe. In most cases, where you are not working in
 
 Mental Law of Sale 163 
 
 larger cities, the woman will expect you to go in. You 
 expect to go in and you do go in. 
 
 C Sometimes the individual who comes to the door 
 will ask you what you want. You should know the 
 name of the individual you wish to see. You will very 
 often get in by saying, ' ' Is this Mrs. Brown ? I want to 
 talk with you for a minute on a matter of business." 
 While saying this indicate that you wish to go in. Don't 
 say, "I want to see you," otherwise she is likely to say, 
 "You can see me right here." If she still persists in 
 keeping you out and wants to know what you want,, 
 give her a general answer. Do not be specific if you 
 can help it. If you are selling literary works of any 
 kind you might say, "I am engaged in educational 
 work. You have some children, haven't you? I was 
 referred to you by Mrs. So and So who thought you 
 might be interested in what I am doing." If she is 
 still curious and says, "Well, what is it?" You can 
 very easily say, "I will just step in and show you." 
 You can apply this method to almost anything you 
 are selling, changing it to suit your proposition and 
 the circumstances, but do not discuss your proposition 
 on the doorstep unless as a last resort. 
 
 A Clever Method of Getting In. 
 
 CHere is a clever method used by a salesman 
 for a large concern, when the girl comes to the door. 
 The home was a very prominent one and the girl said, 
 "Have you a card to send up?" He said, "No, just 
 tell Dr. Blank that Mr. So and So is waiting for him 
 in the library. He will understand." His name was 
 so peculiar he knew the girl couldn't possibly remem- 
 ber it. The fact that he told her to tell Dr. Blank 
 he would be waiting in the library and that Dr. Blank
 
 164 Salesmanship and Business Efficiency 
 
 would understand, made it imperative on her part to 
 let him in. He had been there before and failed in 
 his mission. He succeeded this time. Study this meth- 
 od. It is clever. 
 
 CIn introducing yourself be natural and agreeable. 
 That is, be natural if you are agreeable, and know how 
 to smile. You must learn how to smile or you will 
 never succeed as a salesman. I do not mean a sickly, 
 forced grin, but a smile that indicates that its owner 
 is living in peace and harmony with all the world. 
 Some faces radiate disagreeableness, others good-will; 
 some meanness, others kindness. You cannot think 
 &n evil thought and smile at the same time. You can- 
 not think of defrauding someone and smile at the same 
 time. If you try it, the smile will be transformed 
 into a cynical sneer. Your face is a looking-glass that 
 reflects the images within. You cannot get away from 
 it. To look at some men's faces you would think they 
 hadn't laughed for a year and you would think if 
 they did laugh it would crack the enamel upon their 
 faces. The agreeable face is another evidence of hon- 
 esty and honesty, character and success go together. 
 
 Mental Attitude Determines Success. 
 
 you take on the actions and bearing of a 
 tramp or a clown, your mind will almost immediately 
 gravitate toward your bearing. If, on the other hand, 
 you draw in the chin, expand the chest, and attempt 
 to look the part of a successful business man, your mind 
 will immediately respond to the auto-suggestion. A 
 man's mental attitude determines his dress and ap- 
 pearance, his environment and his success. I cannot 
 emphasize this thought too vigorously.
 
 Mental Law of Sale 165 
 
 CIf you approach a prospect and he is busy and 
 you know it, ask him when it would be most con- 
 venient for him to give you (state the length of time) 
 say, five minutes, if you only need a little time. You 
 can nearly always make an appointment. "When you 
 do, leave at once, but the fact that you only ask five 
 minutes will induce your prospective customer, in many 
 cases, to offer you the time right then. If he does,. 
 get busy at once. Cut out preambles and useless in- 
 troductions. Plunge into the heart of the matter in 
 language that is logical and carries an unmistakable 
 power to convince. When your five minutes are up, 
 do one of three things get the order, get out, or get 
 an invitation, either verbal or assumed, to stay longer. 
 
 Man Says No to What He Does Not 
 Understand. 
 
 ntroducing yourself properly, and getting the 
 attention of your man directed your way, are two 
 entirely different things. A majority of the people you 
 meet will say, "No, I do not want anything, and do 
 not care to look at it." Of course they do not want 
 anything about which they know absolutely nothing. 
 A man wouldn't want a million dollar gold mine un- 
 less his attention was cleverly attracted to it. Remem- 
 ber, that no man is interested in what he knows noth- 
 ing about. And right here I am going to crystallize 
 this law. It is a law of the human mind which directs 
 the mind to say "no" to what it does not understand. 
 Chauncey M. Depew says it is forty years from the time 
 an idea is originated among the people until it is in- 
 corporated into national law. So do not be discouraged 
 when you hear the word, "No." In most cases it does 
 not mean that you cannot sell. It means that the man
 
 16 6 Salesmanship and Business Efficiency 
 
 is not aware of the value of your product. You must 
 make him realize its value. If you cannot get his 
 attention it means that you have not yet mastered 
 the secret of successful personal appeal. How can 
 we expect prominent business men to take an interest 
 in our proposition unless we are first interested enough 
 in their business to study their needs. 
 
 Leave when Sale is Closed. 
 
 Q Never stay with a man after you have taken 
 his order and thoroughly clinched it. If you do you 
 -are killing his time and your own, and he might 
 change his mind and cancel the order. 
 
 Q There are a great many new inventions on the 
 market that are revolutionizing business. Every busi- 
 ness man is under obligation to himself to see what 
 ,you have. 
 
 0No first-class salesman uses a card to intro- 
 duce himself. When you present a card your prospect 
 looks at the card and away from you. In so doing you 
 lose his eye and your influence is sidetracked. 
 
 How to End an Interview. 
 
 ,C[The following is the best method of ending an 
 interview which you desire to end immediately. There 
 is nothing in the world which business needs more than 
 courtesy, and we have all too little of it. I have known 
 a traveling man to enter a store when the proprietor 
 was busy waiting upon a customer. The proprietor 
 would see him but pay no attention to him. When 
 through with the customer he would go over to his 
 desk and busy himself with his books that is, appar- 
 ently he would, but in reality he was simply killing
 
 Mental Law of Sale 167 
 
 time with the hope that Mr. Traveling Man would leave 
 without approaching him. Finally when he was ap- 
 proached he would act more like a bear than a civilized 
 man. Without looking up he would say something like 
 this, "No, I don't want anything to-day and I haven't 
 time to talk to you." He would leave the traveling 
 man standing right by his desk without a word of 
 civilized greeting or dismissal. This gave the travel- 
 ing man either a chance to begin a verbal battle, or 
 retreat in confusion. 
 
 C[In contrast with this uncivilized, unbusinesslike 
 and unprofitable method of handling the public, I wish 
 to show you how a gentleman and a diplomat accom- 
 plishes the same end. Here is the method used by the 
 late Senator Gorman of Maryland in dismissing a 
 salesman. The salesman approached the Senator and 
 stated the object of his visit. The Senator said, "I 
 am very glad to meet you but I am very sorry that my 
 time is so taken up that I am unable to devote the 
 time to look into your proposition." The Senator then 
 arose and walked to the door with his visitor. When 
 he reached the door he extended his hand very cordially 
 and said, "I am very glad to have met you and only 
 sorry that I cannot give your proposition the consider- 
 ation which I am sure it deserves," and then ushers 
 him out. This is the kind of diplomacy that trans- 
 formed Senator Gorman from a page in that great body 
 into one of its great leaders. What a blessing to this 
 country such courtesy and such diplomacy would be ! 
 
 Launch Argument with Logic then 
 Make the Appeal. 
 
 CThe successful salesman is the one who knows 
 how to successfully combine the logical with the emo-
 
 168 Salesmanship and Business Efficiency 
 
 tional argument. Remember that every proposition 
 you present must be launched with a logical, reason- 
 able argument. After that you can make your appeal. 
 Most people want facts and they base their decision 
 upon these facts. 
 
 Ability to Influence Secret of Leadership. 
 
 ability to influence is the secret of leader- 
 ship, and the ability to influence is based upon the 
 knowledge of human nature and how to manipulate 
 it. If you know human nature and thoroughly under- 
 stand the scientific principles of salesmanship you can 
 play upon the keys of human nature with the same 
 marvelous skill that a brilliant pianist plays upon the 
 keys of a piano. (See Knox's Complete Course.) 
 
 C[Why was Wendell Phillips such a great orator? 
 "Why was John B. Gough able to play the whole gamut 
 of human passion and emotion? Why was he able to> 
 play upon the keyboard of human nature with such 
 marvelous results? Why was he able to touch a sym- 
 pathetic chord in every human heart? It was because 
 he knew human nature in all its forms. He knew its 
 strength and he knew its weakness. He knew men and' 
 he knew women. He knew how to convince by his logic, 
 and persuade by his eloquence. He knew how to make 
 people laugh and cry. Do you? He knew their pas- 
 sions and he knew their impulses, and he knew what 
 to say in order to reach and influence their minds and 
 hearts. Do you? It will pay you to read the speeches 
 of the world's greatest orators. In this way you will 
 learn the secret of an orator's power. The secret of 
 a salesman's power is much the same. Profit by the 
 successful experiences of others. It is not what you 
 know that will keep you down, it is what you do not 
 know.
 
 Mental Law of Sale 169 
 
 Get the Note-book Habit. 
 
 Q Every time you hear a sermon or lecture, or 
 get an idea from a newspaper or magazine which 
 will help you in your business, take out your note- 
 book then and there, no matter where you are, and jot 
 it down. If you wait you will forget it. Talk that 
 point at your first opportunity. It will be fresh and 
 you can use it enthusiastically. 
 
 C[ Every salesman should have a good illustra- 
 tion or two to use with every selling point. He will 
 have them if he jots them down as he finds them. 
 I have carried a notebook for several years. It has 
 been worth hundreds of dollars to me. I could not 
 have prepared these lessons without it. I have not 
 only used it to keep a record of the good ideas I have 
 found, but I have used it to capture my own ideas. 
 Every man will originate a good idea occasionally. In 
 most cases he cannot retain it unless he writes it down. 
 I aim to commit to memory, not only my own ideas 
 but all the other good ideas I can. If you will fol- 
 low this method carefully for a year, it will greatly en- 
 rich your mind, increase your efficiency and show you 
 the necessity of continuing it. It is said that Bishop 
 Vincent's great lectures and sermons grew out of this 
 method. The man who gets the note-book habit will 
 make himself greatly superior to the man who doesn't. 
 And the man who gets the study habit is the only 
 man who has a chance of success in the future. 
 
 The Why of Objections. 
 
 ,CWe will next consider the subject of objections. 
 "Why does a man make an objection? Doesn't he usual- 
 ly do it because he is still more interested in his money
 
 170 Salesmanship and Business Efficiency 
 
 than he is in the article you are trying to sell him? 
 Do you see the underlying principles here? Then the 
 proper thing to do in most cases is to find out the 
 reason for that objection and go after that. When 
 we remove the objection we make the sale. We must 
 go deeper than the objection itself. The thing for you 
 to do is to dig back into your reserve and give him 
 such an inspiring talk that he will get so interested 
 in what you want him to buy that he feels bound to 
 get it because he hasn 't any excuses left. Of course, peo- 
 ple make excuses sometimes because it is a habit and 
 because they haven't anything else to say, or because 
 they want to feel satisfied with the proposition. Do 
 not take objections too seriously is my advice. You 
 know men often buy tobacco and drink, even though 
 they have to beg the money to get it. They get it 
 because they are intensely interested in it. Get them 
 to desire your goods and you will sell them. 
 
 QThe answer to an objection in one epigram- 
 matic sentence very often gets the order, because it 
 absolutely clinches the idea in the man's mind and 
 routs his unbelief, while if your answer had been stated 
 in different language you might have lost your order. 
 For example: It isn't what it will cost that you want 
 to consider, but what it will cost if you don't get it. 
 That is what you want to think about. 
 
 You Cannot Offend and Influence at the 
 Same Time. 
 
 salesman should never argue. Burn this 
 into your memory. You cannot influence and antago- 
 nize at the same time. A salesman is not in the field 
 to run counter to individual opinions and prejudices 
 on political, religious and a thousand other subjects. 
 He is out there to sell goods and to argue is fatal.
 
 Mental Law of Sale 171 
 
 A salesman should give assent as much as possible 
 to what is said, providing it is not important, and 
 when he cannot do that he had better not say any- 
 thing. You can lead the conversation and do it so 
 skillfully that the other fellow thinks lie is leading it. 
 For instance, when you know a certain insurance pol- 
 icy is best for a man 's needs, talk that and nothing else. 
 Concentrate his mind upon it and you eliminate compe- 
 tition. 
 
