Certain Success Part 9

[Sidenote: Right Practice Of the Three Processes]

In order to secure quick and effective results, the _practice_ of the three necessary processes of development should be:

First, _definitely conscious_. You need to _know just what_ quality you want to develop in yourself.

Second, _discriminative_. You must learn the _differences_ between what you _want_, and what you _don't want_ to develop in particular.

Third, _restrictive_. It is necessary that in your training to develop a certain quality, you _concentrate_ your practice on the respects in which this particular quality differs from other qualities.

Most of us are pretty _definitely conscious_ of what we want. We know just the qualities we would like to have. But very few people employ most effectively the _discriminative-restrictive methods of training_ in their processes of development.

[Sidenote: Importance of Differentiation]

It is impossible to develop a particular quality fully if you only recognize its _likenesses_ to other qualities. _Real mental development is accomplished only as a result of the recognition of differences_.

After studying twins for a year, you still might be unable to tell them apart if you were impressed solely with their remarkable similarity to each other. Another man, with a mind discriminatively and restrictively trained to recognize differences, would learn in five minutes to distinguish the individualities of the twins.

Almost phenomenal development can be attained by use of the discriminative-restrictive training method. The minutest distinctions can be perceived if one concentrates his practice for mental growth on the recognition of _differences only_. Individuals who have lost one or more senses become extraordinarily adept in detecting contrasts with their other senses. A normal man, possessed of all his senses, is capable of even greater development of his powers of differentiation.

You know how remarkably a blind man learns to "see" with his fingers and ears. But need you lose the sense of sight before you can comprehend the lesson of his example to you? You realize that you appear to lack many essential qualities of success. Know now that these are all merely _dormant_ in you. They can be awakened and developed to an extraordinary degree if you train yourself consciously in the discriminative-restrictive use of all your sense tools. You would do it if you were blind. It certainly should be much easier to accomplish the desired transformation with your eyes open to aid your other senses.

[Sidenote: Whatever You Lack Now You Can Develop]

The significance of all this is that you need not be permanently handicapped in your sales-_man_-s.h.i.+p by any present lack of particular qualifications for success. _It makes no difference what you happen to be short of now_. By properly coordinating your brain-mind-muscle sets or centers, and by using all three in the processes of your development, _you can make yourself over almost miraculously_. Will power, courage, exact and wise judgment, persistence, patience, rapid thinking, constructive imagination--_any and all qualities you want_ CAN be developed in you, even though they now seem not to exist.

Your development is limited only by the practically limitless number of unawakened cells in your brain. Most of your potential mind centers are asleep yet. _You can wake up the slumberers with your various sense muscles, and vigorously exercise them into activity for your success_.

You have been handicapped because you have been carrying so many "dead-heads" that ought to be working or paying their way.

_Remember that growth of any brain-mind center can be begun and continued only by the exercise of the coordinated set of sense muscles in transmitting impressions from outside yourself and in expressing your thoughts_.

[Sidenote: Your Limitless Brain Capacity]

The number of cells in the human brain has been estimated at from six hundred millions to two billions. The greatest genius who ever lived doubtless had scores of millions of brain cells that remained more or less idle, if not sound asleep, all his life. Nature has furnished you with a plentiful surplus of grey matter in your head. Do not be afraid that you will exhaust or tire out your brains by your self-development.

_Put into your work all the brains you can waken with your various senses. And keep the alarm clocks wound up_.

William James, the great psychologist, wrote, "Compared with what we ought to be, we are only half awake. Our fires are damped; our drafts are checked. We are making use of only a small part of our physical and mental resources. There are in every one potential forms of activity that actually are shunted from use. Part of the imperfect vitality under which we labor can thus be easily explained. One part of our mind dams up--even d.a.m.ns up--the other part."

[Sidenote: Growth Can Be a.s.sured And Success Made Certain]

Can you become a big sales MAN? Of course! You have all the necessary tools to make yourself over in any way you will--your muscles, nerves, brain, and mind. Use them cooperatively, as they were meant to be used, _in their respective sets_--not as if you were a mental-physical unit.

_To develop your sales manhood you need only to apply real thinking in the processes of your daily life_. Study out the reasons and effects of all your acts and expressions. Your experimental psychological laboratory should be yourself, undergoing at your hands the transformation from what you are to what it is possible for you to become. Begin making your man-stuff over. Each successive step will be easier to take. _Your growth, when you employ the right processes and methods, is certain_. Therefore your success in making yourself a big sales man can be _a.s.sured_.

CHAPTER III

_Skill In Selling Your Best Self_

[Sidenote: Practice Of the Art]

If you have developed real capability and first-cla.s.s manhood, you have "the goods" that are always salable. But you realize now that the mere _possession_ of these basic qualifications for success will not insure you against failure in life. You cannot be _certain_ of succeeding unless you _know how to sell_ true ideas of your best self in the right market or field of service, and until you develop _sales skill_ by continual correct practice.

We will a.s.sume that you have had little or no selling experience. You are conscious that you entirely lack sales art. Therefore, though in other ways you feel qualified to succeed in life, you may be dubious about your future. Perhaps you realize that _skill in selling_ true ideas of your best capabilities is all you need to make your success certain. But you question, "Can I be _sure_ of becoming a skillful salesman of myself?" You have no doubt of your ability to _learn_ the selling process, but very likely you do not believe you ever could _practice_ it with the art of a master salesman. Consequently you are not yet convinced of the certainty of your success.

