How To Sell Your Way Through Life E-Book

Napoleon Hill

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2009

Seitenzahl: 448

Beschreibung

TIMELESS WISDOM from the ORIGINAL PHILOSOPHER of PERSONAL SUCCESS "No matter who you are or what you do, you are a salesperson. Every time you speak to someone, share an opinion or explain an idea, you are selling your most powerful asset . . . you! In How to Sell Your Way Through Life, Napoleon Hill shares valuable lessons and proven techniques to help you become a true master of sales." --SHARON LECHTER, Coauthor of Think and Grow Rich: Three Feet from Gold; Member of the President's Advisory Council on Financial Literacy "These proven, time-tested principles may forever change your life." --GREG S. REID, Coauthor of Think and Grow Rich: Three Feet from Gold; Author of The Millionaire Mentor "Napoleon Hill's Think and Grow Rich and Laws of Success are timeless classics that have improved the lives of millions of people, including my own. Now, we all get the chance to savor more of his profound wisdom in How to Sell Your Way Through Life. It is a collection of simple truths that will forever change the way you see yourself." --BILL BARTMANN, Billionaire Business Coach and Bestselling Author of Bailout Riches (www.billbartman.com) Napoleon Hill, author of the mega-bestseller Think and Grow Rich, pioneered the idea that successful individuals share certain qualities, and that examining and emulating these qualities can guide you to extraordinary achievements. Written in the depths of the Great Depression, How to Sell Your Way Through Life explores a crucial component of Achievement: your ability to make the sale. Ringing eerily true in today's uncertain times, Hill's work takes a practical look at how, regardless of our occupation, we must all be salespeople at key points in our lives. Hill breaks down concrete instances of how the Master Salesman seizes advantages and opportunities, giving you tools you can use to effectively sell yourself and your ideas. Featuring a new Foreword from leadership legend Ken Blanchard, this book is a classic that gives you one beautifully simple principle and the proven tools to make it work for you.

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

Dedication

Foreword

ONE OF THE FINE THINGS ABOUT THIS BOOK IS THAT “IT WORKS”

THE CHALLENGE TO LIFE

PREFACE

I - The Principles of Practical Psychology Used in Successful Negotiation

Chapter 1 - Introduction

Chapter 2 - You Need Intelligent Promotion to Succeed

Chapter 3 - The Strategy of Master Salesmanship

Chapter 4 - Qualities the Master Salesman Must Develop

The Nine Basic Motives to which People Respond Most Freely

Weaknesses in Technique

The Major Weaknesses in Personality and Habits of Salesmen

Chapter 5 - Autosuggestion, the First Step in Salesmanship

Chapter 6 - The Master Mind

Chapter 7 - Concentration

Chapter 8 - Initiative and Leadership

The Major Attributes of Initiative and Leadership

Chapter 9 - Qualifying the Prospective Buyer

The Question Method of Qualifying Prospective Buyers

Let Your Prospect Talk Freely

Stalking the Prospective Buyer

Methods of Qualifying

Chapter 10 - Neutralizing the Prospective Buyer’s Mind

Salesmanship Resembles a Stage Play

The 10 Major Factors on which Confidence Is Built

Chapter 11 - The Art of Closing a Sale

Suggestions for Closing a Sale

When Is the Psychological Moment in Closing?

Service

II - The Use of Salesmanship in Marketing Personal Services

Chapter 12 - Choosing Your Job

Factors that Should Influence Your Choice of Occupation

Something for Nothing

Happiness Comes from Aspiring, Not from Acquiring

Chapter 13 - Selecting a Definite Major Aim as Your Lifework

The Five Fundamental Steps to Success

Some of the Advantages of a Definite Aim

Chapter 14 - The Habit of Doing More than Paid for

Your Greatest Opportunity May Be Right Where You Are

Chapter 15 - A Pleasing Personality

A Few Who Have Achieved Success through a Pleasing Personality

The Influence of Personality on Atmosphere

The Major Factors of a Negative Personality

Chapter 16 - Cooperation

Chapter 17 - How to Create a Job

Chapter 18 - How to Choose an Occupation

Use Wisdom in the Selection of a Business College

A Suggestion for Financing Yourself through Business College

Chapter 19 - How to Budget Your Time

Chapter 20 - The Master Plan for Getting a Position

III - What You May Learn from Henry Ford

Chapter 21 - Singleness of Purpose

The Psychology of a Definite Central Purpose

Chapter 22 - Persistence

Chapter 23 - Faith

What Is Faith?

Chapter 24 - Decision

Chapter 25 - Sportsmanship

Chapter 26 - Budgeting of Time and Expenditures

Chapter 27 - Humility

Chapter 28 - The Habit of Doing More than One Is Paid to Do

Chapter 29 - Ford the Master Salesman

The Qualities that Make Henry Ford a Master Salesman

Chapter 30 - Accumulation of Power

Chapter 31 - Self-control

Chapter 32 - Organized Effort

Chapter 33 - Personal Initiative

IV - A Rule for Winning Friends that Has Stood the Test of More than 4,000 ...

Chapter 34 - If I Were President!