 Answer Objections by Intercepting Them. 
 
 C[The skillful salesman nearly always intercepts 
 and answers an objection before it is made. When an 
 objection does come up he answers it at once and 
 turns it into an advantage. "When you are asked the 
 price of an article I do not mean to say you are 
 to consider that an objection and answer it immediate- 
 ly. It is not always wise to tell the price at the 
 beginning of your selling talk because the prospect 
 will likely think of the price instead of what you say. 
 "When the subject of price comes up you might say 
 something like this: "I will go into that a little 
 later," or, "If I were to give you the price now be- 
 fore you had looked into the benefits of this article, 
 you might be thinking about the price and not about 
 the profit to be derived from it. On the other hand, 
 after you have investigated it you may not want to 
 get along without it, regardless of price. It is not 
 a question of price that you care about. It is a ques- 
 tion of how much profit it will make you, how big 
 a dividend on your money invested. You don't care 
 what an article costs provided it pays you from twen- 
 ty-five to fifty per cent, dividend on the investment, 
 do you?" I do not mean that all this is to be used 
 at any one time, but it is suggestive.
 
 172 Salesmanship and Business Efficiency 
 
 C[ Every objection should make a salesman strong- 
 er. Where the cost of the article is very small and 
 it only takes a short time to consider it, of course, it 
 is wise to state the price when asked, or make a point 
 of telling it before you are asked. 
 
 Two Kinds of Objections. 
 
 ,C There are two kinds of objections, the personal 
 kind and the critical kind. The personal objection is 
 always hardest to answer as the person who makes it 
 is usually stubborn or prejudiced. A man sometimes 
 says he has made up his mind and could not be in- 
 duced to change it. You might remind him that there 
 are exceptions to every rule, and you believe if his 
 judgment tells him that it is to his advantage to make 
 the purchase, you believe he is too wise a man to let 
 any personal opinion or prejudice stand in his way. 
 Or you might remind him of Lincoln's saying that, 
 "The foolish and the dead alone never change their 
 minds." It is plain then that it is the wise man who 
 changes his opinion. 
 
 QHere are some common objections and their an- 
 swers: "It costs too much." "However, Mr. Blank, 
 if you could figure out that it will make money for 
 you, you would look upon it as a good investment, 
 would you not? Really, it is not what an article costs 
 but the profit there is in it that you always consider. 
 If this article costs you $500.00, but earned you from 
 20 to 40% on the investment, you would consider it 
 a good investment, would you not? You would con- 
 sider it a good investment if it made you only 10% 
 as you can only get 3 or 4% from the bank. An ar- 
 ticle that makes or saves you money is not an expense. 
 It is an investment. Note carefully the difference.
 
 Mental Law of Sale 173 
 
 The clothes you wear are an expense, but of course 
 a necessary one. So is the house you rent or own. 
 But this article, as you can see with your own eyes, 
 will make you such a saving that you cannot possibly 
 otherwise make, that it will pay for itself within five 
 years and go on repaying for itself every five years 
 thereafter. This, then, is not an expense, as you can 
 see, but a big dividend-paying investment." You can 
 use the same argument when the article increases his 
 business. 
 
 The Great Difference Between an Expense 
 and an Investment. 
 
 iQ"Do you say you would like to hire assistants 
 but they cost too much? No. An assistant is an in- 
 vestment. The one and only reason you have for pay- 
 ing him wages is that he will earn for you enough 
 money to pay back his cost and a profit besides. This 
 article will do the same thing. If I offered to sell it 
 to you for 10 cents, one-fiftieth part of its real cost 
 and it would not make or save you 10 cents you would 
 not want it. But if I should ask you ten times as 
 much as I do ask you and it would make or save 
 you a good profit, then you ought to get it, ought you 
 not? This article will pay for itself and make you 
 a good profit. This you realize. "When it will do that 
 you ought to have it, no matter what it costs. If it 
 will not do that you do not want it as a gift. Isn't 
 that right? 
 
 (["Remember there are two values to every pur- 
 chase. What it costs and what it saves or earns. 
 Please do not confuse them. Cork costs four cents 
 a pound but if you were drowning its value would 
 be, not what cork costs you but what cork saves you.
 
 174 Salesmanship and Business Efficiency 
 
 Do not confuse the two values by seeing what you 
 pay and overlooking what you save. You judge a man 
 or a dollar by its earning power. You pay a man 
 wages according to the results he gets. Judge this 
 proposition in the same way. What would be a high 
 price for one man would be a low price for a better 
 man." 
 
 What Not to Do in Seeking a Position. 
 
 young man applying for a position can 
 make splendid use of every principle taught in this 
 course. How good a position a young man gets or 
 how much money he gets, depends upon his ability to 
 sell his services as well as his ability to do the work. 
 Very few young men realize that in selling their ser- 
 vices they are selling goods just as surely as if they 
 were selling cotton, corn, silk or automobiles. And the 
 man who buys their services does so with the idea of 
 profit just the same as buying any line of goods. 
 
 Qln seeking a position I would never approach an 
 employer with a cigar or cigarette in my hand. I would 
 never want an employer to see the color from a cigar- 
 ette on my fingers. I wouldn't say, "I reckon you 
 don 't want another man, do you ? " I would be dressed 
 like a prosperous business man, not at all flashy, but 
 neat and clean, and have my shoes shined. I would 
 see that my clothing harmonized. I wouldn 't match blue 
 eyes with a red necktie, a spotted vest, black coat and 
 gray trousers. I would not offer to shake hands with the 
 man from whom I sought a position. I would not be 
 egotistical and put up a bigger talk than my past record 
 justified, especially if he knew my record. Neither 
 would I be backward or diffident. I would state my 
 case clearly and vigorously. I would make a great
 
 Mental Law of Sale 175 
 
 deal bigger hit by saying my "long suit" was hard 
 work, rather than by saying I was a little brighter 
 than the average fellow. I would never exhibit pes- 
 simism or any of the negative qualities. They are not 
 good selling points unless you want to get turned down. 
 If you are asked if you can do the work don't say you 
 think you can. Be sure to say you can and say it 
 positively, if you think you can. Many a man has 
 gotten a position through sheer nerve and made good 
 after he got it. That possibly is easier when your 
 record to the contrary is not known. Getting a po- 
 sition is easy, but making good, "that's the rub." 
 
 When it Paid to be Prepared. 
 
 Q According to a writer in "Success" here is an 
 argument that paid handsomely. "One of the build- 
 ings of Wooster University burned down one night. 
 The next morning the youthful, boyish-looking presi- 
 dent, Louis E. Holden, started to New York City to 
 see Andrew Carnegie. The next day he called upon 
 Mr. Carnegie. Without useless preliminaries he said, 
 'Mr. Carnegie, you are a busy man and so am I. 
 I won't take up more than five minutes of your time. 
 The main building of Wooster University burned down 
 night before last, and I want you to give us $100,000.00 
 for a new one.' 'Young man,' replied the philan- 
 thropist, 'I don't believe in giving money to colleges.' 
 'But you believe in helping young men, don't you?' 
 asked President Holden. 'I'm a young man, Mr. 
 Carnegie, and I'm in an awful hole. I've gone into 
 the business of manufacturing college graduates from 
 the raw material and now the best part of my plant is 
 burned down. You know how you would feel if one 
 of your big steel mills were destroyed right in the busy
 
 176 Salesmanship and Business Efficiency 
 
 season.' 'Young man,' said Mr. Carnegie, 'Raise 
 $100,000.00 in thirty days and I'll give you another.' 
 'Make it sixty days and I'll go you,' replied Professor 
 Holden. 'Done,' said Mr. Carnegie. Professor Holden 
 picked up his hat and started for the door. As ha 
 reached it, Mr. Carnegie called after him, 'Now, re- 
 member it's sixty days only.' 'All right, sir' said Pro- 
 fessor Holden. Holden was already half way down 
 the stairs. His call had consumed just four minutes 
 The sum was raised within the specified time, and 
 when handing over his check, Mr. Carnegie said, laugh- 
 ing, 'Young man, if your ever come to see me agaiii, 
 don't stay so long. Your call cost me just $25,000.00 
 a minute. ' ' 
 
 Analyzing a Successful Selling Talk. 
 
 irst. You will notice that Professor Holden 
 dispensed with all the preliminaries and began to talk 
 business from the first sentence. 
 
 C Second. I want you to notice Mr. Carnegie's 
 objection and Professor Holden 's answer. Holden 's 
 sentence reply to Carnegie's sentence objection won the 
 $100,000.00. Don't you think Holden could well have 
 spent five years of his life in special study in order 
 to win the $100,000.00? Suppose Professor Holden 
 had tried to answer Carnegie's objection, that he did 
 not believe in giving money to colleges. If he had 
 he would have begun with a tiresome defense of the 
 value of a college education. But he didn't. He knew 
 human nature particularly, and Carnegie's nature es- 
 pecially, too well to make such a blunder. He knew 
 that Carnegie's system of making such young men as 
 Schwab and Corey his business partners was the won- 
 der and admiration of the business world. He well
 
 Mental Law of Sale 177 
 
 knew that Carnegie wasn't much interested in colleges 
 but that he was immensely interested in young men 
 and had a tender spot in his heart for them. Holden 
 touched this tender spot. How did he do it so spon- 
 taneously? He was prepared. 
 
 QHe had studied his proposition in advance. You 
 see Prof. Holden used the language that the 
 great Iron Master was familiar with. He met him 
 on his own ground. He did not use a single logical 
 argument. He knew Carnegie had money to give, and 
 that he would get it if he made the proper appeal. 
 He made the emotional appeal and it did the business. 
 He won this money not because of his ability as a 
 student of Latin, Greek or Mathematics, but because 
 of his ability as a salesman. Doesn't it pay to pre- 
 pare in order to win the big prizes ? Notice that Holden 
 immediately took Carnegie's mind away from the subject 
 of helping colleges, as he was prejudiced on that subject, 
 and directed his thought to a subject that Carnegie 
 liked. That was the subject of young men. Notice 
 further that Holden not only did that, but he did some- 
 thing else of strategic importance. He answered the 
 objection by asking a question. He used our interrog- 
 ative method. That immediately placed Carnegie on 
 the defensive. That sentence answer crystallized what 
 might have been an hour's argument. 
 
 Honesty the Only Road to Success. 
 
 ,(TThe Mental Law of Sale would not be com- 
 plete were I to finish this lesson without discussing 
 honesty, as it relates to truth and falsehood. Some 
 good and otherwise well-meaning people seem to think 
 that a man's ability to sell goods successfully depends 
 upon his ability to lie successfully. A prominent
 
 178 Salesmanship and Business Efficiency 
 
 woman once told me that her son was a poor auto- 
 mobile salesman because he was too conscientious, he 
 wouldn't lie sufficiently to be successful. This idea 
 is so absurd that it is preposterous. Nevertheless some 
 people and some light-weight salesmen are possessed 
 with it. The best thing that can possibly be said about 
 a proposition is to tell the truth about it, and tell it 
 so clearly that it can be understood. The man who 
 lies, can not do this because he hasn't the ability. He 
 tries, therefore, to substitute falsehood for lack of 
 knowledge, and just as soon as he does this his pro- 
 spective customer realizes it and loses confidence in 
 him. A salesman cannot lie and get away with it. 
 The man who tries it writes falsehood, insincerity and 
 dishonesty in every line of his face. Every man who 
 sees him may read it. The greatest compliment a man 
 can pay to the proposition he is handling, is to tell the 
 truth about it and tell it well. If the proposition will 
 not justify it, you cannot afford to sacrifice your man- 
 hood in trying to sell it. No man will handle a poor 
 proposition unless he values his manhood less than 
 his profit. 
 
 ,Q[ There never was greater demand than there is 
 to-day for men who are absolutely honest and whose 
 word can be relied upon. There are not enough of 
 these men in the business world to-day. The great need is 
 for salesmen who know how to analyze and organize 
 the truth in relation to a proposition, and drive this 
 truth home to the minds and hearts of men in such a 
 way as to produce conviction. When a salesman leaves 
 the truth and begins to base his talk on falsehood, 
 his statements are fanciful, foolish, illogical and non- 
 sensical. The one who hears them knows they are 
 false. He also knows that the tone of the salesman
 
 Mental Law of Sale 179 
 
 is false. When a salesman disregards his brains and 
 the brains of his listener, which he does when he tries 
 to win by lying, he is on the road to failure. 
 
