To summarize the most effective method of gaining attention—hit each sense to which you appeal as strongly as you can, without making a disagreeable impression, strike as many senses as possible, and keep on using your sense-hitting device as long as necessary to get or to recover exclusive favorable attention.
Many a man has gained success because he first gained attention. He stood out from the crowd, or was able to make his qualities noticeable. When one is fully qualified for success, he may need only to attract attention to his capabilities; then he is likely to be given the chance he wants.
Often, however, the salesman is discomfited after he gains attention. The prospect halts the selling process by declaring, "I'm not interested." Suppose you are able to compel your prospective employer to notice you favorably, but he balks there and shows no inclination to buy your services. He has listened attentively to all you have said. He has concentrated his mind upon you, and has not wandered in thought to other subjects. Yet you perceive that he is inclined to put you off or to turn you down. Evidently, in order to prevent such a contretemps, you need to resort now to a different selling step, which you have not taken previously.
It is necessary that you have at your command a way to induce interest. This interest-inducing means must be as sure in its effects as the sense-hitting method of compelling attention. Otherwise you could not be certain of success with the selling process. If the effectiveness of every step cannot be assured in advance, you will not rely confidently on salesmanship to achieve your ambition.
Probably you have never worked out in your mind exactly the reasons why you are interested in particular things and in certain people. Let us make an analysis. Your attention might be attracted so strongly to a vicious criminal that for the time being you could think of no one else. Yet his fate might be a matter of such indifference to you that you would have absolutely no interest in the man. But suppose you should see in his face, or in an expression of his eyes, something that haunted your memory appealingly. It would induce you to read the newspaper accounts of his trial. You would feel a little sorry for him, on learning that he had been sentenced to a long term in prison. Very likely you would say to yourself, "I suppose he is a mighty tough character, but I believe there is something in him that isn't altogether bad." Your intuition would tell you he possessed undefined traits that you like. In your own liking for these characteristics that you vaguely discerned in him when you saw him, is the key to the interest he induced.
What do we like? Whom do we like?
Things that are like our own ideas. People who are like the ideas we have about likable people. Interest is all a matter of recognizing points of likeness.
In order to draw your prospect beyond the attention stage of the selling process, and to induce his interest in your "goods," you must impress on him suggestions of the similarity of your ideas to ideas already in his own mind. He will like your ideas in proportion to their resemblance to his own way of thinking on the same subjects. So you should express yourself as nearly as possible in his terms, and attract his interest by making him feel that your mind and his are much alike.
One day I was sitting in the private office of a very wealthy philanthropist. A salesman presented a letter of introduction to the millionaire, who in turn introduced me to his caller. The newcomer thereupon proceeded to present most attractively a business proposal. He offered my friend an excellent opportunity to make a good deal of money by joining an underwriting syndicate. The millionaire at once declared he was not interested. "I have all the money I want," he said, and bowed the salesman out. The ideas that had been presented to him were altogether different from his own financial motives.
That same afternoon another promoter called upon my friend with a project for investment in a house-building corporation. This second salesman evidently had prospected the philanthropist and had planned just how to interest him. He did not stress the profits to be made from investment in the stock of his corporation, but referred to them in a minor key. He emphasized the need of the city for more homes, and cited instances of distress due to the housing shortage.
My friend was thoroughly interested. He took home the salesman's prospectus for further study. Since he was a good business man, he satisfied himself that the investment would be profitable. But he subscribed for fifty thousand dollars worth of securities principally because they represented a project like his own ideas of the way money should be put to work for human happiness.
When you call on the man you have selected as your future employer, go equipped with all the prospecting knowledge regarding him that you have been able to get. Be sure you know his strongest likes and dislikes. Size him up on the spot, for the purpose of supplementing what you have previously learned about him. Hit his attention with sense-appeals related to his peculiarities. Then, in order to make sure of his interest, present some idea that is of the kind he especially likes. He will open his mind and welcome your idea at once.
Suppose he has a reputation for brusqueness and quick decisions, and is impatient about any waste of time. You probably would help your cause by looking him straight in the eye and saying bluntly something like this:
"I want to work for you because you are my kind of a man. Ask me any questions you want, now. You won't have to call me on the carpet for information about my work after you hire me. Pay me two hundred dollars a month, and I won't be back in this office to get a raise until you send for me."