Chapter 35 - The Golden Rule in Use

Chapter 36 - Mental Attitude Must Be Right

Chapter 37 - Some Personal Experiences

Chapter 38 - The War between Employers and Employees

Chapter 39 - The New World

A New Religion Is in the Process of Being Made

The Crime We Commit against Children

The Inferiority Complex Must Go

The Future Demands Dreamers with Courage

Chapter 40 - Rounding Out Your Success Qualities for Leadership

A Few Words from the Publishers

Napoleon Hill Has Written a Postgraduate Course for You

Andrew Carnegie Started It

Evidence that Money Could Not Buy

Copyright © 2010 by The Napoleon Hill Foundation. All rights reserved.

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey.

Published simultaneously in Canada.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc., 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, [phone], fax [phone], or on the web at www.copyright.com. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, [phone], fax [phone], or online at www.wiley.com/go/permissions.

Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: While the publisher and author have used their best efforts in preparing this book, they make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this book and specifically disclaim any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales representatives or written sales materials. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for your situation. You should consult with a professional where appropriate. Neither the publisher nor author shall be liable for any loss of profit or any other commercial damages, including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential, or other damages.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

Hill, Napoleon, 1883-1970.

How to sell your way through life / Napoleon Hill.

p. cm.

Originally published: Meriden, Conn. : The Ralston society, 1939.

eISBN : 978-0-470-57017-3

1. Selling. 2. Salesmen and salesmanship. 3. Psychology, Applied. 4. Success. I. Title.

HF5438.25.H47 2010

658.8501’9-dc22

2009024944

Dedicated toALL WHO HAVE TRIED AND FAILEDBUT STILL FIGHT ON WITH DETERMINATIONTO MAKE LIFE PAY

FOREWORD

LIKE millions of others, I am a big fan of Napoleon Hill’s timeless classic, Think and Grow Rich. First published in 1937, it has the distinction of being the best read self-help book of the twentieth century.

Not so well known is how Napoleon Hill earned his livelihood before he wrote Think and Grow Rich. In How to Sell Your Way Through Life, Hill explains how he spent many years perfecting his skills as a master salesman and sales trainer. How to Sell Your Way Through Life was written in the depths of the Great Depression. To write it, Hill drew upon contacts, interviews, and the cooperation of the most successful men in the country, including Andrew Carnegie, Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, and others.

The information in How to Sell Your Way Through Life is as relevant in today’s economy as it was in a time very similar to ours. Hill could have been writing about today when he said, “Business depressions do not destroy the market for imagination; they merely increase the need and extend the demand for imagination. The world stands in need of men who will use their imagination.”

From the psychology of negotiation and selling to an analysis of proven methods, positive thinking, and the all-important Golden Rule, How to Sell Your Way Through Life is an outstanding course in salesmanship. Invest some time in reading these pages and you’ll understand why Napoleon Hill stands as one of the most masterful business philosophers of our time.

—Ken Blanchard, co-author of The One Minute Manager®and The One Minute Entrepreneur

THE AUTHOR SOLD HIS WAY INTO THIS FAMOUS “CASTLE ON THE HILL”

A glimpse of the magnitude and magnificence of Napoleon Hill’s “Model American Home” overlooking beautiful Lake Dora, Florida.

ONE OF THE FINE THINGS ABOUT THIS BOOK IS THAT “IT WORKS”

TO write a book of theories on “how the other fellows hould succeed” is quite common. But for an author to definitely demonstrate that his ideas will work, and that he personally can make them work, is quite rare.

Hence, it is not for the purpose of boasting—but to give you confidence that what you are about to read is practical, workable, proven philosophy—when we mention the following. As you read this book, you will feel as though the author was present in the pages. The lessons were not just written; they were first lived, and then put into print.

The author has sold his way through life so successfully using the philosophy and methods taught in this book, that he lives in a castle in Florida, which is one of the famous showplaces of the entire South. From it he commands not only a rare view of beautiful Lake Dora, but also of the entire town of fashionable Mount Dora, in the “Golden Triangle.”

He is the first to occupy this castle, upon which it is reported the builder spent about $100,000. It is to be developed into a “model American home.” It is here that 15 children are to be adopted who will be schooled in these principles, so that they, too, may sell their way through life successfully

This visible evidence of opulence demonstrates in a definite way that the author can not only prescribe the “medicine of success, but that he can make it work for himself. In a personal letter to his publishers (not intended for publication), he wrote:

“There is one thing of which you can be sure. Mrs. Hill and I have whipped life and actually made it pay in terms of complete and continuous happiness. We have found ‘that something’ which brings peace of mind and genuine joy in just living. I am astonished at not having discovered our vast riches before this.

“If I were only able to paint word pictures that truly represent the fortune Mrs. Hill and I have captured, by applying the philosophy I am trying to teach the American public, I believe you would not be able to produce books fast enough to meet the demand.”

And so, in this spirit, we pass on to you How to Sell Your Way Through Life.

—The Publishers

The great Edison failed 10,000 times before he made the incandescent electric light work. Do not become discouraged and quit if you fail once or twice before making your plans work.

THE CHALLENGE TO LIFE

The Spirit in which the Author of This Book Has Related Himself to Life

Life, you can’t subdue me, because I refuse to take your discipline seriously.

When you try to hurt me, I laugh, and laughter knows no pain.