 Suggestive Questions and Exercises 
 
 1. What can you say about having a definite ob- 
 ject in mind? 
 
 2. Why do people turn you down when they are 
 ignorant of your proposition? 
 
 3. What is the difference between an expense and 
 an investment? 
 
 5. Why did President Holden close the sale in so 
 few words? 
 
 6. Write an essay of one hundred words on the 
 bad effects of lying in order to close a deal.
 
 LESSON IX. 
 
 -O+O" 
 
 jiwgscstion in 
 
 HE word suggestion means very little to the 
 average man, and yet suggestion exercises a 
 marvelous power in politics, religion, medi- 
 cine, business, salesmanship and adver- 
 tising. 
 
 n order to thoroughly understand it, it will be 
 necessary to define it and analyze it in such a way as 
 to clearly understand its action upon the mind. The 
 following definitions by two of our great psychologists 
 will help us. "By suggestion is meant nothing more 
 than the intrusion of an idea into the mind with such 
 skill and power that it dominates and for the moment 
 disarms or excludes all other ideas which might pre- 
 vent its realization." Let us remember that the tend- 
 ency of every suggestion is to result in action which 
 is in harmony with the suggestion. 
 
 CThe following definition of suggestion is even 
 stronger. "A suggestion is a statement made by one 
 intelligent being to another presumably intelligent be- 
 ing. Of all the laws of the human soul, the law 
 of suggestion is the most important." In order that 
 we may thoroughly understand this power we must 
 first understand its relation to the dual mind. The law 
 is stated as follows, according to Hudson : 
 
 Cl. "Man is endowed with a dual mind, ob- 
 jective and subjective." 
 
 1180]
 
 Suggestion in Salesmanship 181 
 
 C2. "The subjective mind controls the functions, 
 sensations and conditions of the body." 
 
 C[3. "The subjective mind is amenable to con- 
 trol by suggestion." 
 
 Qln order that we may get a clearer idea of sug- 
 gestion and its action upon the mind, I shall here at 
 the beginning devote a little time to an analysis of the 
 mind. I can then make the practical application 
 clearer. 
 
 QThe objective mind is our every day reasoning 
 mind which takes notice of things by means of the 
 five senses. The objective mind is the seat of judgment 
 and reason. The objective mind reasons by all methods, 
 inductive and deductive, analytic and synthetic. The 
 subjective mind can reason only by deduction. The 
 subjective mind never classifies a series of known facts, 
 and reasons from them up to general principles; but 
 given a principle to start with, it will reason deduct- 
 ively from that down to all legitimate inferences with 
 a marvelous cogency and power. It is the seat of the 
 emotions, and the storehouse of memory. It performs 
 its highest functions when the objective senses are in 
 abeyance. It also has the power to read the thoughts 
 of others, even to the minutest details. Notice also 
 that the subjective mind is dependent for information 
 upon the objective mind, "on all subjects of human 
 knowledge not governed by fixed laws." 
 
 C[ Another important peculiarity of the subjective 
 mind is that it is incapable of controversial argument. 
 This is an extremely valuable law for the salesman to 
 keep in mind. Let us remember that we cannot an- 
 tagonize and influence at the same time. For this rea- 
 son a good salesman will, under no circumstances, con- 
 trovert what his prospective customer says, or argue 
 with him in any way. If he wishes his prospect to see
 
 182 Salesmanship and Business Efficiency 
 
 the situation as he sees it, he will call his attention 
 to a new phase of the subject and ask him if he will 
 not kindly look at the matter from that point of view. 
 In fact the objection of a customer can be thoroughly 
 neutralized and overthrown by the subtle law of sug- 
 gestion. 
 
 C Suggestion continually repeated finally results in 
 action, because every idea that enters the mind has an 
 immediate tendency to result in action unless elimi- 
 nated by a competing idea. Psychologically the secret 
 of influencing a mind is to continually keep your idea 
 before people. Advertisers and manufacturers who 
 have advertised extensively have made a fortune out 
 of the use of this idea. The salesman uses exactly 
 the same method. He knows how to adroitly and skill- 
 fully make such suggestions that he finally clinches 
 the order. 
 
 QA suggestion has a powerful effect when used 
 interrogatively. This method is not only used to in- 
 duce a customer to commit himself affirmatively, but 
 to keep him interested and thinking as well. After a 
 customer commits himself a few times, the suggestion 
 has a chance to work and it does induce action. Here 
 are some interrogative questions which carry a strong 
 suggestion: It is no wonder so many people are in- 
 terested in this line of goods, is it? If there wasn't 
 a single special feature but this one right here, this 
 one idea would be worth the price, wouldn't it? I 
 guess you feel like thousands of people, that it is an 
 opportunity to get hold of an article like this, don't 
 you? 
 
 Q There are four kinds of suggestions, positive 
 and negative, direct and indirect. The positive sug- 
 gestion says, This hat will give you excellent satis- 
 faction, the negative suggestion says, You wouldn't
 
 Suggestion in Salesmanship 183 
 
 want this kind of a hat would you ? The positive sug- 
 gestion says, You can get two collars for a quarter 
 and save a nickel; the negative suggestion accepts the 
 fifteen cents for one collar and says, That 's all, is it ? 
 
 QThe direct suggestion is a positive suggestion 
 made by one man to another. The indirect suggestion 
 is a suggestion made by a third party. For instance : 
 I ask my friend Jones how he likes a certain magazine. 
 Jones tells me it is fine, that he couldn't get along 
 without it. That suggestion coming to me from Jones 
 is ten times as effective as if coming from the man 
 whose business it is to sell the magazine. 
 
 C[I will contrast the results of the positive and 
 negative suggestion. I will show you how sales are 
 made by using the positive method and how they are 
 lost by using the negative method. 
 
 QI was in a grocery store one day and the clerk 
 said to his customer, "You wouldn't want any oranges, 
 would you?" She said, "No." Didn't he tell her 
 she didn't want any? "When the human mind is in a 
 state of indifference, it can always be counted upon 
 to act negatively in response to a negative suggestion. 
 Every negative suggestion is an apology, and yet nine- 
 tenths of the salesmen of this country use the negative 
 because we have been educated that way. The man 
 who is so ashamed of his proposition that he makes his 
 approach with an apology, is not making a sale, but 
 killing it. 
 
 C[A retail store in Des Moines has been very 
 successful selling oranges by putting a beautifully 
 decorated card in the window which said, "The Dr. 
 says eat oranges, 29 cents a dozen." The suggestion 
 which that statement made to my mind was this: If 
 the doctor says, eat oranges, I better do it or I may 
 get sick and have a doctor bill to pay.
 
 184 Salesmanship and Business Efficiency 
 
 C[An artist came to my office once with a picture 
 in his hand and said, "I don't suppose you want 
 to buy a picture, do you?" I told him I didn't. He 
 said, "I didn't suppose you did." I was in an imple- 
 ment store one day when a farmer came in. The 
 dealer said to him, "You don't want to take a buggy 
 out with you to-day, do you?" The farmer answered 
 in the negative. Why shouldn't he? Isn't that the 
 answer the dealer expected? 
 
 QI wanted to buy a black light-weight overcoat 
 a few days ago and I called upon several of the cloth- 
 ing stores to see if they had what I wanted. In one 
 store the clerk said, "We haven't what you want in 
 black. You wouldn't want a grey oxford, would you?" 
 I took his word for it and said, "No." I then called on 
 Nicoll the Tailor and discovered that he understood the 
 difference between positive and negative suggestion. 
 I didn 't tell him I wanted a coat, mind you. I told him 
 I was just looking, and that was the truth. After 
 satisfying me with the goods he said, "Do you want 
 a velvet collar or a collar made of the same material 
 as the coat?" A pair of positives, notice, and I hadn't 
 yet told him I wanted the coat. Then he said, "We 
 will make you a collar of both kinds and you can have 
 it changed when you desire it." A positive clincher. 
 Then he showed me styles and wanted to know whether 
 I wanted it made loose or have it close fitting. He 
 landed me with five positives and while I went in with 
 the intention of not buying, he got some of my money 
 before I got out. Positive suggestion did it. 
 
 CTLet me illustrate a negative suggestion in an- 
 other way. Suppose a young man decided to get mar- 
 ried and suppose he edged his way up to his lady love 
 and said, "Mary, you wouldn't want to get married,
 
 Suggestion in Salesmanship 185 
 
 would you?" Do you think he would get her? Not 
 unless she thought it was her last chance. 
 
 (TI went into a store one day to buy a collar. I 
 told the proprietor the size and style I wanted. Ig- 
 noring my statement that I wanted one collar, he 
 opened the collar box and said, "How many do you 
 want four?" I said, "How did it happen that you 
 asked me if I wanted four collars when I said I only 
 wanted one?" He said, "Well, I thought maybe you 
 could use them." Suggestion, you notice. I told him 
 I would take two. He said, "The next time I will 
 ask you to take eight." 
 
 C[I went into another store one time to buy a 
 collar. The clerk said, "Something?" I told him I 
 wanted a collar. Now, why didn't that clerk take it 
 for granted that I was there for something and ask 
 me a positive question instead of a negative one? If 
 that clerk woke up at three in the morning and found 
 someone going through his pockets, do you think he 
 would raise up on his elbow and say, "Something?" 
 No, he would know the man was in there for something. 
 If the salesman was in the mental attitude of positive 
 expectation, he would be more likely to ask the man 
 what he could do for him than to offer a sugges- 
 tion of indifference. Indifference is always negative 
 and it is one of the most negative and demoralizing in- 
 fluences among the salespeople of this country to-day. 
 
 CBut to go back to the collar. I handed him the 
 fifteen cents and he said, "That's all, is it?" and I 
 walked out. Instead of chloroforming my mind into 
 inaction by saying "that's all," suppose he had offered 
 me two collars for a quarter and called my attention 
 to ties, shirts, etc., some of which articles the average 
 man is usually in need of. It is the business of the 
 salesman to-day to do a lot of thinking for his cus-
 
 186 Salesmanship and Business Efficiency 
 
 tomer. If he doesn't, someone else whose mind is 
 awake will get a lot of their business. 
 
 C[A Des Moines clerk told me that a man came 
 in one day to get a $1.50 shirt. The clerk showed 
 him the shirt he asked for. He and his wife were 
 both satisfied with the shirt and decided to take it. 
 The clerk, however, wasn't quite satisfied. He decided 
 to use suggestion. He brought down a $2.50 shirt and 
 placed it by the side of the $1.50 shirt. The customer 
 talked about the cheap shirt, the clerk talked about 
 the higher priced one. Result: He sold the man two 
 $2.50 shirts and the man liked them so well that he 
 came back the next morning and bought another at 
 the same price. That is suggestion that got results 
 and gave greater satisfaction. 
 
 The Little Negative that Queers the Sale. 
 
 QHere is an illustration which shows the nega- 
 tive effect of suggestion. A farmer came to town to 
 buy a self-binder. He looked at one binder and was 
 so well satisfied that he was about to buy it. At this 
 point the salesman, thinking he would make a hit and 
 close the sale immediately, said, "I'll tell you, this 
 binder has given us very little trouble." 
 
 C[Now this farmer wasn't looking for a binder 
 that was going to give him even a little trouble. He 
 had troubles of his own. That one suggestion scared 
 him away. He went out and bought a binder from a 
 salesman who said, "This binder has given us excel- 
 lent satisfaction." 
 
 C[I once saw the advertisement of a top-buggy in 
 a mail order catalogue. The price printed under the 
 buggy was $39.00. Alongside the buggy in big letters 
 was this statement : ' ' Don 't buy a cheap buggy. ' ' The
 
 Suggestion in Salesmanship 187 
 
 whole ad carried the idea of exceptional value. This 
 ad sold a lot of buggies. It gave the impression of 
 big value at a low price. 
 
 ( Walter Dill Scott says: "Man has been called 
 the reasoning animal, but he could, with greater truth- 
 fulness, be called the creature of suggestion. He is 
 reasonable, but he is to a greater extent suggestible." 
 
 The Reactive Effect of Good or Bad 
 Suggestion. 
 
 C[The character of the salesman is affected by 
 the use of good or bad suggestion. No matter whether 
 the suggestion is good or bad, it is bound to react upon 
 the character of the one who made it. It is impossible 
 for one to suggest life-giving, invigorating, positive 
 moral principles without being helped himself. It is 
 impossible for one to think and talk and act in ac- 
 cordance with the great forces of life without being 
 lifted up and inspired by his own message. 
 
