577 SPINE STIFFNESS - : Spine Stiffners Little Hypodermics for Real Estate Salesmen BY ROBERT B. ARMSTRONG Copyright 1913 Guy M. Rush Company 901 Story Building I, os Angeles, California Number One VACATIONITIS has ruined more real estate salesmen than corn juice. Many dirt-movers can't stand prosperity and surrender to the hook-worm early in the morning of their opportunity. There is no such thing as a vacation" pQnad in true selling. , '" Man is as land hungry in August as;he,is Jn Jfieb- 1 , ruary, but about that time of year the bl'aze-of-glory salesman is suffering from Catalina Pectoris or Tahoegastritis. It is only the old plugger who was never arrested for arson for putting a torch to this old world that can see a prospect after the thermometer reaches 83. The real estate office that puts its feet on the mahogany early in June and keeps them there till the sere and yellow days needs an ambulance and an operation for the sleeping sickness. Be generous. Urge your competitor to take a long and delicious vacation. When he is deep in bliss get off everything that impedes work, down to the point where Anthony Comstock would infer that you were out to take away even Mary Garden's blushes and then hustle harder for every degree of temperature. Otherwise grass will "grow in the streets of the classiest subdivision and dry rot will undermine the latest skyscraper. If $450,000,000 "die-to-win life insurance " is sold to men who don't want it in off season, why should dog days slow up the realty business? Why? 785932 Number Two p EOSPECTS all look alike to a lot of men who say they are real estate salesmen. Joyriders and lookers-on all wear a uniform if you're wise enough to glimpse it, but old sleepy-eye, who couldn't see a glass of beer on a hot day, gets no g'o-'sltfw signal, and speeds up with all the conversa- tional gasoline in his six-cylinder larynx. Restless roamers of both sexes who couldn't buy a willow plume if they were a dollar a pound get more polite attention and superheated speech than the horny- handed person with the jeans full of gold dust and crying for a quick wedding of his gold and some good, clean dirt. It's lucky that there are none of these near-sales- men in politics. They would mistake pussy-footed Murray Crane for Toreador Theodore and never know the difference. If one of them happened to be near- sighted he would take the steam-roller for a downy couch and never be missed. Courtesy and politeness always, but why use up one lung on a callow youth that couldn't buy a postage stamp when a real buyer is growing careworn wait- ing for some one to come and take the money! Study human nature ! Learn to discriminate between a pen- niless sob-sister and a perambulating bank disguised as a plain woman in skirts. Number Three DON'T be a horse-trader when you try to sell real estate. You have heard the story of the unhorsey minister who was shown a steed. The dealer said he was three years old. The minister realized he knew little about horses and hunted up a profane person who could talk to horses in their own language. The two came back and looked at the same horse. This time, under the horse-wise eye of the profane one, the horse-dealer said the horse was twelve years old. This jump of nine years in the age of the beast in as many minutes shocked the dominie so he couldn't speak. His friend saved the situation by the remark: " Don't it beat hell how time flies?" Most every piece of property has a spavin or a blind side. Don't gloss it over or ignore it. Tell your prospective buyer where the property limps. If it is sway-backed tell him, and then show him that the fault is not one that does the property great harm. Nine out of ten times the buyer will help you over the bad places if you start the ball. Heaven help you, though, if you put on the muffler and he finds out the bad things later without your aid. An enraged wife waiting for you at 3 in the morn- ing, after you've entertained a customer at the club all night, is a placid joy in comparison. Cupid would have a better batting average if hus- bands-to-be could have a private view of the bride-to-be before she dolled up and while she still shuffled around the house in a bathrobe and curl papers. It's the same way with real estate. Show the seamy side first, and if there is any knockin' to do, do it yourself. Number Four SOME real estate salesmen treat prospects like a newspaper. They look them over hurriedly, give them passing attention and then cast them away for a fresh one. Into the discard goes many a potential buyer, but the salesman never follows him up. Some one else reaps the reward. If men made love this way Cupid would have to use a rapid-fire Gatling gun. No engage- ment would last over twenty-four hours, and the bride who did not sign on the dotted line on the second call never would have a chance for Eeno. There are a loJk of Finnegans trying to sell dirt to canny folk. They are as agile as the famous Long Beach flea and daily live up to the text : ' ' On again ! Off again! Gone again!" The man who will fight for an