I appropriate your joys wherever I find them. Your sorrows neither discourage nor frighten me, for there is laughter in my soul.

When I get the thing I want, I am glad, but temporary defeat does not make me sad. I simply set music to the words of defeat and turn it into a song about laughter.

Your tears are not for me. I like laughter much better, and because I like it, I use it as a substitute for grief and sorrow and pain and disappointment.

Life, you are a fickle trickster, don’t deny it!

You slipped the emotion of love into my heart so you might use it as a thorn with which to prick my soul, but I have learned to dodge your trap—with laughter.

You try to lure me with the desire for gold, but I have outwitted you by following the trail that leads to knowledge, instead.

You induce me to build beautiful friendships, then convert my friends into enemies so you may harden my heart, but I sidestep your fickleness by laughing off your attempt and selecting new friends in my own way.

You cause men to cheat me in trade, so I will become hard and irritable, but I win again because I possess only one precious asset, and this is something no man can steal—IT IS THE POWER TO THINK MY OWN THOUGHTS AND BE MYSELF, plus the capacity to laugh at you for your pains.

You threaten me with death, but to me death is nothing worse than a long, peaceful sleep, and sleep is the sweetest of human experiences—except laughter.

You build the fire of hope in my breast, then sprinkle water on the flames, but I go you one better by rekindling the fire on my own account—and laugh at you once more.

You plant vicious enemies in my path who try to assault my reputation and destroy my self-reliance, but you fail again because I turn their efforts into publicity that brings me to the attention of new friends whom I would never know without this perfidy.

For a quarter of a century, you hurdle-jumped me over every conceivable form of failure, but I coined the knowledge gained from these failures into a philosophy of success that now renders useful service and brings countless thousands of others the joy of laughter; and these newly made friends willingly pay me compound interest for every second of failure you have imposed upon me.

You bore me into this world in poverty, but this has proved to be a blessing in disguise because poverty has taught me patience and industry and imagination and temperance and humility and a hundred other useful traits that the idle will never know.

Life, you are licked as far as I am concerned, because you have nothing with which to lure me away from laughter and you are powerless to scare me.

This book was not written for the purpose of expressing heroism or brilliancy. Its sole purpose is to convey practical information on the psychology of negotiation; information that is known to be sound because it was obtained from the life experiences of hundreds of successful people who began at scratch and made for themselves enviable positions in the world. For this reason the book should be the handbook of every person who has just finished school and is ready to sell himself through life successfully. If I could place a copy of the book in the hands of the members of every family having children of the high school age, and every person graduating from business college, I would feel I had made a definite contribution to the successful lives of hundreds of thousands of young people who are today groping in the dark for the path that leads to self-determination.

—The Author

All anyone really requires, as a capital on which to start a successful career, is a sound mind, a healthy body, and a genuine desire to be of as much service as possible to as many people as possible.

PREFACE

THIRTY-FIVE years ago a young man dropped from a moving freight train in East Orange, N. J., and hurriedly made his way to the laboratory of Thomas A. Edison. When asked to state his business before being permitted to see Mr. Edison, the young man boldly replied, “I am going to become his partner!”

His boldness got him past the secretary. An hour later he was at work, scrubbing floors in the Edison plant. Five years later he was a partner of the great Edison. The man’s name is Edwin C. Barnes, known through out the United States as the distributor of the Ediphone dictating machine. His home is in Florida, not very far from my own home. I have known him for a quarter of a century; have known him through the relationship of close personal friendship that gives me the privilege of saying that he sold himself to Edison through the psychology of selling described in Part 1 of this book.

Edwin Barnes has accumulated a fortune far greater than he needs, and he owes every cent of it to the hour he spent in private conversation with Edison. During that hour he sold himself so thoroughly that it gave him his opportunity to go into partnership with one of the greatest men this country ever produced. Roughly speaking, that hour of selling was worth in actual cash the millions of dollars Edwin Barnes afterward accumulated.

My first job was that of secretary to General Rufus A. Ayers, for whom I went to work while I was still in my teens. Long before I was 20, I became the general manager of one of General Ayers’s coal mines. The jump from secretary to general manager was made in less than one hour, during which I sold myself into the better position by voluntarily rendering confidential service for which I neither expected nor asked pay. That sale changed the entire trend of my life and led directly to my alliance with Andrew Carnegie, with its far-flung effects on myself and thousands of others.

If you asked me to tell you why this book may be of benefit to you and demanded I give you proof that I am an authority on How to Sell Your Way through Life, I would be compelled to pull aside the curtains that hide from view my private life and give you the information in these frank but truthful words:

Thirty years ago I began, at the request of, and in collaboration with, Andrew Carnegie, to organize all the causes of success and failure into a philosophy of individual achievement. During those 30 years of research it became necessary for me to contact, interview, and gain the cooperation of the most successful men of the country, including Henry Ford, Thomas A. Edison, John Wanamaker, Luther Burbank, Woodrow Wilson, and others of their type from whose rich experiences I organized the first practical philosophy of individual achievement, under the title of The Law of Success.

The best evidence the philosophy is sound and practical may be found in the use I have made of it in selling my way through life. The blessings this philosophy has given me are many, the greatest of them being the fact that I can truthfully say I have sold my way through life so successfully that I have everything I need or can use for the attainment of happiness, including, of course, absolute freedom from all manner of worry over money.