 QJust as it is possible to influence the subjective 
 mind of another by suggestion, so it is possible to in- 
 fluence our own subjective mind by auto-suggestion. 
 All we have to do is to determine on a certain course, 
 make up our mind that we will follow it, our subjective 
 mind accepts the suggestion, and we carry out our de- 
 termination. In order to gain results which are worthy 
 we must think in harmony with the great principles 
 of truth. Truth perpetuates itself by virtue of its 
 own inherent vitality. Every truth is itself a part 
 of an organized system which is co-extensive with the 
 Universe of God. On the other hand, every falsehood, 
 every error, every wrong idea is a prolific source of 
 possible evil, "for no correct conclusion can be drawn 
 from a false premise."
 
 188 Salesmanship and Business Efficiency 
 
 Exercises 
 
 Bring to class a list of positive and negative expressions 
 which you have heard used.
 
 LESSON X. 
 
 Will $otoer 
 Methods of Developing the Will. 
 
 HENEVEE you are inclined not to do a 
 disagreeable task which you know should 
 be done, do it at once for that reason. When- 
 ever you dislike to go out after business, 
 go immediately for that very reason. 
 QDo instantly any disagreeable task which should 
 be done, because you know it is to your advantage to 
 do it. Eefuse at once to do any agreeable thing simply 
 because it is agreeable, if it is injurious to yourself or 
 business. 
 
 C Concentrate and use daily in making sales every 
 requisite power you possess, you will then daily 
 grow into a logical, scientific and successful salesman. 
 Make a habit of sitting down and thinking deliberately 
 and coolly prior to every important interview. Think 
 the thing out in advance and then when you under- 
 take it, do your level best. 
 
 CIn the meantime burn deeply into your inner 
 consciousness this resolution: "I will, I am invincible; 
 failure is an impossibility and not to be thought of." 
 C[ Decision marks the strong man from the weak 
 man. "Indecision is the paralysis of usefulness." Get 
 what information you can get, or need to get, upon 
 the subject and then decide, once for all, either yes or 
 
 [189]
 
 190 Salesmanship and Business Efficiency 
 
 no. Entirely too large a per cent, of the average man's 
 life is wasted through continually putting off the 
 moment of decision. Failure to decide promptly, and 
 then execute immediately the thing they are convinced 
 ought to be done, robs men of opportunity and time 
 which would mean fortune. Vacillation will not do, 
 you must decide one way or the other after the evi- 
 dence is all in. Decision is the mark of strong men, 
 men of courage. In making a decision, add up every 
 point in favor of the proposition and every point 
 against it, just as you would two rows of figures. Put 
 them under two heads, affirmative and negative, just 
 the same as a jury does in an important case. After 
 you have the reasons all down, add up the two columns, 
 and if the affirmative has one more point in its favor 
 than the negative, you are mathematically compelled 
 to make your decision accordingly. This is the method 
 followed by Senator Elihu Root. Don't think for a 
 minute that you can reconsider it, or that sentiment 
 has anything to do with it. It has not, except with 
 a weakling, and you, my reader, are no weakling, or 
 you wouldn't be studying this lesson. 
 
 C There are a great many different types of will 
 which are worth studying. We say one man 
 is slow but sure. He is not afraid of drudgery. We 
 might call his the slow but sure will. There are sever- 
 al other kinds of will which a salesman must under- 
 stand and cultivate. Considering the types of will in 
 salesmanship, the following list will give an idea of 
 my meaning. 
 
 The Will Analyzed. 
 
 QThe slow but sure will; developed by constant 
 study, constant work, and attention to details.
 
 Will Power 191 
 
 persistent will; developed by aggressive 
 thought and the habit of sticking to it a determina- 
 tion to hang on and never let go. 
 
 QThe loyal-fidelity will; developed by thinking, 
 by devotion to another, and ceaseless effort to help 
 him. 
 
 QThe courageous will; developed by auto-sugges- 
 tion of courage, confidence, and determined effort to 
 succeed. 
 
 QThe alert will; developed by wide-awake obser- 
 vation of details and people, concentration on future 
 work, while not neglecting present work. 
 
 QThe tactful will; developed by the thoughtful 
 practice of adjusting one's self to others for their 
 pleasure and one's own profit, as well as theirs. 
 
 QThe assent -compelling will; developed by con- 
 tinually thinking what people are going to assent to in 
 one's proposition. 
 
 QThe intuitional will; developed by an unabated 
 desire to be a business diplomat, being continually 
 courteous, alert, desirous of adjusting one's self to cir- 
 cumstances, and always on the alert to develop in- 
 tuitional ability. 
 
 Eliminate Your Weaknesses. 
 
 (T Remember that the thing men know least about 
 is their individual selves. Certain qualities may be 
 developed and others eliminated. We suggest the fol- 
 lowing methods: 
 
 Cl. Correct your faults. It may hurt but it 
 will pay. 
 
 0[2. Strengthen your weak places.
 
 192 Salesmanship and Business Efficiency 
 
 C3. Banish fear, worry, blues, jealously, hatred, 
 depression, etc. These are to you what salt is to iron. 
 They corrode and kill both you and your business. 
 
 C[4. Cultivate and practice the habit of con- 
 structive optimism. Make yourself feel cheerful, cour- 
 ageous and happy. 
 
 Q5. Cultivate the habit of quick deliberation and 
 prompt decision. (J. P. Morgan makes decisions 
 amounting to millions in a few minutes.) 
 
 C6. Cultivate the habit of persistence, by care- 
 fully attending to details. 
 
 G[ Finally, make such a study of yourself and so 
 adjust yourself to others that you will be well thought 
 of. Remember that "two-thirds of your success lies in 
 making people think you are all right." 
 
 Suggestive Written Exercises 
 
 Write one hundred words showing how you de- 
 veloped will power "by doing what you should have 
 done, but did not like to do. 
 
 Write a two-page letter to a prospective buyer of 
 a sewing machine, who has written a letter of inquiry. 
 Make your letter sell the machine. Develop your will 
 power by going to the sewing machine office and getting 
 the necessary information.
 
 LESSON XI. 
 
 JSature 
 
 The Five Senses. 
 
 HAVE never been told by any student that 
 he or she has made a careful analytical study 
 of the five senses, with the idea of increasing 
 their business efficiency. We were taught 
 in our youth that the five senses were seeing, 
 hearing, smelling, taste and touch. 
 
 Educating the Eye. 
 
 Q Emerson says we get nine-tenths of our educa- 
 tion through our eyes. That being the case, we should 
 devote a great deal of painstaking thought and atten- 
 tion to the eye, its use, and the best methods of obser- 
 vation. 
 
 C[Some people have a large development of the 
 observation qualities, others seem to have little apti- 
 tude along this line. This latter class should especial- 
 ly concentrate their thoughts upon remedying the de- 
 ficiency. But this idea has never been called to the 
 attention of most people. 
 
 C[I confess I cannot remember ever having re- 
 ceived any instruction along this line during all the 
 years I spent in school. In fact a great many eyes 
 are weaker when they finish school than when they 
 enter. 
 
 Qln listening to a sermon or a lecture, you should 
 watch every gesture, every movement and every atti- 
 
 [193]
 
 1'Ji Salesmanship and Business Efficiency 
 
 tude. You should especially note this in trained speak- 
 ers. Learn a lesson from them. Most men can ap- 
 preciate a lesson from them. Many can appreciate 
 a successful effect of any kind, but they cannot give 
 the reason why, as they cannot analyze it. Observe 
 closely and look for the reason why. 
 
 CWhen you are selling a man you should study 
 his face with a hawk-like intensity. In this way you 
 will profit by every expression of interest. Take ad- 
 vantage of every favorable movement. 
 
 Study Faces and Remember Them. 
 
 observing an individual's dress and general 
 appearance you can draw a pretty accurate conclusion 
 as to his habit of thought. You can tell his tempera- 
 ment and quite correctly judge his inclinations. Study 
 faces and try to remember them. Take a personal in- 
 terest in people. Try to determine how old people are 
 when you meet them. Try to determine their business 
 or position in life. 
 
 QToo many people go through life without see- 
 ing any more than they have to. That is one of the 
 main reasons they don't amount to more then they do. 
 When an individual does not use his eyes it means 
 that he does not use his brains. A young man came 
 up behind me one day in a strange city and said: 
 "Why how do you do, Mr. Knox?" 
 
 CI had only seen that young man a very few 
 times, and that was over a year previous to this meeting. 
 I asked him how he recognized me and he said he had a 
 good eye for faces. He developed his qualities of ob- 
 servation. 
 
 QWhen you go down the street you should study 
 the windows in the stores. When a window trimmer
 
 Human Nature 195 
 
 trims a window, he has a special reason for so doing. 
 Figure out his reason. A window trimmer desires to 
 so trim his windows that the goods will sell themselves 
 through an appeal to the eye. He has studied other 
 peoples' eyes as well as his own or he would not know 
 how to make this visual appeal. 
 
 C[Why is it that a stock buyer is such a good 
 judge of the weight of cattle and hogs? It is because 
 he studies animals and estimates them with the idea 
 of weight in mind. You notice that he pays attention. 
 He concentrates his mind upon his subject and learns 
 to estimate. "We often hear the remark that So-and-so 
 has very keen, alert eyes. He has made them so. He 
 has learned to observe. 
 
 Qlt will pay you to study advertisements with 
 the same idea in mind. Look at a new automobile. 
 See how it has been made to appeal to the eye. Notice 
 how a beautifully gowned woman appeals to the eye. 
 
 QWhen you go to the circus you will see about 
 five trapeze performers in the same group. You will 
 usually notice that three of them are men and two 
 are women. You will notice that the men do all the 
 difficult work ; that the women are very fair to look 
 upon, but that the performing they do amounts to little. 
 They are up there to be seen and to fill space that would 
 otherwise not look well. In the eyes of the onlooker 
 they unconsciously accentuate the clever acrobatic 
 effects of the other performers. 
 
 i 
 
 Learn to Please the Ear and Eye. 
 
 do people spend years in studying ora- 
 tory? They do it to please the eye and the ear. Did 
 you ever stop to think of that? Beecher practiced
 
 196 Salesmanship and Business Efficiency 
 
 oratory for years. Why? In order to please people. 
 Demosthenes stuttered. He knew that stuttering did 
 not please people, so he went down to the beach, 
 placed pebbles in his mouth and practiced until he 
 overcame his difficulty. He did it to please people 
 rather than to displease them. We must please peo- 
 ple in order to succeed in life. It pays. How we look 
 and how our samples look, will give pleasure or dis- 
 pleasure to the eye. 
 
 Keep Your Samples Clean. 
 
 QThe salesman who does not keep his samples 
 looking their best is going to lose business, and a 
 lot of it. A self-respecting man will not buy from 
 a sloppy salesman whose samples are not clean. By 
 all means see that your appeal to the eye is as good 
 as it can be made. When a man looks at you he sees 
 a picture that is either pleasing or displeasing. If that 
 picture has unpolished shoes, a dirty collar, and finger 
 nails decorated with mourning, do you think it is 
 good to look upon? 
 
 C[I recently saw a man eating with his knife. 
 That one act told my eye a definite story about that 
 man. 
 
 Offending the Eye. 
 
 C[A prominent concern wanted a first-class city 
 salesman. They received a lot of applications. But 
 one man's recommendations stood out so much strong- 
 er than all the rest that they sent for him. He was an 
 able looking young man. The president of the concern 
 took him to the club for dinner. He tucked his nap- 
 kin around his neck when he ate. He finished his
 
 Human Nature 197 
 
 dinner sooner than his prospective employer. As soon 
 as he had finished he tilted his chair back and began 
 to pick his teeth. Then he took out his knife and 
 cleaned his finger nails. 
 
 C[In spite of his fine qualifications as a salesman 
 he was not hired, as this concern expected their 
 salesmen to dine with many of their prominent cus- 
 tomers, and they could not afford to be humiliated by 
 such a representative. They hired an inferior man, 
 but he finally became a member of the firm. If the first 
 man had developed his qualities of observation he would 
 have learned that he could not grossly offend the eye 
 and not lose prestige. His one weakness cost him a 
 great opportunity. 
 
 Do Not Antagonize the Ear. 
 
 QA voice that is harsh or that grates will not 
 long be listened to even by a good prospective cus- 
 tomer. In hiring a man, many concerns consider his 
 personality first and his voice second. Many concerns 
 will not hire a man unless he has a pleasant voice. The 
 business world is keyed up to a high pitch. It will 
 listen to a musical voice but never to a harsh one. 
 Every salesman should therefore train his voice if 
 he expects maximum pay. 
 
 Offensive Breath Hurts Business. 
 