old pipe and wails for old wine wants his prospect to be glistening in the pristine purity of a virgin. If it is tarnished with a single fingermark it fails to hold attention and the agile agent leaps the fence for new pastures. Working out old prospects and making buyers of them, appeals about as much to the average salesman as congratulating the loser in a Fourth of July prize fight after he has lost a flock of your gold coin. Some one ought to invent a cyanide process to apply to prospects spilled by the hit-and-run dirt merchant. Number Five DON'T try to sell one lot to a mass meeting. There's always one knocker in a party of three. When a salesman is battling to sell a good piece of dirt to two people at the same time, one of them immediately commissions himself or herself as the can- did friend and true adviser of the other. Twenty-dollar gold pieces at $19.98 would not pass the censorious friend under these circumstances, and as for the best real estate in the Garden of Eden. Never ! The proper way to sell a lot, an acre, a farm, or a business block, is to organize a new party, consisting of the buyer and the salesman. Executive sessions all the time till the deal is over and the ink dry on the dotted line! And, why? Because the land is not good or the price too high ! Because the agent is resorting to sharp practice ? No. None of these. It is because human nature is the same the world over and the average mind yields to the greatest argument or to the person who com- mands the greatest confidence. The salesman cannot out-argue a friend who has been trusted for years, and whose influence is against the proposition. Once in a while real estate can be sold to mass meetings, but the average salesman will find it better to segregate the prospects and sell one at a time. It will take longer, but the wear and tear will not be so great and the number of fall-downs will not be so numerous. Concentration is the price of closing and don't you forget it. Prospects are like racehorses. Diversions tend to take their minds off the race. Keal estate salesmen must use the weapons of the fencer, and it's a man-to-man, mind-to-mind proposi- tion. Don't mistake it for a football rush with eleven on a side. There is no hospital where they treat you for lost commissions. Number Six THE jinx that fastens itself to the real estate sales- man is not poverty. It is prosperity. Show me a commission man that can stand oodles of sales and boundless prosperity and I will show you a man that will be heard from in a big way. For every such a man there are a score of sales- men that slump with a stagnation of success. The voluptuous caress of the silken fifty-dollar bill and the carousing chink of the yellow boys is a sure cure for the perspiring tongue and the hotfoot. None but the unusual dig for prospects when the larder is heaped high, the bank roll big, and the swivel chair soft. Good salesmen under these circumstances lose their memory and are the victims of a queer disease which makes them think they are receiving tellers. They sit at the gate and wait for the sale to make itself. All they are willing to do is to cash the com- mission check, and even at that some insist on currency. Eemember always the story of the Chicago mer- chant : His ambition in life was to own a team of beauti- ful horses and ride to business in a luxurious victoria. At last he won his heart's desire. But his joy was brief. A friend met him walking and expressed sur- prise. Almost in tears the prosperous and paunchy prince of merchandising cried: "All my life I vork and vork for the day when I can lean back in my car- riage and fold my hands, and vhen I can afford idt the doctor says, valk, valk, valk!" Number Seven SOME brilliant real estate salesmen talk them- selves out of sales. They are like the political orator that the late Paul Morton used to enjoy describing when he was secretary of the navy. ' ' This man," Secretary Morton used to say, "was one of the most brilliant orators this country has ever heard, but he had a fault of talking too much. He wore out the brilliance of his welcome and left his audience tired and wilted. "I heard him once in a company with a friend, when I was in the railroad business. When the orator finished I turned to my friend, the railroad man, and said: " 'Well, Jim, what do you think of him!' " His reply was finished and final: " 'He's a hell of a talker, but he lacks terminal facilities.' " When a really brilliant salesman starts out with a prospect and the emergency brake on his vocal powers stalls, a good sale and a fat commission are slain by rhetoric. To the proverbs that we all should know, but do not, could well be added another: Speak with sincerity and conviction tell all the facts plainly and judicially, but talk not to hear your own voice! Learn to stop! Number Eight A PERFECT host is the one who draws out his guests and allows them to monopolize the conversation. When these guests go home they have had the time of their lives. That's a hunch for the seller of dirt. Draw out your prospect! Get the