I am married to the woman of my choice, with whom I have found harmony and understanding sufficient to give me continuous peace of mind and inspiration to hitch my wagon to higher stars than any I had aspired to reach before I found her.

Having converted my philosophy into the privilege of living my own life, in my own chosen way, in any part of the world I desire, Mrs. Hill and I have established a permanent home in Lake Dora, Florida, where we have an abundance of sunshine, in a castle surrounded by trees and fresh air, far enough removed from the rest of the world to give us privacy, close enough to keep us attuned to the hearts and minds of our neighbors.

From 1 to 3 hours, out of every 24, we devote to our private Master Mind conference, at which we analyze our plans and prepare some form of service for the benefit of others who have been less successful than us in selling their way through life.

We have no fears of any nature whatsoever. We have no worries. We have no feeling of suspense over the past, the present, or the future. We have perfect health and enough years ahead of us, we hope, to enable us to write a score of books after this one. We have open minds toward all things and all people, and we make it our business to learn something of interest or value from every person we contact.

Mrs. Hill’s major hobby is children. Having none of her own she has begun the adoption of a family that will not be complete until we are feeding, clothing, sheltering, and educating 15 homeless children, ranging in ages from 6 to 10 years, for whom we shall become responsible until we turn them back to the world fully capable of selling their way through life successfully.

My major hobby is Mrs. Hill!

I spent 15 years searching for my wife before I found her. I sold myself to her through the principles of salesmanship described in this book. This is, I believe, the best evidence of the soundness of the rules of selling I have described.

If you read this book, you will have your mind temporarily connected with that of a man who is thoroughly happy, who can truthfully say, “Life has nothing to offer that I do not already have.” During these days of turmoil, when half of the world is arming itself to the teeth and threatening civilization with its spirit of greed and lust for power, it seems almost a miracle to find even one person who has made life pay on his own terms without damage to others.

The philosophy with which Mrs. Hill and I have sold our way into happiness is fully and frankly described in this book. The spirit of our philosophy may be found in the challenge to life that I wrote nearly 10 years ago, the day after the Depression had shut off my income and destroyed my entire fortune. (See the first pages of this book.)

The rhythm of our Florida home is both positive and contagious because it has been established by a blending of the minds of two people who are doing exactly what they wish to do and through their work have found supreme happiness. This environmental rhythm is so definite it affects everyone who contacts it, including all the members of our household, our secretariat, our adopted children, and all who visit us. It is so noticeable that it is the first thing our visitors observe when they enter our home, and always they speak of the inspiring effect it has upon them.

This same rhythm of opulence and peace of mind has been written into the lines of this book, every word of which was carefully examined, weighed, and evaluated by both Mrs. Hill and myself before the manuscript was given to the publisher. We would be greatly surprised if any reader of the book failed to pick up the influence of this rhythm as he reads.

The book consists of four parts. Part 1 describes the psychology of negotiation through which successful men and women sell their way through life with a minimum amount of friction in their relationships with people. Part 2 is devoted entirely to the psychology of selling personal services of every nature, with particular emphasis on facts of great value to young men and young women just beginning their careers. Part 3 is a comprehensive analysis of the methods by which America’s number one citizen, Henry Ford, sold himself from poverty to fame and fortune.

The facts described in the four parts of this book were not merely written; they were lived by men and women who have made America the greatest industrial nation on earth. I got the facts directly from the distinguished people who lived them which, of itself, was a job of selling that continued for 30 years and gave me access to the rich store of experience of such men as Frank A. Vanderlip, John D. Rockefeller, Dr. David Starr Jordan, Harvey S. Firestone, William Wrigley, Jr., F. W. Woolworth, James J. Hill, Charles M. Schwab, and scores of others who sold themselves into fabulous riches with the aid of the principles of selling I have described.

I cannot overemphasize the importance of studying carefully the story of Henry Ford’s rise from poverty to riches, as described in Part 3, for here you have an authentic outline of the principles that everyone who sells himself through life successfully must use. It may be helpful if you measure yourself point by point on the 17 principles of achievement described in the Ford analysis, taking care to observe wherein you differ from Ford in applying each of these principles.

Part 4 has been devoted to analysis of a principle that has been responsible for all that is good in our present civilization: The principle that must be understood and applied by every person who attains and holds any worthwhile station in life. Unless you make this principle a part of the foundation of your salesmanship, you may sell your way into a high station but you will not be able to hold your gains. Perhaps some may complain that Part Four sounds like a preachment on ethics. Very well, what if it is? I can think of nothing right now that you and I and most of the others now living need more than to improve the manner in which we relate ourselves to one another in business and social dealings.

Part Four should be interesting to every American who has the right to vote, because it accurately describes the principle through which Franklin D. Roosevelt did one of the finest jobs of selling in the history of the United States during his first term in office, when he stopped the stampede of fear and resold the people on the merits of their country. It will be interesting to observe if, by a neglect to apply this principle during his second term in office, the president loses the confidence of the people, which he at first had in so great a measure.

Part 4 also describes what I believe is going to happen because of the relations between the president and John L. Lewis. The business recession cost thousands of people their jobs. Any principle of human conduct capable of such far-flung results as these is worthy of careful analysis by all who are trying to sell their way through life.