 CYou may not think the sense of smell has much 
 to do with salesmanship, but it has. Many people will 
 not do business with a barber whose breath smells of 
 cigarettes or chewing tobacco. The same is true with 
 a dentist. Many people will not buy from a salesman 
 who has an offensive breath of any kind.
 
 198 Salesmanship and Business Efficiency 
 
 (JMany men have such a breath but they do not 
 realize the bad effect of it. A prominent doctor was 
 sick almost unto death with pneumonia. Leading phy- 
 sicians called upon him. They came into his presence 
 smoking, and it nearly stifled him. Up to this sickness 
 he had been a constant user of tobacco; but he vowed 
 never again would he be so unconsciously brutal as to 
 .offend a sick person with smoke. 
 
 Taste and Touch in Business. 
 
 CThe matter of taste has very little to do with 
 ordinary salesmanship, as very few goods are sold on 
 the basis of taste. But one should develop the sense 
 of touch. Some men become so expert through the 
 sense of touch that they can determine any and every 
 grade of goods by feeling them. You can usually 
 determine a good deal about a man's character by 
 shaking hands with him. The characterless man has 
 a weak handshake. 
 
 CIn the future, the man who guesses as to the 
 use of the five senses will be left far behind the man 
 who knows. Use your senses. They were given to 
 you for that purpose. 
 
 Human Nature Instincts. 
 
 QThe following list of human instincts and their 
 action is taken from a prominent work on psychology 
 by Prof. James R. Angell, head of the Department of 
 Psychology, of Chicago University. These instincts are : 
 "Fear, anger, shyness, curiosity, affection, sexual love, 
 jealousy and envy, rivalry, sociability, sympathy, mod- 
 esty, play, imitation, constructiveness, secretiveness, and 
 acquisitiveness."
 
 Human Nature 199 
 
 C" Curiosity is simply another name for inter- 
 est. Curiosity is the racial instinct to which our sedate 
 citizen is yielding. 
 
 G"Many persons feel an ineradicable impulse to 
 conceal their plans, their actions and their character 
 behind a screen of non-committal silence and reserve. 
 But this is temperamental and may be felt in the ab- 
 sence of all explicit justification. Acquisitiveness is 
 selfishness; the impulse to get and hold. 
 
 0[" Rivalry is closely allied with emulation, and 
 runs to excess in anger, hate, jealousy and envy. Its 
 stimulus is found in the successful achievement of any 
 one coming within our own social circle, by virtue of 
 which we are likely to be relegated to inferior po- 
 sitions. 
 
 C"Envy is generally applied to our covetousness 
 of the prosperity or possessions of others. This covetous- 
 ness is often accompanied as in jealousy, by more or less 
 malignity. Jealousy we commonly apply to a similar 
 feeling toward persons who are our supposed rivals, 
 whether actually successful or simply feared. Its char- 
 acteristic expressions are similar to those of anger and 
 hatred, but commonly occur in milder form. 
 
 (" Adult constructiveness is exercised under the 
 stress of fear, pride, or similar emotions. 
 
 (" Impulse as a mental affair may be defined 
 broadly as the consciousness of tendency to movement. 
 The disposition to movement is instigated by some stim- 
 ulus." We know that thought plus feeling equals 
 action. 
 
 ("The first time one of the strong racial im- 
 pulses is felt, the individual's consciousness contains 
 little or no anticipation of what is about to occur. He 
 is simply aware of an unusual thrill, a passing interest,
 
 200 Salesmanship and Business Efficiency 
 
 which comes to him disclosed in part by muscular move- 
 ments, half mechanical in their nature. 
 
 Q" Instinct and emotion are both psycho-physical 
 processes. The instinct refers primarily to physical 
 phenomena, and the term emotion to psychological." 
 
 Leadership Based upon Knowledge of Human 
 Nature. 
 
 o matter how brainy a man may be, no matter 
 how well educated he may be, he will be a failure as 
 a leader of men unless he thoroughly understands these 
 human instincts and how to so manipulate them as to 
 induce action in his behalf. 
 
 C[For a more complete study of Human Nature 
 see volume two of the Science of Applied Salesman- 
 ship, published by the Knox School. 
 
 Suggestive Written Exercises 
 
 When you see a horse do you ever stop to think 
 what breed it is or how much it might weigh? 
 
 When you pass a corn field in the summer do you 
 estimate its yield f 
 
 When you read an advertisement do you wonder 
 why it was so written? 
 
 When you look into a man's face can you tell why 
 he is or is not a leader of men? 
 
 With these questions in mind ask your friends a 
 lot of questions to determine whether or not they are 
 good observers, then write an essay of one hundred 
 and fifty words on the value of developing the quali- 
 ties of observation.
 
 LESSON XII. 
 
 , abbertistng anb (Dratorp 
 
 HE great trinity of rhetoric is clearness. 
 force and elegance. They are stated in the 
 order of their importance. Clearness ap- 
 peals to the intellect. Force appeals to 
 the emotions. Elegance appeals to the 
 
 taste, it appeals to the aesthetic. 
 
 C Therefore, if an argument is clear, it appeals 
 
 to the intellect, if it is forceful it appeals to the emo- 
 
 tions, and if it is elegant, it may neither appeal vigor- 
 
 ously to the intellect nor to the emotions. 
 
 Difference Between Force and Elegance. 
 
 C Billy Sunday is clear, forceful and inelegant. 
 but marvelously effective. Of course he is out of the 
 ordinary unusual, but it takes the unusual to be most 
 effective. That is due to the fact that folks are lazy. 
 They must be shocked into action. 
 
 QThe polished orator, William M. Evarts, was 
 clear, fairly forceful, and elegant. But he was so 
 elegant that his very elegance robbed his speech of 
 its force and killed its effect upon the emotions, leav- 
 ing it nothing but a dead rhetorical master-piece, de- 
 void of the power to stir the human soul. 
 
 Failure Due to Lack of Force. 
 
 QMost advertising, most salesmanship and most 
 oratory that fails to bring results, fails because it lacks 
 
 [201]
 
 202 Salesmanship and Business Efficiency 
 
 force. Tflour writer or speaker may tell a clear story. 
 It may be elegantly written or delivered, but if it lacks 
 force you may as well bid a fond farewell to the hope 
 of results. To get results it must stir people and to 
 do that it must be forceful. 
 
 Unusual Ideas Move People. 
 
 QChas. W. Mears, the famous advertising man, 
 says, "The public is both inherently selfish and in- 
 herently lazy. Too selfish to be interested in the mere- 
 ly ordinary or casual. Too lazy to take other than 
 routine action unless the unusual action is forcefully 
 urged. And in order to stir this selfish, lazy public 
 into the buying mood, and into action, copy must of 
 necessity shock or challenge the emotions." 
 
 The Emotions Must Be Challenged. 
 
 QGenung, an authority on writing, says: "Force 
 must shock or challenge the emotions." He also says: 
 "Genuine force in style cannot be manufactured; if 
 the style has not serious conviction back of it, it be- 
 comes contorted; if it has not a vivifying emotion, it 
 becomes turgid. Force is the quality of style most de- 
 pendent upon character. 
 
 C"The writer's culture for force, therefore, is 
 in its deepest analysis a culture of character. To 
 think closely and seriously, to insist upon seeking fact 
 or truth for one's self and not merely echo it as hear- 
 say; to cherish true convictions, not mere fashions or 
 expedients of thinking these are the traits in the cul- 
 ture of character that make for forcible and virile ex- 
 pression. ' '
 
 Salesmanship, Advertising and Oratory 203 
 
 The Unity of Public, Personal, and Written 
 Speech. 
 
 C Arthur B. Freeman says: "Salesmanship is a 
 form of advertising and public speaking ; advertising is a 
 form of salesmanship and public address; and public 
 speaking is salesmanship as well as advertising. Each 
 has its place in the business world. Each needs the 
 other and it is only when two or more of these forces 
 are working in conjunction that the most good may 
 be expected." 
 
 Analysis of Speech. 
 
 QA speech can be analyzed under the following 
 heads: Impressiveness, clearness, force, belief, action, 
 elegance and entertainment. 
 
 CThe object of most salesmen is simply to get 
 the order in other words, to get action. But the 
 salesman who doesn't do more than simply get the 
 order isn 't the highest type of salesman. 
 
 QThe man who makes the right kind of an im- 
 pression as to the character of his house, who makes 
 clear what the house stands for and is doing, who 
 establishes belief in the house's reliability, and who is 
 able to entertain the buyer and get him into the right 
 mental attitude, is a hundred times more a salesman 
 than the mere order taker or order filler. 
 
 QProf. Phillips says, "The carefully prepared 
 half-hour effort of many a preacher has been wasted, 
 because the burden of his talk was believe, when what 
 he really desired was action. Already they believed, 
 but they did not do; and every phrase, sentence, para- 
 graph every argument should have been selected with 
 special regard to its power to influence the will."
 
 204 Salesmanship and Business Efficiency 
 
 C[The salesman very often talks his prospect in- 
 to buying and then out again by trying to get him. to 
 believe in the article, when the man already under- 
 stands it, and already believes in it, and is waiting to 
 be told to act. 
 
 CThe salesman and public speaker must make 
 what he says come vividly into the life and exper- 
 iences of the listener. The more vividly and closely 
 the ideas touch the life, beliefs and experiences of the 
 listener, the more effective they will be and the more 
 likely will he be to gain his end. The more he theorizes 
 and generalizes the less effective he will be. 
 
 Qln order that you may be clear and reach the 
 point of contact in the mind of your listener, show 
 him how the unknown is like the known. 
 
 Qln order that you may be impressive, compare 
 the new feeling or emotion to the feeling or emotion 
 he is already familiar with. 
 
 QTo induce belief compare the new idea with the 
 one he is already familar with. Do the best you can 
 to get out of the listener 's experience the thing that has 
 impressed him most. Make your comparative plea upon 
 the strength of that emotion. 
 
 C Oratory is the ability to influence and control 
 thought and action. But no man will become highly 
 efficient as a speaker who does not know the human 
 emotions and the best methods of influencing them; 
 who does not become a highly efficient mental manipu- 
 lator.
 
 Salesmanship, Advertising and Oratory 205 
 
 Suggestive Written Exercises 
 
 John Brown has written a letter asking about the 
 book entitled Salesmanship and Business Efficiency. 
 Write him a letter giving him ten reasons why he should 
 buy the book. 
 
 Write an essay of three hundred words giving your 
 reasons why it is to the advantage of a business man 
 to be able to make a good, clear, effective speech. 
 
 Before you write above essay ask advice of business 
 men, lawyers, preachers, etc. Get into the habit of 
 seeking information.
 
 LESSON XIII 
 
 a Detail 
 
 HE following analytical outline will prove 
 very helpful, especially to inside salesmen. 
 This outline is based upon, and the illus- 
 trations drawn from a general clothing and 
 furnishing store, but the same principles of 
 analysis apply to any line of goods. 
 
 CI. The purpose of a retail store should be to 
 sell goods to the customer to his satisfaction and to 
 their mutual profit. 
 
 C[II. The special aim of a clothing store is to 
 give good service, dress the customer in the best style, 
 and give expert advice as to style, value, appropriate- 
 ness, etc. 
 
 CIII. The principle which must animate every 
 Salesperson in order to carry out this aim is a real 
 desire to take a personal interest in the customer and 
 give him the best service, together with kind and 
 courteous treatment. 
 
 QIV. The salesperson is the trained representa- 
 tive of the store. His purpose is to assist the customer 
 in choosing the goods that have been collected from 
 different sources at different times and at variable costs 
 and arranged for distribution to the customer at rea- 
 sonable prices. 
 
 QV. Therefore, the relation of the salesperson 
 to the customer should be that of an expert adviser, 
 
 [206]
 
 Analyzing a Retail Business 207 
 
 in the same way that a physician is an expert adviser 
 to his patient, and a lawyer an expert adviser to his 
 client. 
 
 Ql. In order to sustain this relation the sales- 
 person must develop a pleasing personality that will 
 not only gain the customer's confidence and hold it to 
 the end of the transaction, but such a personality as 
 will induce the customer to return again. 
 
 C Principle: No customer shall be permitted to 
 leave the store without receiving expert attention to 
 his needs. 
 
 C2. Calling the buyer. The buyer or assistant 
 buyer should be called, before permitting a customer 
 to leave with his wants unsatisfied, in order to find out 
 why his wants are not being satisfied and to make an 
 immediate sale if it can be done to his entire satis- 
 faction. A sale should not be made to a customer if 
 the salesman knows it will disappoint rather than sat- 
 isfy the purchaser. 
 