I know a young man who secured a good job from an "old crab" in just that way, within three minutes after they first met.
Two men sought the position of office manager of an automobile company. The owners of the business were thorough mechanics who had designed their own car, but who were comparatively unfamiliar with office operations. They were not at home outside their factory.
The first candidate for the vacant position brought the finest recommendations of his qualifications for office management. The other applicant had had much less experience, and was not nearly so well qualified. But the first man was a poor salesman of his capabilities. He failed to recognize, when he explained his ideas to the partners, that he was talking to a pair of mechanics. They did not understand the language he used. His presentation of his qualifications as an office manager would have impressed an employer accustomed to sitting at a desk. But the partners were intuitively prejudiced against the capable candidate who was so very unlike themselves in all respects.
The other applicant was shrewd. He used salesmanship in presenting his lesser qualifications for the position. He talked in terms borrowed from the language of shop practice. He compared the plans he suggested for the office supplies stock room, with the "tool crib" in the factory. He explained his idea of office organization by using as a model a chart of the plant departments. He compared office expenses with factory overhead.
The owners of the business understood very little about the subjects he discussed, but he used words and expressions that were familiar to them. So his ideas, as he presented them, impressed the partners as like their own way of looking at things. The better salesman, who knew how to interest his prospects, got the five-figure job; though he was a less capable office executive than the disappointed applicant.
Do not try to sell another man particular ideas because you like them. You are not the buyer. Sell him ideas that he likes. Fit the ideas you bring him to the characteristics of his mind.
If you judge him to be a quick thinker, do not hesitate in indecision a moment longer than is necessary for you to make up your mind confidently. On the other hand, should he be a deliberate thinker, be careful not to make an impression that you are rash or impulsive in your decisions.
If he is inclined to be finical about his dress, or over-particular regarding orderliness, he will be interested if your garb is punctiliously correct and if you suggest to him the habits of precision. I read a little while ago the story of a young man who lost the chance to become the confidential assistant of a noted financier. The young man missed his opportunity because he made the mistake of wearing a soft collar when he called for the final interview with the financier.
Do not, of course, put on false pretenses, to make your prospect like you and your ideas. Remember that you must live up to a first good impression. So appear nothing, say nothing, do nothing that is untrue to your best self. But without any dishonesty you can indicate that your way of thinking has points of similarity to the slant of the other man's mind. If he is a Republican, while you are a Democrat, and the subject of politics comes up, do not pretend to be an elephant worshiper. Admit your party allegiance casually, and remark that you are not hide-bound in your political faith, but open-minded. Maybe he will employ you with the hope of converting you to Republicanism.
There are few ideas regarding which honest men are diametrically opposed on principle. You can suggest to your prospective employer the idea that you are in accord with his way of thinking; though you may differ widely in many respects. You need not emphasize the degree of your likeness in mind. Certainly it would be very poor policy to stress your differences of opinion.
Any likeness of your suggestions to the ideas of the other man will impress him agreeably. He will be pleased to find the points of resemblance, and they will help to gloss over a possible prejudice in his mind against you. The association of your similar ideas on a subject will suggest to him imaginative pictures of your association with him in his business. "Like breeds like." He will place you mentally in a situation where the likable qualities he has found in you might be employed to his satisfaction.
Then you will be safely inside the door of his interest. Without realizing it, your prospect would like to bring about the condition he has imagined. He is beginning to want you in his employ; though as yet he has no deep-seated desire for your services. Objections to you may spring up in his mind, but you certainly have been successful throughout the processes of getting his response to your knock, and of securing for your ideas his invitation to come into his thoughts for a better acquaintance with your purpose.
After admitting your ideas to his mind, he may wish he had not welcomed them. He may find objectionable things in you or in your proposal. Sometimes a man responds to a knock on his door, and becomes sufficiently interested in the caller to invite him to enter the house; but regrets afterward that he extended the welcome. This change of heart and mind is usually due to something done by the visitor after his admittance. However, we are not considering just now any step of the selling process beyond winning a welcome. In later chapters we will study how to make the most effective use of hospitality and the things to avoid that might impress the host as abuses of the privileges of a guest.