The principle analyzed in Part 4 reveals the path by which the world may sell itself out of the spiritual bankruptcy into which it has been drifting since the World War. It is the only principle that will prevent another World War. It is the only solution for all this controversy between the president of the United States and the business and industrial leaders who supply the economic lifeblood that keeps the nation alive. It is the only solution of the widespread labor racket that is costing working men both their peace of mind and millions of dollars of their wages. It is the only solution available to those who are suffering religious and racial persecution throughout the world.

This great universal principle has been the very foundation on which Mrs. Hill and I have made life pay us off in coin of our own mintage, and we sincerely believe it is the only principle through which any person can find and retain peace of mind, prosperity, and happiness. For these reasons, Part 4 could not well be omitted from a book whose chief purpose is to inform people on how to sell their way through life successfully.

I

The Principles of Practical Psychology Used in Successful Negotiation

ABILITY to influence people without irritating them is the most profitable art known to man. The entire first section of this book has been devoted to an analysis of the accepted principles of psychology, through which anyone may negotiate with others without friction. These are the only known principles by which one may win friends and influence people without unnecessarily flattering them. The principles were organized from the life experiences of some of the most successful leaders in business, industry, finance, and education known to the American people during the past 50 years. In this section of the book, one may find modern salesmanship in its most fitting, streamlined clothes.

EMPLOYERS are always on the lookout for a man who does a better job of any sort than is customary, whether it be wrapping a package, writing a letter, or closing a sale.

1

Introduction

Definition of Salesmanship

A Master Salesman is an artist who can paint word-pictures in the hearts of men as skillfully as Rembrandt could blend colors on a canvas. He is an artist who can play a symphony on the human emotions as effectively as Paderewski can manipulate the keys of a piano.

A Master Salesman is a strategist at mind manipulation. He can marshal the thoughts of men as ably as Foch directed the allied armies during the World War.

A Master Salesman is a philosopher who can interpret causes by their effects and effects by their causes.

A Master Salesman is a character analyst. He knows men as Einstein knows higher mathematics.

A Master Salesman is a mind reader. He knows what thoughts are in men’s minds by the expressions on their faces, by the words they utter, by their silence, and by the feeling that he experiences from within while in their presence.

The Master Salesman is a fortune teller. He can predict the future by observing what has happened in the past.

The Master Salesman is master of others BECAUSE HE IS MASTER OF HIMSELF!

The attributes of mastery in selling will be described in this book as well as the means by which these qualities may be acquired. The purpose of the book is to enable the reader to transform mediocrity into mastery in the art of persuasion.

Life is a series of ever-changing and shifting circumstances and experiences. No two experiences are alike. No two people are alike. Day after day we experience life’s kaleidoscopic changes. This makes it necessary for us to adapt ourselves to people who think and act in ways different from our own. Our success depends, very largely, upon how well we negotiate our way through these daily contacts with other people without friction or opposition.

This sort of negotiation calls for an understanding of the art of salesmanship. We are all salesmen regardless of our calling. But not all of us are Master Salesmen!

The politician must sell his way into office. If he remains in office, he must keep himself sold to his constituency.

The salaried person must sell himself into a job. Salesmanship must be used to keep the position after it has been obtained.

If a man seeks a loan at a bank, he must sell the banker on making the loan.

The clergyman must sell his sermons, and himself as well, to his followers. If he is a poor salesman, he soon finds himself looking for another “call.”

The lawyer must sell the merits of his client’s case to the judge and jury even if he knows his case has but little merit.

If a man chooses to marry, he must sell himself to the woman of his choice, although the woman may, and often does, remove many of the obstacles in the path of the sale.

Everybody will agree with this statement.

The day laborer must sell himself to his employer, although the form of salesmanship required is not as difficult as that which must be employed by the man who sells himself into a job at $50,000 a year.

These are examples of salesmanship through which people sell intangibles. Any form of effort through which one person persuades another to cooperate is salesmanship. Most efforts at salesmanship are weak; and for this reason most people are poor salesmen.

If a man attains a high station in life, it is because he has acquired or was blessed with native ability as a salesman. Schooling, college degrees, intellect, brilliancy, are of no avail to the man who lacks the ability to attract the cooperative efforts of others, thus to create opportunities for himself. These qualities help a man to make the most of opportunity once he gets it. But he must first contact or create the opportunity to be worked on. Perhaps, by the law of averages, opportunity is thrust upon one out of every hundred thousand people. The others must create opportunity. Moreover, salesmanship is often as necessary in the development of opportunity as in its creation.

“Salesmanship” in this book applies not merely to marketing commodities and services. You can sell your personality. You must do it! As a matter of fact, the major objective in writing this book was to teach men and women how to sell their way through life successfully using the selling strategy and the psychology used by the Master Salesman in selling goods and services.

Herbert Hoover was handicapped during his youth by the loss of his parents. Millions of other orphans have lived and died without having had the opportunity to make themselves known outside of the local communities in which they existed. What distinguishing features did Mr. Hoover possess to enable him to set his sails in the direction of the White House and ride with the winds of fortune to that high goal? He discovered how to sell his way through life successfully. This book is to teach others to do the same.