life story or the essentials. Give your customer-to-be a chance to talk, and with wise guiding ques- tions you will learn the whims, pet aversions and hobbies of the prospect before you even get a chance to begin your selling talk. The best lesson you can learn in your whole life is to be a good listener. There are only a few in the world. There are several million good talkers. Listen and agree. Don't argue! You are selling real estate not leading a debate. Win your sales. Lose any argument that your prospect starts and compliment him on being the better man in logic and rhetoric. Tell him he is one of the few men that you ever found superior in debate and he is yours. It may be a little fiction, but it expands the chest of the prospect and does no one harm. Get under the skin. Don't give the high hand shake and the settlement-worker stare. Talk with and not at your prospect. Get the prospect to talk. Listen. He will make you a map of his mental likes and dislikes. It is as good as trephining the skull and it is not as messy. Then sell. Get right down to a personal "brass-tack" basis. Find out by skillful questions the most intimate information. Get the exact status of the finances, his business relations, his failures and his ambitions. Know your man and get as personal with him as a Tammany precinct leader. The latter knows every angle of his followers' personality. The jewel expert is valuable for his knowledge of uncut gems. The salesman must differentiate his prospects into indi- viduals and get at their peculiarities before he tries to sell. Men and women do not come in gross lots of uniform specifications. Get any such idea out of your system. You have the advantage, when you know how many dollars a man has, and he knows that you know that he likes to chew tobacco. Number Nine MARSHALL FIELD, America's greatest merchant, made it a practice to buy something at every counter in his store. To many of the clerks he was unknown, even by sight, and he picked his men for promotion by seeing them in action. One day he bought some neckties. He was very fussy. Time and again he tried to block the clerk or make him lose his temper. But the man knew his stock and made a friend as well as a customer. Today the former clerk is well along in the management of the firm, for he was almost immedi- ately promoted by Mr. Field. He knew what he was trying to sell. He knew all about ties. He knew what was in fashion. He knew prices. He knew what the other shops were selling, and the prices they were charging. He knew his stock. Real estate dealers can take a leaf out of his book. Some of them only know their stock like another one of the salesmen in the house of Marshall Field. He was asked if he knew his stock. He glibly answered "yes." He was asked to explain what he meant. "Well," said he, "I can put my hand on any box of socks in my department without a moment's hesi- tation." He was discharged. He didn't know his stock. He simply had a good speak- ing acquaintance with a set of shelves. Lots of men are trying to sell read estate the same way. They know where it is and can get there on the street car. They know how big the lot is and how much they should charge for it. They know they must get so much as a first payment, and can reel off the stereotyped terms like a parrot. But there are a lot of things about the property they never took the trouble to find out. They would be up in the air a mile if the prospect ever asked a half-dozen leading questions. When they pass a tract being sold by another real estate firm they try to divert the attention of the customer to the scenery on the other side of the right-of-way. They don't know the other fellow's proposition and cannot compare it intelligently with the one they have for sale. Every piece of land has selling points. Get yours out and get the other fellow's! Don't knock, but when the inevi- table comparison comes, be ready for it. Know your land ! Know more about it than anyone else, and be ready to answer any possible question on cross-examina- tion. Number Ten DON'T smut yourself with a business that you make sordid. If you can't make real estate selling something more than a money-grubbing scheme quit it. Drive a coal wagon and get down to real drudgery. Eeal estate selling, when done right, is empire- building on a small scale. The man who helps make the unthrifty save, who shapes a home out of fritter money, is as big a factor as the educator or the diplomat in world building. The man who plants a subdivision carefully and reaps a well-built section of an important city creates a slice of a great state in a greater nation. His deed or dream may be less colossal than that of Cecil Khodes, the empire builder of Africa, but it is empire building just the same. Eeal estate selling the right way is a big, fascinat- ing helpful human game. Play it right ! Don't be a grubber, seeing nothing but the tawdry dollars and forgetting the humane service. As you yourself think of your work, so it is. If you are ashamed of it think it sordid, selfish graft, so it will