Ideas have been called "the furniture of the mind." We have already seen that they are the developments of repeated sense impressions. A particular mind center is partly or wholly furnished with ideas in proportion to the man's use of his sense avenues to bring in ideas from outside himself. The doors of the mind swing inward most readily when the new mental furniture brought along a sense avenue matches the ideas already in the mind center. Doubtless the young man who lost the interest of a great financier by wearing a soft collar would have been able to hold it if he had dressed according to his prospect's ideas.
If there is one thing about you that another man dislikes, it disproportionately tinges his entire attitude of mind toward you. On the other hand, if you have one especially likable feature, it tends to lessen the disagreeable impression of things about you that the other man does not like.
So, when you come to a prospect as a salesman of your best self and have gained his attention, avoid making disagreeable suggestions to his mind, and have at your command a number of sense appeals you are sure he will like. You certainly will secure his interest if you follow this selling process.
To win his interest you need not induce your prospect to like you all through or in every respect. If he likes but one thing about you at first, he will be interested enough to give you the chance to develop more interest. The interest that produces the fruit of acceptance is often a growth from only one seed sown by the salesman of ideas.
At this stage of the selling process it is not wise to plunge ahead fast. Do not go to the extreme on any subject that you find is interesting to your prospect. His interest may be mild, and he might be prejudiced if you seem to display excessive concern about something that he considers of minor importance. I recall the experience of a man who was complimented on keeping an appointment to the minute. He over-emphasized the virtue of punctuality and irritated his prospect, who was not always on time himself. The job went to another applicant.
Be moderate in your attitude when you work to secure the beginning of interest, lest you raise an obstacle in your path. Until you are sure you have won a considerable degree of interest, you cannot lead strongly in any direction without running the risk of losing some of the advantages you have gained. Therefore at the interest stage proceed warily. "Watch your step."
Be especially careful not to gush over a hobby of your prospect, in which his interest may not be so great as you suppose. Hobbies are dangerous. Don't harp on one. It requires consummate art to show enthusiasm about another man's hobby without arousing his suspicions regarding your sincerity.
Throughout the various steps of the selling process, salesmanship is an art. The art of knocking at the door of opportunity and of winning the invitation to come in lies in making favorable out-of-the-ordinary impressions in unusual ways. The salesman himself, his methods of presenting his services for sale, and his qualifications—all should stand out distinctly, and make impressions of his individuality. He should not seem like a common applicant for a position, but should suggest to the prospective employer that he is a man of uncommon characteristics and especial capability.
That is the way to make a good impression. Such an impression of an extraordinary personality first affords pleasure, then excites a degree of admiration, and next arouses a certain amount of curiosity that is nearly akin to interest. If you please your prospect in your initial impression on him, he will like you and begin to feel personal concern about your application.
In order to qualify yourself for taking this step of the selling process effectively hereafter, analyze the impressions you make now. Discriminatively select the good and bad details. Then restrict your future practice in perfecting the art of inducing interest, to the development and use of your pleasing qualities only.
Most men begin an interview with a prospective employer indefinitely or in merely general terms. Naturally they confront a wall of non-interest. You have come, remember, on a mission of service. Please at once by presenting the idea that you know a particular service which is lacking and which you can supply. Break the ice of strangeness between you and your prospect by an appeal first to his human side through a smile of genuine friendliness and by looking straight into his eyes so that he can see into your heart.
Then in a business-like way get right down to business without hesitation. Show enthusiasm, which is contagious if not overdone. Base your enthusiasm on real optimism. Indicate temperamental youthfulness in vigor and courage. Say something original—something strong, maybe a little startling; but it must be self-evidently true. By all means avoid anything that suggests parrot talk or indefinite thought. Do not expect the other man to listen with interest to a statement proceeding from premise to conclusion.
Use headlines prominently and often to summarize the body of your proposal. Headlines attract your attention and induce your interest in particular newspaper items. Employ headline statements for the same purpose in selling the idea of your capabilities; just as surely you will get attention and interest.