Jean Beltrand has given five definitions of salesmanship, as follows:

FIRST: Selling is the ability to make known your faith, goods, or propositions to a person or persons, to a point of creating a desire for a privilege, an opportunity, possession, or an interest.

SECOND: Selling is the ability of professional and public men to render services, assistance, and cooperation, to a point of creating a desire on the part of the people to remunerate, recognize, and honor.

THIRD: Selling is the ability to perform work, duties, and services as an employee, to a point of creating a desire on the part of an employer to remunerate, promote, and praise.

FOURTH: Selling is the ability to be polite, kind, agreeable, and considerate, to a point of creating a desire upon the part of those you meet to respect, love, and honor you.

FIFTH: Selling is the ability to write, design, paint, invent, create, compose, or accomplish anything, to a point of creating a desire upon the part of the people to acclaim its possessors as heroes, celebrities, and great men.

These definitions are very broad. They might easily cover a great variety of all human activity. The whole of any life is one long, unbroken chain of sales endeavor.

The newly born babe is a salesman! When it wants food, it yells for it and gets it! When it is in pain, it yells for attention and gets that, too.

Women are the greatest salespeople on earth. They are superior to men because they are more subtle, more dramatic, and use greater finesse. Men often believe they are selling themselves to women in proposals of marriage. Generally, however, it is the woman who does the selling. She does it by making herself charming, attractive, and alluring.

While Mr. Beltrand’s definitions are comprehensive, I would add to his list one more, viz:

“Selling is the art of planting in the mind of another a motive which will induce favorable action.”

The importance of this definition will be apparent throughout the book.

The Master Salesman becomes a master because of his or her ability to induce other people to act upon motives without resistance or friction.

There is but little competition with Master Salesmen because there are so few of them!

Master Salesmen know what they want. They know how to plan the acquiring of what they want. Moreover, they have the initiative to put into action such a plan.

There are two forms of sales endeavor. One: when the salesman is negotiating with but one person. Two: when the salesman is negotiating with a group of people. The latter is commonly known as group selling or public speaking.

The Master Salesman’s education is not complete unless he has the ability to persuade groups of people as well as influence individuals. The ability to speak to groups with that force which carries conviction is a priceless asset. It has given more than one man his big opportunity. This ability must be self-acquired. It is an art that can be acquired only through study, effort, and experience.

Here are some specific instances:

William Jennings Bryan lifted himself from obscurity to a position of national prominence through his famous “Cross of Gold” speech, during a Democratic National Convention.

Patrick Henry immortalized himself through his famous “Give me liberty or give me death” speech in the days of the American Revolution. But for that speech, his name might never have known its heritage.

Robert Ingersoll changed the trend of theology by his eloquent art in forceful group salesmanship.

The Master Salesman has the ability to influence people through the printed page as well as by the spoken word.

Elbert Hubbard accumulated a modest fortune and indelibly impressed his name upon the minds of men through the selling power of his pen.

Perhaps Thomas Paine, through the power of his pen, did more than any other one person to inspire the American Revolution.

Benjamin Franklin immortalized himself and left his imprint for good upon civilization by the forceful simplicity and quaintness of his written salesmanship.

Abraham Lincoln immortalized himself through a single speech, his Gettysburg Address—simple in theme, pure in composition, moving in thought.

The spirit of Jesus Christ goes marching on, influencing hundreds of millions of people 2,000 years after his death because he was a Master Salesman. He built his sales presentation around a motive universally acceptable.

Caesar, Alexander, Napoleon, the ex-kaiser Wilhelm of Germany, and hundreds of others of their type were also Master Salesmen. But they built their sales presentations around motives that were destructive of the best impulses in civilization. They sold and delivered wars—wars for which the people paid in blood and tears and suffering.

Enduring success in selling is always predicated upon sound motive ! Remember this, you who aspire to mastery in selling. Sell neither stones nor serpents nor swords!

The world now faces the greatest opportunity for Master Salesmanship in history. The Business Depression left wounds in millions of hearts that must be healed. Only master salesmanship can do it. New leaders and a new brand of leadership are needed throughout the world in almost every line of human endeavor. This is a great reconstruction period. It is rich with opportunity for Master Salesmen who have the imagination to build their sales efforts around motives that are beneficial to the general public, and who release their full energies through their work.

Class privileges are passing! Mass privileges are in the ascendancy. Remember this, too, when selecting a motive as the guiding spirit of your sales efforts: The people must be served.

The whole of America stands at the crossroads of progress waiting for able leadership. Millions of people have been slowed down by fear and indecision. Here is an unparalleled opportunity for men and women who are prepared to adapt themselves to the new brand of leadership, fortified by courage, dedicated to service.

High-pressure salesmanship, of which we heard so much during the last 20 years, is now a thing of the past. The “go-getter” will have to make room for the “go-giver” in every walk of life, selling included.

The successful leader of the future, whether in the field of selling or in other walks of life, must make the Golden Rule the basis of his leadership.

In the future, the question of paramount importance will be: “How much can I give in the way of service to others?” not, “How much can I get away with and keep out of jail?”

A great economic renaissance is sweeping the entire world!

The man who cannot see this is mentally and morally blind. The old order of things in business and industry has already been swept away, and a new order is rapidly taking its place. Wise beyond description is the person who sees this change and adapts himself to it harmoniously—without force!