 Q Principle: The reasons that induce the buyer 
 to invest in the goods are the very reasons that will 
 convince the customer to purchase them, providing the 
 counter salesperson is as good a salesman as the travel- 
 ing salesman. 
 
 C[3. The salesperson shall understand the cus- 
 tomer through a correct knowledge of human nature; 
 through developing intuition ; through a study of types 
 and classes. 
 
 Q4. A salesman must have a thorough knowl- 
 edge of the goods (see analysis, Lesson II) in order 
 to be an expert adviser. 
 
 Reasons : 
 
 C[a. To have faith in his goods. 
 
 C[b. To have confidence in himself.
 
 208 Salesmanship and Business Efficiency 
 
 Qc. To assure his customer. 
 
 Qd. To arouse enthusiasm. 
 
 Qe. To show the customer the special features 
 that give the article its style, durability and value. 
 
 Q[f. To be prepared to answer any questions 
 which the customer may ask. , 
 
 C[g. To assist the buyer in his plans to satisfy 
 future needs. 
 
 QWhat to know. 
 
 Qa. Fit: An article must fit. This is a first es- 
 sential. A salesperson should look farther ahead than 
 the profit on that particular article or sale. He should 
 aim to satisfy future needs as well as present. For 
 this reason an article should not be sold to a customer 
 unless it fits. Fit includes every portion and detail 
 of a garment, as well as its general adaptability to 
 a customer. 
 
 Qb. Style : Style is sometimes to be desired above 
 quality, as upon that depends the effect. It should 
 bring out the strong points of the wearer and aid in 
 covering up the weak ones. 
 
 Q Study all the goods in stock in order to learn the 
 difference. Then systematize these goods in your mind. 
 Plan ahead and determine what types of customers 
 can best wear each. Then find out by experience what 
 your results are. 
 
 C[ Study different kinds of wearing apparel. If a 
 woman buys a waist be able to suggest to her what 
 kind of neckwear would be appropriate and bring out 
 the beauty of the waist. Thus you can sell more 
 goods through power of sugggestion. 
 
 Qc. Finish: If there is anything about the finish 
 of the article that enhances its value or adds to the style, 
 call attention to it. Note the quality, gloss, special stitch-
 
 Analyzing a Retail Business, 209 
 
 es, or anything that adds to the quality special finish, 
 etc. (If the article is imperfect call the buyer's at- 
 tention to it that it may be improved upon, or re- 
 turned if necessary.) If sold cheap for this reason, 
 give the reason. These things give the customer con- 
 fidence. 
 
 Qd. Quality: If you can't find out from your 
 employer what the goods are made of and something 
 about the textile value of such goods, send to the fac- 
 tory for information. 
 
 Qe. Color and color combination: Should be 
 studied with reference to harmony, age, size, eyes, hair, 
 and complexion. 
 
 Cf. Fabric: Learn name, manufacturing process, 
 and composition. 
 
 C[VI. Special points to be studied. 
 
 C[l. Commercial geography for the purpose of 
 learning source and transportation of products either 
 raw or in their different stages. , 
 
 C[2. Habitation of plants and animals from which 
 raw products are obtained. 
 
 Qa. Study producer and production to learn how 
 products are obtained. 
 
 Cb. Study facts about manufacturing to learn 
 how goods are prepared for use. 
 
 C3. Commercial conditions and causes which en- 
 ter into the making of prices. 
 
 C[4. The general principles of commercial law. 
 
 C5. Store construction: (a) How to build, ven- 
 tilate, light, decorate and make convenient; (b) sys- 
 tem, cost, credits, collections, buying, and selling 
 study different stores: (c) management, how to hire, 
 train, and manage employees.
 
 210 Salesmanship and Business Efficiency 
 
 Illustrative Principles. 
 
 QThe principles or maxims that have enabled 
 others to accumulate an immense fortune or build up 
 a great business are worthy of consideration. We 
 may close this lesson on the Principles of Retailing 
 in no better way than by succinctly stating the prin- 
 ciples that guided Baron Rothschild to success in 
 Europe and the Butler Brothers in America. The 
 maxims of Baron Rothschild were: 
 
 ' ' Carefully examine every detail of your business. ' ' 
 
 "Be prompt in everything." 
 
 "Take time to consider, then decide quickly." 
 
 "Dare to go forward." 
 
 "Bear troubles patiently." 
 
 "Be brave in the struggle of life." 
 
 "Maintain your integrity as a sacred thing." 
 
 "Never tell business lies." 
 
 "Make no useless acquaintances." 
 
 "Never try to appear something more than you 
 are." 
 
 "Pay your debts promptly." 
 
 "Shun strong liquors." 
 
 "Employ your time well." 
 
 "Do not reckon upon chance." 
 
 "Be polite to everybody. 
 
 "Never be discouraged." 
 
 "Then work hard and you will be certain to suc- 
 ceed." 
 
 QThe principles laid down as "The Butler Way" 
 are: 
 
 "Handle many lines." 
 
 "Make every dollar of your capital turn as fre- 
 quently as possible." 
 
 "Seek the trade of all classes of buyers."
 
 Analyzing a Retail Business 211' 
 
 "Buy in small lots and often." 
 
 "Buy, through man or catalogue, by value and 
 not by favor." 
 
 "Discount your bills." 
 
 "Give good values in worthy goods." 
 
 "Offer bargains and make them, always, actual 
 bargains. ' ' 
 
 ' ' Cheerfully exchange goods, or refund money paid' 
 whenever a customer is dissatisfied with a purchase.'^ 
 
 "Get rid of stickers by cutting their prices until 
 they do sell." 
 
 "Maintain your stock in a clean and orderly con- 
 dition." 
 
 "Treat your clerks in a way to insure their in- 
 terest in your welfare." 
 
 "Create and jealously guard a reputation for ab- 
 solute squareness in all your dealings." 
 
 "Advertise by printer's ink, special sales, show- 
 windows, and every other legitimate means." 
 
 "Recognize no dull season as a necessity, but push- 
 for trade all the time." 
 
 Suggestive Exercise 
 
 Visit various stores, make purchases, or look at 
 goods, then write article showing weakness of retail 
 salesmen.
 
 LESSON XIV. 
 
 Jlattonal Casi) Eegigter Celling 
 
 A National Gash Register Approach. 
 
 j ERE is an approach I have used with suc- 
 cess in selling National Cash Registers: 
 "Mr. Blank, my name is Knox. I repre- 
 sent the National Cash Register Company, 
 (wait a couple of seconds) and I want to 
 show you how a modern National Cash Register will 
 increase your profits, stop losses in your store, and 
 increase your business." 
 
 CIn that short opening statement, I appeal to his 
 pocket book and his curiosity. Both are quite neces- 
 sary. He is interested in knowing how any machine 
 will increase his profits. Furthermore, he knows he 
 has some losses in his store. He would like well enough 
 to see them stopped. So far so good. The two ap- 
 peals are addressed to his self-interest and he under- 
 stands them. But when I tell him I want to show 
 him how to increase his business, he is immediately 
 curious and will most likely say, "Well, I can see 
 where you might increase my profits and stop losses 
 in my store, but what I can't see is how you can in- 
 crease my sales." This is just what I want him to 
 say. If I can get a man so interested as a result of 
 my first statement that he is asking me for informa- 
 tion, it is proof that I have so aroused certain emo- 
 
 1212]
 
 National Cash Register Selling Methods 213 
 
 tions in his brain, that I have in reality created a 
 mental sensation favorable to my proposition. 
 
 QWhen a merchant asked me how the thing could 
 be done, I would immediately tell him that I could 
 not very well explain it to him without showing him 
 the Register, and inasmuch as I had the Register set 
 up in the sample room, I would ask him to come over 
 with me then, or come just as soon as he could. In 
 case he did not go with me, then I would make a 
 definite appointment with him, and call at his store 
 at that particular hour so as to remind him in case 
 he had forgotten. You can't depend upon people to 
 keep their appointments. You must keep after them. 
 They forget. 
 
 CI am going to give you two or three practical 
 illustrations at this point, where I made sales as a 
 result of an approach that made the proper appeal,, 
 and let me say also that if your approach is not a 
 good one, the chance of making a sale is lost for the- 
 time being, at least, providing you are turned down. 
 In making the sale there are seven distinct steps, as 
 you have already learned. You must make the ap- 
 proach, get the attention, arouse interest, produce con- 
 viction, produce resolve, create desire, and force de- 
 cision, which is closing the order. 
 
 QYour selling and closing arguments may be 
 brilliant. It may be impossible for a prospective pur- 
 chaser to get around them. But of what value are 
 they to you if you are turned down before you get a 
 hearing, a chance to use them? My definition for 
 approach, therefore, is this: The ability to create 
 an immediate favorable sensation in your Prospective. 
 Purchaser's mind. 
 
 CI had apparently made a successful approach 
 to a merchant in New York City, and made an appoint-
 
 214 Salesmanship and Business Efficiency 
 
 ment with him to meet me at the National Cash Register 
 office at the corner of Broadway and 28th street, at 
 -3 o'clock in the afternoon. Inasmuch as I did not 
 want to take chances on his not coming, I called at 
 his store just before three. He was out, but came in 
 shortly. "When he saw me he frowned and said he 
 hadn't time to go with me, as he was very busy, and 
 had decided he didn't want a Register anyway. 
 
 CI came back at him this way: "Mr. Jones, I 
 made an appointment with you at 3 p. m. at the Na- 
 tional Cash Register office. But that was not all. I 
 arranged with our greatest systems expert, a man whom 
 I believe is one of the greatest systems experts in the 
 world, to give you half an hour of his time, in order 
 to study your system and help you in any way he can. 
 Now, then, if you do not keep your appointment, and 
 our Mr. Blank loses his valuable time that he has 
 .kindly reserved for you, just see where it will place 
 me. In fact, he will be likely to lose confidence in 
 me. For my sake, under the circumstances, as well 
 as your own, I want you to come. The elevated will 
 be at the corner in half a minute, and if we hurry we 
 can catch it." I said, "Come on," and reached toward 
 him as if to catch him by the arm, and started for 
 the door. The suggestion was potent. When we got 
 outside I wanted to keep his mind busy, and I was anx- 
 ious to catch the first car, so I said, "Let us run." 
 We ran, caught the car and before we got to the demon- 
 strating room I had sold him a $500 Register, from 
 my catalogue. I showed him the Register in the office. 
 He signed the contract and gave me his check and I 
 turned him over to our systems expert. You see I 
 did not antagonize him. I did the reverse. My state- 
 ment was such that it shamed him just a bit.
 
 National Cash Register Selling Methods 
 
 QHere is another: I stepped into a store, intro- 
 duced myself to the proprietor, a fine old gentleman 
 of about sixty or sixty-five. He smiled when I told 
 him my business and said: ''You are just wasting 
 your time on me. Every National Cash Register man 
 in this territory has tried his best to sell me for twenty 
 years, but they have all failed. I know it is a good 
 thing and I may take a notion to buy one some time, 
 but I am not interested now." It was Christmas week, 
 and I came back at him like this: "For twenty long 
 years you have been thinking about buying a National 
 Cash Register, but you have not done what you know 
 in your heart you should have done. You have paid 
 the price of a Register, in losses, and no doubt a good 
 deal more, too, every year during those twenty years, 
 and still you did not get what you paid for. "When 
 I pay for a thing I need, I propose to get it. This 
 is the last week in the year. You are going to pay for 
 another nice new Cash Register next year, whether 
 you get it or not. If I were in your place, I wouldn't 
 be buncoed out of getting it any longer. I woulrf 
 get it and start the New Year right." 
 
 CI arranged with him to bring my sample into 
 his store. I demonstrated it. He signed the order 
 and kept it. The price was $300.00. Another case 
 when a short, simple, but effective approach landed a 
 good commission. 
 
 QHere is another one. A little town in Iowa 
 decided to have another store. It was only blessed 
 with one. I heard about it and went out. 
 