be. If you get the finer points of view, real estate selling will be something more than selling dirt. Make your business a joy and a thing of pride. Number Eleven HOBOES don't make good real estate salesmen. Some of them have an excellent command of language and present arguments clearly and forcefully. Yet they fail to convince. Their appearance is against them, and first im- pressions are the ones that last longest. Dress up the leading salesman of any live realty organization in the ragged motley of a hobo and he would fail every time. He is the same man, but neither the world nor himself thinks so. Appearance has an effect not only on the project, but on the salesman himself. Stubble on the face, spotted clothes and unshined shoes have cost more than one sale. The man who is careless of his appearance doesn't carry conviction. It is a simple decency one owes to the man or woman he calls on to present the advantages of real estate to be neatly, carefully groomed. But Don't overdo it. Dolled-up dudes distract the mind from any real estate proposition. A leader of men makes it a practice to turn down business from correspondents whose letters bear smeared signatures on the ground that a man who is too careless to blot a signature is too careless to trust. It applies to personal appearance as well. Be neat, but not sumptuous. Number Twelve DON'T you get fighting mad when some one mis- pronounces your name? Aren't you a little wild when some one spells it the wrong way? Well. We're all alike in this respect. Political feuds have been started in Washington by calling a man names unintentionally. Men that have rhinocerial hides on every other test jump like a scared rabbit when you mangle their cognomen or do violence to the spelling of the first, second or third label that differentiates them from the rest of humanity. A member of Congress who had a peculiar name that was easily mispronounced challenged an ancient and careless man to deadly combat because of a mis- pronunciation. Now: Eemember this when you are interesting people in real estate, get the name right and pronounce it right. Be careful of that tender point that is common to us all. Some of us whose forbears were plain Mike Hogans have been decorated like a French fop and are now Michael Angelo Hoganesque. All the same, the name is sacred. Don't trifle with it if you would have your batting average stand high on the sales board. Number Thirteen ESE your clock if you want to sell lots of real estate. If you hold on to your watch, use it only to keep appointments. Get the one-lunged-power rooster and tie him to your window. Spend your evenings talking to prospects. Play the most fascinating of all games sales- manship when your opponent is relaxed and receptive. He will listen to a poorly-told story of good real estate when you couldn't sell him gold dollars for 90 cents apiece in the daytime. It is as much fun as bridge, chess or billiards, and it pays. If your prospect wants to start at four in the morning, go with him. If necessary, get a police permit to carry on trade at unusual hours. It's that time that counts most. A past master in the art of salesmanship declares that !)0 JKT cent of the calls made in the evening are productive of interest, and of these 75 per cent even- tually result in sales. If you can't exist with as little sleep as did Napo- leon, take a cat nap in the middle of the day. Alake sales while the electricity shines. Alfalfa needs the sun. You don't. Number Fourteen STAE gazing don't help you sell real estate. But! There is a sale in every paragraph of the recol- lections of Los Angeles pioneers. Go down to Seventh and Spring. Look at the Van Nuys building and then spread 250 silver dollars out flat on the first floor. It's the price at which that lot was offered not so very long ago. A fistful of the dirt is worth as much in this day of grace. The same is true almost anywhere in the business district of Los Angeles. The past indicates weakly the future of this city. There is just as much to be made as has been made. Some of the prices we think are high will be just as ridiculous in a couple of decades. Take any section. Price the soil there today, five years back, twenty years back, thirty years back, and you'll have to use force to prevent a wise man from buying land in Los Angeles at present prices. The day when the tourist crop was the pre-emi- nent one is over. The day of the canal, of factories, of ships to the seven seas is dawning. A city of millions, distributing to many other millions, food and money, manufactures and machinery, means jumps in real estate as great as any in the past and twice as many of them. Number Fifteeen ASOLINE has made the horse take the count. But It has not eliminated horse trading from business. In spite of the carburetor congress tricks of the old horse-swapping days come to light in every line of commercial activity. Eeal estate is not free from the chap whose ances- tors used to dope up an animal and pass it off as the real Nancy Hanks just rediscovered. These salesmen, shame to say