A noted sales manager who had been earning a large salary made up his mind that satisfying success for him was to be gained only through a business in which he would be partly an owner instead of just an employee. He called together a group of financiers and introduced his purpose by saying to them, "Gentlemen, I have an idea in which I have so much confidence that I will resign my $75,000 a year job to develop it. I want to explain it to you and to have your co-operation in financing a project I have worked out." His headline statement secured instant interest, of course.
There is something about yourself or your capabilities that you can put into headlines. In forcible, vivid language you can strike some senses of your prospects. Think of headline statements about your services. Write them out in advance. You may be certain they will produce the same psychological effect as headlines in the newspapers.
Use the sense avenues to introduce agreeable suggestions into your prospect's mind centers of attention and interest. Then you will be employing the unusual methods of a master salesman, who devises ways of using every possible sense appeal.
The sense doors are always open. They are held open by the subconscious mind. If you understand your way through them there will be no doubt about the effectiveness of your knock at the door of opportunity, or about getting an invitation for your ideas to enter the mind of the other man.
CHAPTER IX
Getting Yourself Wanted
A great many salesmen mistakenly believe that if they can interest a prospect thoroughly in their goods, he is almost sure to buy. When this stage is reached, they think they only need to keep his interest growing to close the sale. If, instead, it drags on interminably, they are utterly at a loss regarding what more they should do to secure the order.
Do not fall into a similar error when selling true ideas of your best capabilities. Not only is it necessary that you induce your prospective employer's interest in your personal qualifications, but you need to make him realize there is a present lack in his business which you can fill to his satisfaction. You must get yourself wanted.
You might make an excellent first impression on the man you have chosen as your future chief. He might listen attentively to your presentation of ideas, and question you so interestedly that you would expect him to say at any moment, "All right. The job is yours." Then, instead of engaging your services, he might remark, "I'll keep your name on file." Or he might say, "I know a man who probably could use you. I'll give you a note to him." You would win a cordial farewell handshake from your prospect, but not an acceptance of your proposal to work with him. You would leave without the job. Your failure would be due to your inability to get yourself sufficiently wanted.
Now imagine yourself in the place of this employer. See your application through his eyes. Unless you can look at yourself from the prospect's viewpoint, you may not comprehend your deficiency in salesmanship.
The employer upon whom you called said to himself while you were trying to sell your services, "Here is a very attractive man. He presents an interesting proposition. But I have no real need for such an employee; therefore it would be poor business for me to engage him, much as I should like to do so. I am sorry that at present I have no place for him in my organization. He's a man I'd like to keep track of, so I'll file his name and address for possible future reference. Meanwhile I'll give him a note to my friend Smith. I hate to turn him down cold; he's such a fine man."
Evidently the employer did not feel a lack in his own business. You failed to make him realize any need for your services.
Contrast with this illustration the case of an efficiency engineer who secured his chance to overhaul a factory by demonstrating to a manufacturer that he needed a new order-checking system. The engineer "beat" the old system and brought to the manufacturer's office a lot of goods he had secured that could not be checked. His salesmanship compelled attention, induced thorough interest, and proved there was a hole that should be filled. When the lack was shown convincingly, the manufacturer wanted it satisfied. The sale of the engineer's services was quickly closed.
Do not jump to the conclusion that you are sure of the job you desire, just as soon as you get yourself wanted. You are not yet at the end of the selling process. The prospect has only been conducted successfully another step forward toward your goal. The moment after he realizes the lack in his business, he is apt to question most critically your qualifications for filling it.
As soon as a man begins to feel a real tug of desire for anything, he examines it with new, increased interest to make sure there isn't something the matter with it. The suit of clothes that only induces his interest in a shop window is passed by after a look. However, if he says to himself, "That's the kind of suit I want," he goes in and examines the workmanship and the cloth, in search of faults. The salesman may need to overcome certain objections of his prospect before the order can be secured.
But we have not reached the objections stage of the uncompleted sale. That is the subject of the next chapter. Let us retrace our steps to study the essence of the art of getting yourself wanted.