We are approaching an era during which we shall see the reincarnation of the spirit of Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin and George Washington and Abraham Lincoln in politics and the reincarnation of the spirit of Marshall Field and John Wanamaker in the fields of industry, business, and finance.

The people have become rebellious against the oppression forced upon them by the avaricious and the greedy. This spirit of resentment is not transient. It will remain until it rights a wrong. It will gain organized momentum. America will not soon again see the sad spectacle of millions of people starving to death in the midst of an overabundance of both the necessities and the luxuries of life.

We are on the grand concourse that leads out of the wilderness of human exploitation, and we are not going to be driven or coerced into giving up our rights to remain on this highway.

These statements of fact and of prophecy may be helpful to those who aspire to leadership in the field of selling or in some other walk of life. Men who have imagination will not wait for time to prove their soundness. They will anticipate the changes that are to take place and will adapt themselves to the new conditions.

The great changes occasioned by the economic upheaval that has thrown millions out of adjustment in all fields of human activity accentuates the need for discovering those fundamental principles by which one may come back into the path of ordered progress. Since all people must use some form of salesmanship to right themselves and to adjust themselves into satisfactory relations, both social and commercial, it behooves one to lend an ear to a presentation of those fundamental principles with suggestions of their practical application. This book attempts to teach such principles.

The person who masters these fundamental principles of persuasion can sell his way through life successfully, surmounting obstacles, overcoming opposition, harnessing and redirecting adverse forces. No matter who you are or how much you know, you will not succeed unless you are a salesman! You must sell your services. You must sell your knowledge. You must sell yourself. You must sell your personality.

As you approach the study of fundamentals, keep ever before you the fact that your only limitations are creatures of your own mind. Remember, too, you can remove any limitation that you can create.

This book was written for men and women who will not permit themselves to be bound down by blind circumstance nor hedged in by psychological limitations.

2

You Need Intelligent Promotion to Succeed

IT may be true that the world will make a beaten path to your door if you make a better mousetrap than your neighbor, even though your house may be far back in the woods, but you may as well know that the big rush toward your place of business will not begin until you have given the location and have been properly promoted.

Jack Dempsey was an unknown prize fighter, and a good one at that perhaps, but he stepped up front and won the World Championship with its million dollar income only after Jack Kearns had promoted him into that highly desirable position. Jack Dempsey’s fists and arms did the punching, but Jack Kearns’ brains did the guiding of the blows so they found their way into big bank balances. The promoting job that Kearns did for Dempsey was so effective that even now, long after the championship was lost, Dempsey is able to collect big dividends for the mere use of his name.

Thomas A. Edison, with less than three months of schooling, became the world’s greatest inventor because he possessed that rare quality of being able to promote himself. Where he succeeded, no fewer than 10,000 other inventors, many of them as capable as he, never have been heard of and never will be.

Arthur Brisbane was a run-of-the-mill newspaperman, no better and no worse than a thousand others in his profession, until William Randolph Hearst spread his name on the front page of all his newspapers; then he became America’s leading columnist. I can name a hundred men who can write better stuff than anything Brisbane ever wrote, but you would not recognize one of them because they have not been properly promoted.

During the World War my attention was called to a man by the name of Arthur Nash, a Cincinnati merchant tailor, who had taken his employees into business with him and had given them a part of the profits because his business was on the rocks and he saw no other way of saving it from bankruptcy. I went to Cincinnati, interviewed Nash, and wrote the first story about him. In my story I called him “Golden Rule” Nash. The story was taken up by the newspapers and magazines of the country and he received free publicity for more than five years. When he died a dozen years later, he was a wealthy man and his business was among the more successful of its type.

Kate Smith, as all who know her will testify, is “a dear sweet girl” who sings on the radio. Kate does not have anything but a fine character and a pleasing voice, but she does have Ted Collins, therefore she draws a weekly salary of a staggering figure, to say nothing of side incomes from moving pictures and other endeavors.

Edgar Bergen and Charley McCarthy trooped up and down Broadway, eating now and then when the now famous pair could get an engagement, until one night when they appeared on the Rudy Vallee Program. The promotion they received on that occasion gave them a start toward radio stardom that has made the pair among the best features of the air. Bergen was as good five years ago as he is today, but he was not then properly promoted, so he often found himself “temporarily at leisure.”

Ely Culbertson was a competent bridge player, but nothing to brag about until his wife took him in hand and began to promote him, and now he receives free publicity in newspapers throughout the nation. Moreover, he has made himself wealthy as a bridge expert. He is probably no more an expert now than he was when his better seven-eighths began to promote him, but he is better paid!

Ziegfeld picked up Will Rogers when he was an unknown gum-chewing, rope-throwing vaudeville specialist (when he could get an engagement). By proper promotion, Ziegfeld catapulted Rogers into stardom almost overnight, to say nothing of paving the way for moving picture and other money-making opportunities from which Rogers made millions of dollars. Before Ziegfeld’s promotions caught up with him, Rogers was glad to do his stunts before clubs and on other occasions for his lunch, in cities where he was playing on the vaudeville stage. This same “promoter” took over the banjo-eyed Eddie Cantor and started him on a career that is said to now pay him $10,000 a week for merely reading lines that someone else writes! Not bad, eh? Ziegfeld also promoted the tall, slender Fanny Brice into the big money. Not one of these favorites would have piled up the huge fortunes the public has paid them to do their parlor tricks if it had not been for clever promotion.