 CA Fire Insurance agent and I reached the store 
 at the same time. He said he was in a hurry for 
 he wanted to go out on the next train, which was due 
 in an hour. I told him to go ahead. He insured the 
 store and left. I approached the farmer who was start-
 
 216 Salesmanship and Business Efficiency 
 
 ing the store and he said: "No, the Register costs too 
 much and I can't afford it." I said, "You have just 
 insured your store for forty-six dollars and twenty-five 
 cents a year. In ten years that will amount to over 
 $460 and what chance do you think you have of burn- 
 ing out?" He said he did not know. "Well," I said, 
 "according to Fire Insurance statistics you have just 
 one chance in sixteen hundred of being burned out. 
 Think of it! Only one chance in 1,600! And yet 
 you are not willing to take that chance, and I think 
 you are wise not to. But look here. You cannot expect 
 to run a store without losing at least a quarter a day 
 as a result of mistakes in change, and twenty-five cents 
 a day more for forgotten charges, can you?" "No." 
 "That is an absolute loss. You believe the Register 
 will stop these losses and absolutely pay for itself in 
 a short time. If you lose half a dollar a day, and 
 there are 312 working days in a year, you lose $156.00 
 a year. In ten years your absolute loss is $1,560 at 
 least, and yet what do I ask for my Register, which is 
 an Insurance Policy against this loss of money? I 
 do not ask $460 for ten years with only one-sixteenth 
 of one per cent, chance of loss. All I ask is $425. At 
 the end of ten years it will not only have saved you 
 many times its cost, but it will then be worth half of 
 what you paid for it, at least, or $212.50. Now then, 
 I put it up to you as a gpod business man, can you 
 afford to pay $460 Fire Insurance for ten years and 
 get nothing for it, and not pay $425 for a system that 
 your own good judgment tells you will pay for itself 
 many times and insure your money against loss, not 
 only for ten years, but for forty years? As a level- 
 headed business man, you can't, under the circum- 
 stances, afford to turn my proposition down, can you ? ' '
 
 National Cash Register Selling Methods 217 
 
 He said, "No, I can't. I'll take the Register," and 
 he smiled when he said it. 
 
 CJNow, then, what got me this order so easily? 
 Simply my knowing the statistics in regard to Fire 
 Insurance and applying that knowledge at the oppor- 
 tune time. You may ask why I should spend time get- 
 ting such information. I say just for such an emergency 
 as this. A man, to be largely successful to-day, must 
 "know everything of something and something of every- 
 thing." 
 
 Q Every man with any intelligence at all who 
 studies this approach, can figure out an approach ap- 
 plicable to his own particular line of business. This 
 approach furnishes the model. It is no theory. It 
 has been used with great success by the greatest sell- 
 ing organization in the world. 
 
 Selling Methods. 
 
 QjThe following are the selling methods, selling 
 arguments, selling points and closing arguments that 
 have made the National Cash Register Company the 
 greatest and most successful selling organization in 
 the world, the envy of competitors and the marvel of 
 the rest of the selling world : 
 
 C| " Self -Respect . This element should stiffen the 
 backbone of every salesman. Never forget that your 
 business puts you on a level with any merchant and that 
 you are (or should be) doing good to everybody you sell. 
 You are asking no favors, you have nothing to apologize 
 for, and everything to be proud of. Servility will 
 lose more sales than impudence, and is quite as de- 
 testable. Treat your prospective purchaser with the 
 courtesy due an equal.
 
 218 Salesmanship and Business Efficiency 
 
 (^"Knowledge. This is the first step in salesman- 
 ship. You can never reach any of the others till your 
 feet are first firmly planted on knowledge. The first 
 rule for selling National Cash Registers is, know your 
 Register. The second is, know your store. Learn ab- 
 solutely everything to be known about the Register. 
 Never stop studying it. Never be afraid you will learn 
 too much. Never stop looking into its possibilities. 
 
 C["Know all that is possible to learn about the 
 store when you want to sell a Register, before you 
 approach the prospective purchaser. Then learn all 
 that he will tell you before you proceed to attack him. 
 Knowledge is power. It will put strength into your 
 efforts and help you to place them where they will tell. 
 
 C["~When the salesman has secured a hearing, he 
 miust make the most of his opportunity and put his 
 case well. He must hear the prospective purchaser 
 patiently, and answer his questions fully. If objec- 
 tions are raised, he must meet them. 
 
 (^"Industry. The habit of getting at it quickly 
 and pegging away all day long, without stopping to 
 swap yarns or talk politics, is the saving grace that 
 makes millionaires and winners out of ordinary men. 
 When added to talent, the combination gets pretty 
 near to genius, and commands its reward. There is 
 a whole cyclopedia of wisdom in the terse admonition, 
 'Follow the rules and plug.' 
 
 Q" System. Doing things in the way that is 
 most economical of time, effort and money, multiplies 
 a salesman's effectiveness many fold. It prevents much 
 waste of energy. The Spanish fleet at Santiago had 
 courage, weight and speed and threw metal enough to 
 have sunk our whole navy; but our gunners had sys- 
 tem.
 
 National Cash Register Selling Methods 219 
 
 Q'No need of genius. There is no secret or 
 mystery about selling our Registers. It only requires 
 hard work sensibly directed. Any man can sell them 
 if he is in earnest, uses common sense and makes the 
 most of his opportunities. 
 
 Q^When the clock strikes three, each stroke is 
 as full and complete as when it strikes twelve. When 
 you undertake a small matter, give it the same good 
 attention you would a larger matter. 
 
 C^'Why some salesmen fail. It is often difficult 
 to analyze the personal qualities and methods which 
 make one salesman successful and another a failure. 
 
 C[l. "A salesman may fail from lack of tact in 
 introducing himself. 
 
 Q2. "He may fail if he is slovenly and careless 
 in his dress and habits, because this leads other men 
 to suspect that he is not prosperous and does not 
 represent a first-class concern. 
 
 CT3. "He may fail because he does not answer 
 the prospective purchaser's questions and objections 
 intelligently, concisely and without too much detail. 
 
 Q4. "He may fail if he speaks indistinctly, or 
 too rapidly, or if he lacks animation and earnestness. 
 
 C5. "He may fail because he indulges in un- 
 gentlemanly, awkward expressions and gestures, or of- 
 fends the prospective purchaser by undue familiarity. 
 
 C[6. "He may fail for lack of dignity. 
 
 (T7. "He may fail because he gives an indis- 
 creet answer to the prospective purchaser's question. 
 
 C[8. "He may fail because he does not fully un- 
 derstand the Register himself, or cannot describe it in 
 suitable language. 
 
 C9. "He may fail for lack of knowledge of the 
 prospective purchaser's business, and the way in which 
 our Registers would help him.
 
 220 Salesmanship and Business Efficiency 
 
 Q10. "He may fail by neglecting to do or say 
 one or more of a hundred different things in the right 
 way. Also by doing or saying a thing at the wrong 
 time, in the wrong way. 
 
 C"^ satisfied user the best advertisement. Prob- 
 ably there is no other mistake which good salesmen make 
 so much as the failure to get all the advantages out 
 of a sale once made. Even good salesmen are apt to 
 think when a contract is once signed that that is the 
 end of the profit for them in that direction. As a 
 matter of fact, there is no other assistance which a 
 salesman can turn to his account which is so valuable 
 as the good will of a satisfied customer. It is, if pro- 
 perly used, a perpetual standing advertisement right 
 in the locality where he needs it most. 
 
 C"We do not advise salesmen to introduce them- 
 selves by sending in a card, but prefer that they 
 should depend wholly upon what they are able to say to 
 secure a hearing. "We strongly disapprove of all ob- 
 scure introductions and all tricks, and believe that a 
 man who has something worth saying, and is not 
 ashamed of his business, can make known his errand 
 in a bold straightforward manner. 
 
 {^"Have a fixed idea. A salesman should adapt 
 himself to his man, but at the same time he should 
 have a fixed idea of what he has to say. He should 
 be dignified and earnest. 
 
 Q"A merchant should never be approached the 
 first time with a funny story or an attempt at wit. The 
 first impression should be that the salesman sets a dis- 
 tinct value upon both his own time and the storekeep- 
 er's; that he has something of importance to say and 
 does not intend to trifle about it. 
 
 Q"You must not proceed on the theory that store- 
 keepers usually know what their own best interests
 
 National Cash Register Selling Methods 221 
 
 are. They don't. No man always does. The majority 
 of men are going contrary to their best interests 
 every day. They seem to be almost willfully blind to 
 the things that would help them and make them bet- 
 ter off. 
 
 Q" Gaining a hearing. The first point in ap- 
 proaching a prospective purchaser is to look like a gen- 
 tleman, act like a man and make him listen to you. 
 
 Q" Enough importance has not been attached to 
 the value of proper approach. So many times we hear 
 it said by an agent that he never knows what he is 
 going to talk about when he enters a man's store until 
 he meets the proprietor. We trust too much to catch- 
 as-catch-can methods in approaching. You ought to 
 have a point in view when you enter a store, so as to 
 get to the point quickly. The first thing after the in- 
 troduction is to impress the merchant as to just what 
 you are there for. 
 
 Q" Getting at the proprietor. After making as 
 thorough an investigation as possible, you should go 
 directly to the proprietor, and say, 'Is this Mr. John- 
 son?' Mention the name. Don't say, 'Is this the pro- 
 prietor?' If it should be a clerk, he will be flattered 
 by being mistaken for the proprietor. 
 
 (^"Getting the attention. Do not attempt to talk 
 to a man who is not listening, who is writing a letter 
 or occupying himself in another way while you are 
 talking. That's useless, and is a loss of self-respect and 
 of his respect. If he cannot give you his attention, say 
 to him, 'I see you are busy. If you can give me your 
 attention for a few minutes I shall be pleased; but I 
 don't want to interrupt you, if you cannot spare the 
 time now. I will call again.' 
 
 Q"Try to understand and feel thoroughly the dis- 
 tinction between confidence and familiarity. Never fail
 
 222 Salesmanship and Business Efficiency 
 
 in respect either to yourself or to the man with whom 
 you are talking. Never be familiar with him. Never 
 put your hand on his shoulder or on his arm, nor take 
 hold of his coat. Such things are repugnant to a gen- 
 tleman and you should assume that he is one. 
 
 Q" Never pound the desk or shake your finger at 
 a prospective purchaser. Don't shout at him as if 
 sound would take the place of sense. Don't advance 
 toward him and talk so excitedly under his nose that 
 he will back away from you for fear of being run over, 
 as if you were a trolley car. One sales agent backed 
 a prospective purchaser half way across the room in 
 this way. 
 
 Q" Don't compel a man to listen to you by loud 
 or fast talking. Don't make him feel that he can't 
 get a word in edge-ways and has to listen until you 
 are out of breath. This is not the sort of compulsion 
 that makes customers. But make him believe that you 
 have something to say and will say it quickly. 
 
 C"Put yourself in his place from the very start. 
 Make him feel, not that you are trying to force your 
 business upon him, but that you want to discuss how 
 his business may be benefited by you. 
 
 Q"The instant a prospective purchaser shows 
 a readiness to listen, give him your story in a nutshell. 
 Don't make a long preamble. Don't waste a lot of 
 words saying, 'If you will only listen to me I will 
 tell you this,' or 'If you will free your mind of preju- 
 dice I will explain that,' or 'If you will only give me 
 your attention for a few moments, I propose to 
 tell you the other.' Don't propose, but tell him. 
 
 C[" Convincing a man that he needs help is nine- 
 tenths of the battle. If you were trying to sell a con- 
 sumptive cure, there would be no use in telling how 
 wonderfully effective it is to a man who doesn't be-
 
 National Cash Register Selling Methods 223 
 
 lieve he has consumption. Your first effort must be 
 directed to pointing out the prospective purchaser's 
 complaint. Unless he sees this, he isn't ready for the 
 remedy. 
 
 Meeting Objections. 
 
 Q" Objections and meeting them. 'I can't afford 
 to buy a Eegister as I have a good system already.' 
 
 C" 'You can afford a thing that pays a good 
 profit, can't you? If this Register is only an expense 
 and doesn't pay you a profit, you don't want it. You 
 can't afford to have any useless expense in your busi- 
 ness. On the other hand, if it will be a profitable, 
 money making investment, you want to look into it 
 just as much as I want to have you do so. 
 
 C" 'If I were trying to sell you a class of goods 
 that you had never sold in your store, and showed 
 you how one million merchants were making more 
 money out of them than out of any other goods in 
 their store, you wouldn't say, without looking at the 
 goods, 'I can't afford them.' You would be glad to 
 come up to the hotel to look at them and see what 
 they were. 
 
 C["If one million merchants have found this 
 Register to be a money saving investment, there must 
 be something in it worth investigating, and you can't 
 afford as a business man to turn it down, without at 
 least looking into it and deciding for yourself. ' 
 
 0[" Prospective purchaser: 'My father made money 
 before me.' 
 
 Q" 'True, but did he have the competition then 
 that you have now ? Were goods sold on such small mar- 
 gins? In these days of sharp competition, you must
 
 224 Salesmanship and Business Efficiency 
 
 be more up-to-date than your competitor or you fall 
 behind in the race.' 
 