it, and some firms, are just as tricky as the horse fancier gypsy before the six-cylinder put the racetrack into the discard and turned the thoroughbred into a strap and a bone and a hank of hair. The tricky salesman says his ability is shrewdness or business diplomacy, or putting the right foot fore- most. Yet tricky is the right name. He is the fellow that tells his buyer some of the truth but not all. He is the fellow that never sells the same man twice. He is the fellow who never builds up a following that has confidence in the judgment and in his frankness. This same whirlwind and lightning wizard of the sales force reports sales by the score and prospects by the bale. When the office cashier checks up his sales the list looks like a peek-a-boo waist before it is filled. The dotted line signature fades away, and the gold in the first payment somehow don't stand the acid test. Yet these salesmen wonder why they, like the Wandering Jew, must ever go from pillar to post. Number Sixteen THERE is a doctor in Los Angeles who no longer enjoys the fine practice he once held in the hol- low of his hand. He has no bad habits. He has great skill. He is a wonderful surgeon. He is remarkably accurate in diagnosis. But He never kept an appointment in his life. He is always late. Sometimes it is many minutes. Sometimes it is hours. Once in a while it is a day or two. The doctor never meant to disappoint. He has no idea of time or its real value. Some real estate salesmen are like the doctor, and their commissions shrivel from the same cause that cut his practice. When you set a time remember it. When you say you will be at a certain place at a certain time be there if you have to walk or call a taxi. Some men whose word is as good as their bond on matters financial have wasted several years of other people's time. Are you one of them? Number Seventeen EAT onions if you must just before you lean over a prospect to show him the dotted line, but Never perfume the breath with spirits fru- menti. Some day you won't be able to see the dotted line. This is not a temperance lecture. It's a shoulder jab on business selling. You have enough to overcome without handicap- ping yourself. Assuming you can ' ' carry your likker, ' ' as they say in the South, it's a foolish burden, and some day when you are not looking it will list to port or starboard and you will be shipwrecked. J. Barleycorn has stood sponsor for more mem- bers of the down-and-out club than all the rest of us put together. A social glass at lunch has put the rollers under more than one sale. A breath that no able-bodied clove could smother has driven a willing buyer to the tall uncut. Exercise your liberty, but don't violate elemental business rules. If selling real estate interferes with having a good time, take a boat and go to sea. There are no subdivisions there. George Perkins, who was an aide to J. P. Morgan for many years, always drank ice water instead of champagne at banquets. To the writer he once said: "Business is just like athletes at a training table. You must be in condition. Break training and the other fellow has you beaten before the race. Business and not sentiment keeps me on the water wagon." Number Eighteen DON'T play turtle and then wonder why you don't sell real estate. Some men who try to live by trying to sell real estate draw into their shell and wait for the pros- pect to break open the shell with an axe. Lots of good men and women having the money and the inclination to buy real estate just put it off. They walk or ride around the town in which they live until they collide with some aggressive seller of realty. They sell themselves. He just holds the split- second watch and counts time. The only other thing he does is to collect the commission. Wait a minute; there was one other thing He kept his eyes open and his mind clear. His tongue wasn't tied; he knew real estate and he delib- erately got in the way of people who ought to own realty. Lots of land-hungry people are riding around Los Angeles and every other city. They have some money and a consuming desire to buy a bit of dirt that they can call their own. The adaptable salesman will not wait to be intro- duced. He will collide. Number Nineteen AMAUSEE bullet generally does the business, but a scattering shotgun is only accidentally effec- tive. Some salesman can't get the rifle habit. They scatter. They are the victims of too many prospects. They flutter. Ever notice a good millinery saleswoman? She concentrates. When she is trying to fit a beautiful woman to a peach of a hat she concentrates. For the time being the world holds only two people. She is one and the hat hunter is the other. And she makes the sale, even if she has to lock the door. Lots of us like to leap the fence and try the grass in the next lot. It looks better. We get a long list of prospects and we flit from one to another and never make a sale. Get a few a very few real prospects and con- centrate. Be a sharpshooter salesman and use a rifle. Number Twenty MANY good salesmen are tripped up by the per- sonal