[Sidenote: Success Proportionate To Sales Skill]

Of course success cannot be absolutely a.s.sured in advance unless _every element_ of the secret we have a.n.a.lyzed can be mastered. Hence it is necessary that you now be shown _certain ways_ to sell ideas--ways that _cannot fail_, that are adaptable to the sale of _any_ right "goods,"

and that _you_ surely can master. You need to feel absolutely confident that _if you follow specific principles and use particular methods, you can impress on any other man true ideas of your best capabilities_. When you become skillful in making good impressions, you certainly will be able to sell yourself into such chances to succeed as fit your individual qualifications.

_Your success with the best that is in you can be made directly proportionate to your skill as a salesman of "your goods_." Mastery of the art of selling will enable you to cut down to the minimum the possibilities of failure in whatever you undertake. Remember that _success does not demand perfection._ There never was a 100% salesman.

To be a success, you need only _make a good batting average in your opportunities_ to sell. It is not necessary to hit 1000 to be a champion batsman in the game of life. Ty Cobb led his league a dozen years with an average under .400.

[Sidenote: Technique And Tools]

The _foundation_ of sales art is _knowledge of selling technique_. So the first step in the process of developing your skill as a salesman of yourself is the study of the _right tools_ for making impressions of "true ideas of your best capabilities." You must know, also, the scientific rules that govern the _most effective use_ of these right tools. Technique, however, is only the _basic element_ of salesmans.h.i.+p.

On the foundation of your sales _knowledge_ it is necessary to build sales _skill_ that will completely cover up your technique. Your perfected sales art should seem, and really be _second nature_ to you.

Your salesmans.h.i.+p probably will be crude until you overcome the awkwardness of handling unfamiliar tools, or familiar tools in ways that are new to you. But "practice makes perfect." The use of the right technique in selling true ideas about your best self will soon become natural.

[Sidenote: Making Success Easy]

The _skillful_ sale of ideas is accomplished _without waste of time or energy in the selling process_. The unskillful, would-be salesman not only fritters away his own time and effort, he also wastes the patience and power of the man to whom he wants to sell his "goods." The sales artist, however, gets his ideas into the mind of a prospect _quickly_, with the least possible _wear and tear_ on either party to the sale. No one appreciates a fine salesman so thoroughly as the best buyer. Skill in selling true ideas about your particular qualifications will not only _a.s.sure_ your success, but will make it _easy_ for you to succeed.

[Sidenote: Docking Your Sales-man-s.h.i.+p]

The skillful salesman is the captain of his own sales-man-s.h.i.+p. But in order to make certain of landing his cargo of right impressions he takes aboard the pilot Science to begin with, and then concentrates on four factors of the art of selling ideas:

First, _discovering and traversing_ the best channel into the prospect's mind;

Second, _locating the particular point of interest_ upon which the salesman's cargo can be most effectively unloaded;

Third, _maneuvering alongside_ this center of the buyer's interest;

Fourth, _securely tying to_ the interest pier so that the s.h.i.+pload of ideas may be fully discharged.

The primary aim of the skillful salesman _when making port_ is to get safely to the right landing place as soon as possible and with the least danger of failure in his _ultimate purpose_ of completing the sale. At this initial stage of the selling process, however, he concentrates his thoughts on the _skillful docking_ of his sales-man-s.h.i.+p. The _nature of the cargo_ a sailor s.h.i.+p captain brings to port has little or nothing to do with the art of reaching and tying up to the pier. Similarly, whatever his "goods of sale," the skillful _salesman_ uses the same principles and methods to dock his salesman-s.h.i.+pload of ideas most effectively in the harbor of the prospect's mind. So the _art_ you are studying is _standardized_. When you master it, you can apply it successfully to the sale of your best self or any other "goods of sale."

[Sidenote: Reasoning And Argument Are Wrong]

Before considering the methods of selling that are most effective, it will be well to get rid of a mistaken idea that is all too common. A great many people regard reasoning power, or the force of pure logic, as an important selling tool. There are so-called salesmen who attempt to "argue" prospects into buying. Unthinking sales executives sometimes instruct their representatives to employ certain "selling arguments."

But the methods and language of the debater have no place in the repertory of a _truly artistic_ salesman or sales manager.

One debater never _convinces_ the other. At best he only can _defeat_ his antagonist. In a skillfully finished sale, however, there should be neither victor nor vanquished. The selling process is not a battle of minds. There is no room in it for any spirit of antagonism on the part of the salesman. So in your self-training to sell true ideas of your best capabilities, do not emphasize especially the value of logic and reasoning. If you use them at all in selling yourself, disguise their character most skillfully. _Never suggest that you are debating or arguing your qualifications_ with prospective buyers of your mental or physical capacity for service. You cannot browbeat your way into opportunities to succeed.

Most employers buy the expected services of men and women in order to satisfy their own _desires_ for particular capabilities. Few will buy against their wishes. In order to sell your qualifications with certain success, you first must make the other man genuinely _want_ what you offer. Almost always _mind vision_ and _heart hunger_ must be stimulated to produce desire. Therefore the most skillful salesman of himself does not use the words, tones, and actions of argument. In preference to cold reason and logic he employs the arts of _mental suggestion_ and _emotional persuasion_.

[Sidenote: The Force of Suggestion]