 Q" Prospective purchaser: 'No, I can't go to-day; 
 I am too busy.' 'That may be true. If so, I shall 
 be pleased to make another appointment with you. But 
 unless your work is .unusually urgent and important, 
 allow me to suggest that if I were selling you a line 
 of merchandise which you could examine and purchase 
 at once, and sell at a sure profit, then you would make 
 arrangements to examine or purchase without delay. 
 You would do so because you are here to make money, 
 all you can legitimately, and you would feel you were 
 doing yourself an injustice, especially if numerous mer- 
 chants in your line were handling my line at a nice 
 profit. You simply cannot afford to drop out of the 
 procession and leave the field to your rivals.' 
 
 C[" 'Nowadays, if you want to make more than a 
 fair living, you have to be brighter than your neighbors. 
 You have to be ready to accept new ideas and make 
 the most of everything good that is offered to you. 
 It is just as unreasonable to stick to the old ways simply 
 because you are used to them, when new ways would 
 bring you better results, as it is to climb ten flights 
 of stairs when you might be carried up in an elevator, 
 or to swim away from a life preserver when you are 
 nearly exhausted, just to show that you are able to 
 swim alone even if you do drown for it.' 
 
 <J" 'I'll get along all right.' 'It isn't a matter 
 of getting along. You ought to let your competitor 
 get along. You ought to be ambitious to get ahead.' ' 
 
 CJSome men look at an idea to see how they can 
 get along without it. Others look at it to see how they 
 can apply it to their business. The latter are the ones 
 who are preparing to enlarge their business.
 
 National Cash Register Setting Methods 225 
 
 Approach Don'ts. 
 
 Q" Don't disparage the prospective purchaser's 
 opinion or methods. It is better to keep him on good 
 terms with himself. 
 
 C[" Don't antagonize him. Approach him in a 
 friendly, agreeable manner. Act as if you know you 
 are going to get on with him all right. 
 
 Q" Don't take an argumentative attitude, but 
 don't fail to have your arguments at hand in case of 
 need. It is a trait of great men worth imitating to 
 seem to be going along with the other fellow while 
 you are really making him come your way. 
 
 C[" Don't assume to know more about his busi- 
 ness than he himself does, for you cannot make him 
 believe it. 
 
 C[" Don't tease him to go and see the Register. 
 When a salesman begins to beg, it is evident that he 
 has no more arguments to present. 
 
 Q" Don't flatter. Sincerity in business is as com- 
 mendable as sincerity in religion. 
 
 Q" Don't put on a civil and formal politeness, 
 which is not natural. 
 
 C[" Don't trust to persuasion alone to land your 
 prospective purchaser. Convince him. Persuasion is 
 the soft glove; conviction is the iron hand underneath. 
 Let your manner be as conciliatory as possible, but put 
 into your arguments a firm grip of conviction so that 
 he cannot get away from you. 
 
 C" Don't dodge a question or objection. Answer 
 it fairly and squarely. 
 
 Q" Don't talk for the sake of talking. Say some- 
 thing. 
 
 <J" Don't talk all the time. Give the prospective 
 purchaser a chance. When he opens his mouth to
 
 226 Salesmanship and Business Efficiency 
 
 make an objection, let him make it. It is better out 
 and answered than sticking in his mind. 
 
 Q" Don't forget that all men have certain common 
 ideas which can be answered by the same argument. 
 
 C[" Don't forget that every man has his own pe- 
 culiarities which should be met in a different way. 
 
 Q"You start the argument. Lead your prospect- 
 ive purchaser, then when he talks, get in your convic- 
 tion. 
 
 Q" Don't underestimate your difficulties. Don't 
 overestimate them. Don't think you are up against an 
 impossible proposition. 
 
 C" Don't be a quitter. Never say: 'This is too 
 tough a proposition for me.' It is a mistake to say, 
 'It cannot be done.' The right thing to say is, 'This 
 may be a hard nut to crack, but there is a way to do 
 it. I '11 keep at it with courage and patience and do it. ' 
 
 Q" Learn to size up your man, his peculiarities 
 and moods. All men like honesty, politeness and earn- 
 estness. All men admire persistence. Most men want 
 facts. 
 
 ("Nine times out of ten, you can bank on facts 
 to fetch your man. Make them as clear as glass, strong 
 and few. Don't bewilder a man with a mass of trif- 
 ling facts. Tie to a few important points, drive them 
 in and clinch them, but tell him what he needs to 
 know. If a trifle will close him, it's no trifle. 
 
 C"A few men can be driven; the majority must 
 be led. Look him in the eyes steadily and friendly. 
 Learn to read the expression in a man's face which 
 says, 'Almost persuaded,' and the other which says, 
 'Hang the fellow! I wish he were in Hades!' Act ac- 
 cordingly. 
 
 Q"Some men like a little oratory or spice of 
 humor, but that is dangerous ground. Beware of the
 
 National Cash Register Selling Methods 227 
 
 man who smiles and nods and never buys. Put your 
 trust in earnestness, candor and facts. 
 
 Q" Speak deliberately. If you see from a puzzled 
 or doubtful look on his face that some point is not 
 quite plain to him, stop and make it plain. Take time 
 enough to stop and explain each point thoroughly. 
 "Whenever you make a statement that is open to ques- 
 tion, be sure to get his assent to it before you proceed. 
 If he will not assent to it exactly as you make it, modify 
 it until he does. Get him to assent in some degree 
 to every proposition you make, so that when you get 
 to the general result he cannot go back and disagree 
 with you. Don't do this, however, as if you were try- 
 ing to corner him, but with a simple desire to reach 
 a reasonable basis of argument. 
 
 C"You should be just as sincere about it as if 
 you were a clergyman preaching the gospel. If you 
 go at it in this sincere spirit, the prospective pur- 
 chaser will feel the importance of what you say and 
 it will carry its due weight. 
 
 C["It is a simple proposition that if a thing will 
 save him money every day, the quicker he gets it the 
 more it will save him, and the longer he delays get- 
 ting it the more he will lose. 
 
 Q"He should be impressed with the fact that a 
 thing which pays for itself is never an expense; that 
 not only can he always afford a thing which makes 
 money for him, but he cannot afford to go without 
 it a single day. 
 
 Q" Prove one thing at a time. Don't try to prove 
 several things at once. The average mind cannot 
 think of several things at once. Prove one thing at 
 a time and make the proof of that one thing so strong 
 that no man can dodge it. If needs be, use fifty argu- 
 ments and take all day to settle that one question;.
 
 228 Salesmanship and Business Efficiency 
 
 but settle it so that your man will never open it 
 again, even in his own mind. 
 
 Q" Settle each point thoroughly. Don't fire your 
 arguments along too fast; fire a good one into him 
 and see if he feels it. Let it sink in. If it isn't enough, 
 give him another on the same question though. Don't 
 change from one point to another and then back again. 
 Stick to each point till you 've made it ; then when your 
 man is convinced, drop it. If you hammer a nail after 
 it is driven home, you only loosen it. 
 
 C"Try to get a man's mind completely satisfied 
 and convinced of the logical truth of what you say. 
 That is vastly better than merely getting him to say 
 'yes' to it when a doubt lingers in his mind. 'A man 
 convinced against his will is of the same opinion still,' 
 and he may countermand his order. 
 
 C" Weigh every word or phrase that may possi- 
 bly influence a prospective purchaser. The value of 
 words is in their truth or aptness. Have them ready, 
 but never force them in where they don't belong. If 
 their exact value is well fixed in your mind, you can 
 safely trust the occasion to bring them out spontane- 
 ously. Then they will have double value. A word 
 fitly spoken is a keen weapon. 
 
 Demonstration Don'ts. 
 
 "Don't mispronounce words. 
 
 "Don't talk too fast. 
 
 "Don't speak in a monotonous tone. 
 
 "Don't speak indistinctly. 
 
 "Don't pass from one thing to another. 
 
 "Don't emphasize too strongly. 
 
 41 Don't fail to emphasize important points. 
 
 4< Don't seem at a loss for something to say.
 
 National Cash Register Setting Methods 229' 
 
 "Don't fail to hold prospective purchaser's inter- 
 est while calling attention to good points. 
 
 ' ' Don 't repeat as from memory. 
 
 "Don't fail to improve the first opportunity to- 
 present the order. 
 
 "Don't refuse to break off in your demonstra- 
 tion and answer the prospective purchaser's questions.. 
 
 "Don't fail to stop and get the prospective pur- 
 chaser's assent to a statement that is open to question. 
 
 "Don't imagine, because the prospective purchaser 
 listens in silence, that he agrees with you, or even 
 understands all you say. 
 
 "Don't fail to draw out the prospective purchaser's 
 objections. 
 
 "Don't present your arguments in a cut and dried 
 style. 
 
 "Don't try to be magnetic or eloquent. 
 
 "Don't fill up your mind with words or phrases,, 
 but with ideas. 
 
 "Don't try to impress the prospective purchaser 
 with what a fine talker you are. 
 
 "Don't fail at the critical moment, when the pros- 
 pective purchaser is hesitating, to follow him up and 
 land the decisive blow. 
 
 Closing Arguments. 
 
 C["The whole art of salesmanship is summed up 
 in the four words: 'Getting the order signed.' Your 
 approach may be perfect, your demonstration clear and 
 well made, but if you cannot put a climax upon the 
 presentation of your case by bringing up unanswerable 
 closing arguments, your efforts have been useless and 
 your time lost.
 
 230 Salesmanship and Business Efficiency 
 
 time has come for him to put his name 
 to the order. If necessary, fill out two or three blanks 
 before he arrives, if you are in doubt as to which 
 Register he will buy. You are then prepared to pre- 
 sent an order, ready for signature, with perhaps the 
 change of but a few words. 
 
 C" Sometimes a prospective purchaser who seems 
 .almost persuaded appears to be suddenly overwhelmed 
 by the price. That will stand up before his mind's 
 eye to the exclusion of everything else. It is a good 
 idea to put the question to such a man in a way some- 
 thing like this: 
 
 Q" 'Mr. Blank, when you open your ledger to a 
 certain account, you look at both sides of it. You 
 strike a balance and if that balance is in your favor, 
 that is all you care about. You don't look merely 
 at the expense charged to any account and say, 'This 
 is tremendous. I can't afford it.' You look to see 
 whether that expense is bringing you in a profit. If 
 it is doing that in a good measure every month, and 
 every year, you are satisfied. "While you do not want 
 to spend a single dollar that is not going to bring back 
 a dollar, you would just as soon spend a thousand 
 dollars a minute if each thousand would bring you back 
 a thousand dollars and more. It isn't a question of 
 how much money you put out for anything. The real 
 question is, what does it bring in over and above what 
 you put out for it ? 
 
 Q" 'Two hundred dollars is a good deal of money, 
 as you say; but if this Register is going to wipe out 
 its own cost while you are paying for it, and then 
 pay a continual profit in excess of the outlay, you are 
 a gainer by the transaction. Look at this question just 
 as you would at a ledger account debit on one side,
 
 National Cash Register Selling Methods 231 
 
 credit on the other. You'll see that this isn't an ex- 
 pense at all, but an investment, and a paying one. 
 
 Q" 'It is not what the Register costs that you 
 should consider, but how much money it costs you 
 each year to be without one. 
 
 C[" 'Our company has spent thirty years half a 
 business lifetime, and more, perfecting this machine. 
 This Register you see before you represents an outlay 
 of a quarter of a million dollars. This one machine 
 could not have been made without putting out that 
 capital. It also represents all these years of hard 
 work, costly experimenting, and the taking of all the 
 business risks which a manufacturer of a new thing 
 must take. Do not look at it as so much metal. What 
 it will accomplish that is the point; and that repre- 
 sents brains, labor, study, experience and commercial 
 courage, all of which are expensive. 
 
 C[" 'You ask too much money for that machine.' 
 'When you bought your insurance you did not buy the 
 paper the policy was written on, but you bought the 
 protection it was to give you. 
 
 Suggestive Written Exercise 
 
 When I was with the National Cash Register Com- 
 pany, their average salesman was making seven thous- 
 and dollars a year. Write an article indicating the 
 qualifications which such a man must have.
 
 Investigate the Science of Applied 
 Salesmanship. 
 
 For an exhaustive study of this great subject which 
 includes Advertising, Business Letter Writing, Business 
 Management, Insurance, Credits, Collections and the 
 Science of Business, write to the Knox School of Ap- 
 plied Salesmanship, Des Moines, Iowa, for complete 
 information. 
 
 Every student of this volume witt ~be entitled to 
 a special price on the complete course.
 
 UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 
 
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