pronoun perpendicular. The egotism that is necessary to make a good salesman becomes an obsession. Dissertations on art, medicine, religion, gardening, the raising of children, do not help sales. When the ideas are put forward aggressively and dominated by a string of I I I I, sales are killed outright. Massage the other man's conversational powers and curb your own, if you would sell real estate. Taboo the personal pronoun perpendicular. Only a few men have been able to use it effectively as a big stick. If you are compelled to discuss argumentative subjects be mild and impersonal and always take a licking grace- fully. Winning a contention never earned you a dollar. Money still converses. A big commission can say several pleasant words to you. An extra big one has vocal chords that even a prima donna might envy. Substitute for that long, slim egotist I the $ as your favorite character in the Eoman alphabet, and let it do all the boasting for you. Number Twenty -One IT'S hard for the average man to decide which hat of a dozen offered is the most becoming. Many a bachelor is unmarried because he couldn't decide between two charming young women. Many a "Wish-I-Had" has fringes on his trousers because he couldn't decide which piece of property to buy and consequently bought nothing. Therefore the real salesman of real estate will make up his mind as to the particular piece of property that the property seeker is going to buy. It will be a case of splendid concentration once the decision is made. The prospect will buy the piece selected or the chances are he won't buy any. Tactful questions will give the salesman the neces- sary limits of price, particular features, and uses to which the property is to be put and it is up to him to pick the right piece from his stock. Purchasers have no last and size number to help them buy real estate and the selection is up to the sales- man. If the purchaser is allowed to oscillate there will be no sale ninety-nine times out of a hundred. And there never will be a sale if the prospective buyer knows that his mind has been made up for him by another and in advance at that. Number Twenty -Two SOME real estate men are mighty weak on deduc- tion. They try to tell the distance a frog can leap by his looks. They try to size up prospective customers by their clothes or their accent or by the way they part their hair. They act frequently like the automobile salesman at one of the big shows did to an old farmer who pes- tered him about his car. Finally, in order to get rid of the roughly-clad son of toil he grudgingly gave him a scant demonstration. When it was over the sales- man fairly ran to get away from the persistent farmer and the old man had to do a marathon to get the sales- man to take a roll of bills in payment for the car. It was a cash sale and a good-sized one. Judged by his speech and clothes the old man's pocket-book couldn't jump very far toward paying for a car. Some people who have the earmarks of joyriders are not. Some who look like ready money are confed- erate currency and in poor condition at that. Unfailing courtesy is the price of continuous selling. Better haul a lot of lookers than miss a live one. Gasoline is cheaper than remorse. Number Twenty- Three BE resourceful. If you can't get results directly try a carom shot. Put some English on your methods. If you can't make a sale one way figure out an- other line of approach, like the man did who couldn't spell. He was a new policeman on the Brooklyn, New York, force. One day he came in and reported a dead horse in Kosciusko street, named after the famed Polish patriot. He asked the sergeant to write the report. The ser- geant refused and told the new civil service addition to the force to write it himself. He tried. He scratched his head, asked for the correct orthography from a half-dozen fellow bluecoats. He even appealed a sec- ond time to the sergeant, but in vain. Then he acted. He jammed his helmet down on his ears and started on a run for the street. "Hey, where are you going?" yelled the sergeant. 1 1 Going to pull that blanked horse around into Clay street," reported the poor speller, as he dashed through the door. A man like that would never fall down on a real estate sale. Sooner or later some line of attack will result in a surrender to the lure of the dotted line. If you can't buck the line, go around the end. Number Twenty-Four BE up to date. Seize every modern weapon of business bat- tling in the selling game, and make every blow count. If you can't use the telephone, cable, or telegraph, grab the wireless. If an automobile can't get over inaccessible roads to your prospect, commandeer an airship. Sounds foolish, but it isn't. The other day two life insurance men had a chance to write a big policy on a merchant of great wealth. It was a plum worth much money and more prestige. The merchant was in the interior of France, at an out-of-the-way place. The roads were none too good, but opened one way. One of the insurance men started over these roads in a high-powered motor. More up to