Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1902-03-01

"A
of people to whom you have sold or
who have given you letters OF introduce
ton, personal cards, recommendations,
and names of easy victims. The loca!
clergy are the first persons to approach
and the surest way into their hearts is
either a plea of honest poverty or
proposal to give them the desired ar
ticle at half-pricc, being of course, the
regular discount to the cloth. BY
working up d good line of influence you
can know the name Of the person On
whom YOU are about 70 call and can al
so find out a good deal about his cir
cunstances. disposition, business and
gullbility.
But suppose you are stopped ut the
door with gentle yet firm rebuff and
fail. after trying three or four times,
to get the interview desired; your prop
er course is 10 insist Oh making Il
later appointment, naming some time
whensyou know the man viii be at
leisure. 1t is ten to one that he makes
the appointment, instinctlvely seeing
that if he escapes you now he probably
can do ST. again. Then when the time
comes for your call. you will remember
his remembering to be out of town.
Naturally he cannot reasonably refuse
to see you and you proceed at once
on the assumption that he has made
this appointment especially for the
purpose of investigating your incom-
parable Drawing Board and Writing
Desk. This gives you an immense
moral advantage.
The whole basis of successful oan-
wasting is psychological. Everything
depends on influence, personality, suS-
gestion And thus every attempt ON
your part to sell Il man your special
article becomes a battle in which his
will power and shrewdnesS are pitted
against yours, although he may not
realize it at the time. Your instructors
recognize this mental and tempera-
mental basis very thoroughly, however.
and one of your first lessons is on the
art of placing your victim. You must
never have him standing, or even al
low him to sit in higher chair than
your own. Manoeuvre him into a re-
| clining and submissive posture, see
that he is comfortable and at his ease;
place yourself as near him as you
possibly can work, and then concen-
trate yourself on the psychological task
of making him want your article.
In fact the only real safety of a lay
man who is not perfectly sure of his
own powers of resistance is to stop all
canvassers, promptly and firmly at the
very door. Sometimes it is safer not
to open the door, even. The powers of
a man who has had scientific training
and long experience in canvassing are
never to be despised. Why, there are
men in the business who could come
! into your house and sell you a large
consignment of horse-collars. if you
gave them half a chance. And they
would leave you in an elevated ana
grateful state of mind.
Victims that l have met often
seemed to have the idea that every
printed matter well conned, and that
every sufferer. On the contrary, no
well-trained agent tells his story
twice alike He is taught to learn the
printed description and arguments
thoroughly as a foundation and then
discard them as far as possible, max
| ing up a story of his own for the needs
The canvass which nearly every
agent is taught is given under four
main heads: the description, the ad-
ditional reasons, the answers to OBJ
| jectiOns, and the final appeal.
| These vary with the article, but
every shrewd agent will let his article
and himself become all things to all
men that he may by all means sell
some. The practical working out of
this is often very striking. One can
never tell in advance what aspect
will appeal to his audience. In SELL
ing the Chappaqua Combination to Sa-
loon keepers | found that it paid to
emphasize its religious features.
Sometimes the trout rises to your
first fly. You provoke his curiosity,
spring your article on him, run him
through a rafting description, giving
him no time to reflect, daZe him with
the briliancy of your ideas and sign
him up for an order or even two,
while he is still unconscious.
This. in theory. was the true way to
make a sale and l have occasionally
gone through the whole description
signed the man for an order, and got
out of the house, inside five minutes,
But usually the customer delays, hest
tates. or seems rather indifferent.
Yes" he says. "Tis good thing,
no doubt, but | guess | don't care to
get one today"
Then is the time for the additional
reasons.
You must have patience with man
| like that You must go all over it
carefully with him again, picking out
only the parts that he seemed to take
the most interest in when you first
showed it up. and explaining to him
that, even if he has no children or
school age, yet his brothers children
or his grandchildren are intellectually
starving for the lack of this very ma
chine: and is he going to let a mere
lbagatelle like three seventy-five stand
| in the way of their future?
| Thereupon he begins to argue the case,
| and brings up objections to the machine
or to the idea of his buying one. When
he does that, you have him on your own
| ground. You know more objections to
| the whole affair than any one man can
readily think up, and you know clever
| answer for every one of them.
/ Then YOU must use unerring judgment.
| With some men the thing to do now is 10
1 stand, with your Order-book ready In
| calm vet eXpectant attitude, looking him
| in the eve with a cheerful and confident