When I was organizing The Law of Success philosophy, Andrew Carnegie sent me to call on Henry Ford. “You want to watch this man Ford,” said Carnegie, “for one day he is going to dominate the motor industry of America.” I went to Detroit and met Ford for the first time. That was in 1908. When I first looked him over, I wondered how as shrewd a judge of men as Andrew Carnegie could have been so definitely mistaken in his estimation of Ford, but that was 30 years ago. Year by year I have watched Ford climb to the top in his field, and back of his stupendous achievement I have observed highly organized, systematic, and effective promotion. Perhaps no man who was ever connected with the Ford promotion was of greater service to him than the late Senator Couzens, unless it is W. J. Cameron, the present chief Ford promoter, who sees to it that the Ford interests are never neglected in the eyes of the public. Since Ford began business, I have seen no less than a hundred other makers of automobiles rise and fall like mushrooms because they had not the foresight to surround themselves with promotion experts.

By “promotion experts,” I do not mean advertising men. Promotion is one thing, advertising is something entirely different. Promotion, the sort to which I have reference, is the art of keeping an individual favorably sold to the public all the time.

The late Ivy Lee was one of the greatest promotion men of his time. It was he who removed the odium from the name of the elder Rockefeller and kept that name before the public in a favorable light almost continuously. Ivy Lee seldom worked through paid publicity. He preferred free space and other forms of more efficient promotion for keeping his clients properly sold to the public. While I was publishing the Golden Rule Magazine, I wrote a brief editorial praising the work of John D. Rockefeller, Jr., in connection with his fine humanitarian work in going to Colorado to settle the famous coal strike in 1919. Almost before the print had dried on my article, I received a wire from Ivy Lee, inviting me to visit him in New York. When I met him, he got down to business without ceremonies, offering me $10,000 a year to join his staff and write similar editorials about other clients of his. Promotion experts earn and receive big money because they have the ability to recognize and the good sense to appropriate the forces needed to further the interests of their clients. I declined the Ivy Lee offer, but I have often regretted the mistake, for I now know that a few years of schooling under that genius would have been worth many times the sum he offered me.

During my negotiations with Ivy Lee, I was astounded to learn that the world-famous Billy Sunday revivals were a well organized, Ivy Lee-guided promotion! Sunday fought the Devil up one side of the country and down the other, to the tune of millions of dollars. The Devil has Ivy Lee to thank for whatever damage Billy did him, which probably was not very much. My personal opinion is that Billy Sunday set Christianity back a thousand years. One thing is certain, religious revivals of the Sunday type—emotional orgies as they are called by many who think—have gone forever. They died about the time Ivy Lee passed on.

Rudolph Valentino (the late silent movie star, in case you have forgotten him) danced up and down Broadway, at a few dollars per dance, until a moving picture director discovered him and placed back of him a clever promoter. Then Valentino became the screen’s great lover. The women of America, in the slang of the street, “ate it up!” When the talkies came, all the stars of the silents had to be replaced overnight because most of them had no real ability in talking parts. The great lovers of the silents were great only because they had been cleverly promoted as such. The talkies proved that!

When the late Theodore Roosevelt came back from Africa, just after he left the White House in 1909, he made his first public appearance at Madison Square Garden. Before he would agree to make the appearance, he carefully arranged for nearly one thousand paid applauders to be scattered throughout the audience to applaud his entrance on the platform. For more than 15 minutes, these paid hand-clappers made the place ring with their enthusiasm. The other sheep took up the suggestion and joined in for another quarter hour. The newspaper men present were literally swept off their feet by the tremendous ovation given the American hero, and his name was emblazoned across the headlines of the newspapers in letters two inches high. Splendid! Teddy understood and made intelligent use of personal promotion. That was the major reason why he was a great statesman!

One does not have to be an expert on propaganda or personal promotion tactics to observe how effectively these forces are used by Mussolini, Hitler, and Stalin, to maintain their standing in the eyes of the world. They keep themselves constantly promoted in all sorts of favorable lights because they know the necessity of appeasing home folks and impressing foreigners.

For a great number of years, I served as my own business and promotion manager, yet I saw other men in my field going by me in an ever-increasing line of procession. I now know that the habit of serving as one’s own promotion manager is something like the equally foolish habit of cutting one’s own hair. A man can cut his own hair, but it does not improve his appearance. A man can also serve as his own lawyer, but he who does so usually follows his own counsel into difficulty. There is no wisdom in following such a course.

Even a street can be made to take on a different reputation and yield greater rents under the right sort of promotion direction. Fifth Avenue in New York is known the world over as the bonton street of Manhattan. The reputation enables the owners of the ground to ask for and receive fabulous rentals for their property. Fifth Avenue’s reputation is a promotion, maintained by the Fifth Avenue Association, through a carefully managed promotion plan that keeps out the riff-raff that has reduced Broadway and Forty-Second Street to nothing short of a hunting ground for mendicants and street peddlers. Stores on Broadway bring but a fraction of the rentals received on Fifth Avenue.