date, the other man literally flew to his man. He made use of the latest device in locomo- tion a monoplane and was caressing the check and the application when the automobile arrived in a cloud of dust with a dejected and beaten competitor aboard. Get up to the minute and stay at the head of the procession. Number Twenty -Five EVEE wonder why the farmer appearing salesman with gawky gait and unstylish clothes has such a high batting average in filling the dotted line? It isn't because he is uncouth. It isn't because he has a queer walk. It isn't because he is a sworn enemy of the up-to- date tailor. It is Because he is simple. Because he is sincere. Because he is convincingly "not smart." Some of the finest failures as salesmen are too blanked smart to sell real estate. They charm with their brilliancy, their dash and their appearance, but above all, they impress the ordi- nary man that they know so much more than he does that the buyer immediately becomes wary. Human qualities of sincerity, "commonness" and even slowness of speech compel confidence where extra smartness puts the buyer on guard. Unerringly men and women sidestep the man who knows it all. Don't simulate simplicity and sincerity. Sham is worse than plain assinity. Become simple, sincere, direct. Peel off your "selling-kid-gloves." Stop being a parrot, mouthing over a selling talk that has no punch in it. Get your buyer like the "Old Homestead" got over the footlights for a quarter of a century by being human. Number Twenty -Six THE other day a great railway system announced that it would remove from its service all em- ployes whose home life is unhappy. The managers of that road are not posing as re- formers or philanthropists. They are acting simply for business reasons. The man with unpleasant home conditions is not an efficient factor in business. It's true of salesmen. Its application to the real estate business is ap- parent. The harrassed man lacks the selling punch. Indigestion has caused more than one business revolution. Dyspepsia caused by bad cooking has killed many a business success. Nagging wives and quarreling husbands are a poor foundation on which to establish a career. One head of a big corporation the other day said : "No more married men need apply/' He was sick and disgusted because of the interference with his business by the domestic difficulties of men on his staff. Sweeten up your home or your business will go sour. Any time a bar seems better than your home take the pledge and clean house. Number Twenty- Seven THE public be damned !" caused a large dividend of trouble to be handed to one of the Vander- bilts some years ago. A similar attitude on the part of realty salesmen prevails in many quarters today. Not only must the buyer beware while he is buy- ing, but he must be all-fired lonesome after he does buy. The fifth wheel of a wagon or the second tail of a cat is a household necessity as compared with the desir- ability of having a buyer around after he has once been sold. The king is dead ; long live the king, is paraphrased in many real estate marts to read: The man has bought ; abandon him and get a fresh prospect with money. Such an attitude would kill any mercantile house. Such a policy should end the life of any realty firm. The real estate business is as susceptible of build- ing up by duplicate orders as any other. When the potential value of a satisfied customer is fully understood by the seller of dirt there will be more attention paid to the old buyer and a greater confidence between the real estate dealer and his cus- tomers. Some day a square, considerate real estate man will be made a millionaire by the advertising of his loving customers. Customers that are ignored after their first buy seldom develop into enthusiastic boosters. It might pay to stop collecting commissions long enough to say a kind word to a buyer now and then. Number Twenty- Eight MANY salesmen collect selling excuses all the year around and wonder why their sales are so slender. Around Washington's Birthday they can't sell because the prospects are so busy celebrating the birth of the father of the country. Decoration Day offers another excuse to prevent much selling, and it is not the old soldier, but the sport- ing and athletic events which interfere. July Fourth has its fingers crossed on sales to the salesmen who are busy thinking up reasons why people won't buy, and on this occasion excessive patriotism obscures the dotted line. Labor Day is a discourager of real estate activity in the lexicon of these permanent pessimists. Turkey and selling don't mix, so Thanksgiving Day is crossed off the list. Last and most distressing of all, Santa Glaus puts the kibosh on the real estate market for the most of December, according to the men who collect excuses instead of commissions. Add to these spasms of widespread joy a few feast days and state holidays, and the restful pessimist has left mighty few selling days the whole year through. And as he backs off from all the holidays he slips down and down till he reaches the foot of the selling force, and then snuffs out as a salesman and takes a permanent holiday. Number Twenty-Nine WHAT was your batting average on the sales board for 19121 Will it be bigger and more consistent in 1913? Make yourself a Christmas present of a new speed for the new year. Take a hitch in your trousers, tighten up your belt, and make 1913 the best ever of a notable selling career. After the Christmas turkey has been digested, clean up the odds and ends of the old year and clear the decks for 1913. Don't wait till Easter to get your selling stride. Start even heel and toe. Make Weston look like a stone image going back- ward in the Marathon of 1913. Don't be like the darkey. He agreed for a chunk of money, a jug of whiskey, and a mess of ham and yams to sleep all night in a haunted house. The owner of the house, according to agreement, locked him in and barred the window. In the morning the house was empty all the sash was gone from the window, and a trail of scattered window glass showed the trail. Four days later a very mussed-up black man appeared. Asked where he'd been all this time, he replied: "Fse done been comin' back." Never mind about coming back. Keep going! Number Thirty SOME real estate salesmen have been i t Burbanked. ' ' They are like the famous cactus 1 1 spineless. " They are like some actors letter perfect in the parts they play, but they fall down in actual acting. They can't get it over the footlights. Many a man with an abundance of gray matter makes a good selling talk to himself and can get up before the mirror and sell himself most any piece of real estate, but when he tries to convince another man that his future happiness depends on his possession of a particular piece of land, he has " goose flesh, " knocking of the knees, and a slight attack of nervous prostration. Sometimes this is due to a lack of physical endur- ance sometimes to a fear of his f ellowmen. Salesmen like these need reinforced concrete spines. They have everything else, and if they could only swallow some assorted ramrods, they would make the sales record of 1913. Don't depend on the Steel Trust for your selling. It has troubles of its own, and, believe me, it is watch- ing out for them. If you take care of your half as well you can be driving your own Lozier by March 1st. Furnish your own steel ! Stand on your own bot- tom! Don't fancy somebody else is twice as game as you are, and therefore you must lean on him. Take a big brace and try leading somebody, instead of follow- ing everybody or anybody! Number Thirty-One SOME salesmen try to hold down two jobs at one time. And generally fail at both. It takes a genius to be a poo-bah. Only a man like the late P. D. Armour could be shaved, eat luncheon, dictate a letter and carry on a conversation at the same time. Most of us common mortals are only able to hold down one job at a time and do that fairly well. Every real estate salesman should beware of the commercial sin of covering too much territory. There is a story that illustrates this : A man in a bar-room once said that he could lick anybody in the room. No one accepted his challenge. Somewhat disappointed, he said he could lick anybody in the State of California. Still nobody called his bluff, and, depressed and aggravated, he said he could lick anybody in the United States. A little wizen-up man at the end of the bar took one poke at his jaw, and five minutes later when the aggressive person regained consciousness, some one asked him what was the mat- ter. From a mussed-up face he answered: "I covered too blame much territory." Number Thirty-Two SO MANY salesmen never can learn to sell real estate the "hard way." They sell it the easy, shiftless way, and either the dirt don't stay sold or the firm that makes the sale gets all the reaction of careless selling and loses a customer that should be a friend and booster. It takes strength of character to point out the poor points of a piece of property. It is much easier to say the convenient thing than it is to tell the truth, but the latter way is the only way to sell right. Too many men agree with the man who sold the horse, that poor points should be kept a secret. This horse trader, when berated by a victim who found his horse blind in one eye, said: 1 1 Well, the feller that sold that hoss to me didn't say nothing about it, and I sure thought it was a secret that wasn't to be mentioned." Number Thirty- Three SELLING dirt is harder work than laying brick. Chasing prospects is drudgery. Reiterating an old selling tank is as interesting as a million miles of sand. If- You are doing it mechanically and leaden-hearted. It's all still life. Il is all flat and inert, with no more excitement than a wooden Indian. But- If you are selling men and women. Awaken! nir human motives and directing human actions. The game is a great and exciting one, and as thril- ling as a drama. Arousinir an impulse to buy is like scaring up rare game. Closing the sale is as full of triumph as getting your first buck. And forgetting to acquire buck fever. Humani/e the selling game.