There are two parts to the process. First, you must show the prospect what he lacks; that in his business there is an unoccupied opportunity for such services as you believe you are capable of rendering to his benefit and satisfaction. Second, you need to picture yourself filling the place and giving the service; to show him imaginatively your qualifications at work in his business.
Of course it is primarily necessary that you believe in your own capability, and in the value to the other man of the qualities you have brought to him for sale. Unless you have this feeling yourself, you will not be likely to draw out his reciprocating desire for your services. You are not dealing now with his mind. Desire proceeds from the heart. It is emotional, not mental. The least suspicion of your insincerity would check your prospect's feeling that he wants you as an employee. You must feel that you have come with a purpose of genuine service, and you must draw out his similar feeling.
When you knocked at the door of your prospect's mind, and when you sought to induce his welcome for your ideas, your object was to get him to take your thoughts into his head. The line of action is reversed at the desire stage of the selling process. Until now you have been the moving party. You have been getting yourself and your ideas into his consciousness. But while attention and interest are receptive processes, the emotion of genuine desire starts with an outward moving impulse from the prospect. It isn't enough that he open his heart and let you enter, as he has admitted your ideas to his mind. If he really wants you, his feeling of desire will come out after you.
You have revealed to your prospect a lack in his business, and have pictured yourself filling it to his satisfaction. You have done him a double service. It is human nature to appreciate such a genuine service, and to want more like it. The first service is accepted with appreciation, but when the square man wants more he makes a move to get it, and expects to pay for it. As soon as you have shown the lack and your ability to fill it, and have pictured yourself "on the job," it will be natural for your prospect to want you there in fact.
The colored porter who washed the windows and scrubbed floors in the general offices of a manufacturing corporation was ambitious to rise in the social scale and to earn a larger salary. One evening he went to the private office of the president, and presented for sale an idea of his capability for a different job.
"Boss," he began, "You-all ain't got nobody dere to de front doah to make folks feel welcome-like when dey comes in heah. Down in Virginny my ol' gran-pap useter weah a dress suit ever' day an' jist Stan' in de front hall of his ol' massa's house, a-waitin' to bow an' smile to comp'ny whad'd come in. If you'll jist rent me one o' dem dar suits, Boss, I could stan' out in the front office an' make folks feel we wuz glad to see 'um, lak' mah gran'pap did. When ennybody comes heah now, dey ain't nobody pays much 'tention to 'um. You'd orter git somebody on dat job, Boss; an' I reckon I'm jist 'bout cut out foh it, suh."
The colored man compelled attention by presenting himself at the door of the sanctum. He induced interest in his proposal. Then, in addition, he pointed out a lack and that he could fill it. Immediately the president visioned the old darkey as an official welcomer, and wanted him. He reached right out for the service offered. The sale was closed at once, and the colored man shone in his new glories within a week.
Often a man desires with his heart things that his mind does not approve. Therefore when you work to get yourself wanted, appeal to the heart of your prospect, rather than to his mind. Then if his mind raises objections to his desire for your services, your mind at a later stage of the selling process will overcome or get around his mental opposition. When the time for that step arrives, his heart will already have been won as your ally, and will help you dispose of the objections his mind has raised.
As a preliminary to getting yourself wanted, get yourself liked. Make such an impression, do and say such things, as will draw out of the heart of your prospect a friendly feeling for you. You know of people who have been boosted to notable successes because influential men took personal interest in their advancement.
I recall an office boy who was always ready to perform little extra services. He held his employer's overcoat one day, and the boss rather absent-mindedly handed him a tip. The boy shook his head and declined the dime.
"I didn't do that for a tip. You always treat me fine, and I just like to show you I appreciate it."
The boy's heart had spoken, and the employer's heart responded at once with an especial liking for the lad. The seed of personal interest having been planted in the heart of the president, his liking grew. The boy was advanced to better and better positions. He made good on his merits, but he was helped very much because his employer wanted him to succeed.
Reference has previously been made to the fundamental likeness of all men at heart and to their differences in mind. Send out with your voice an appeal to only the minds of your audience—read a table of statistics, for example—and it will affect all your hearers differently, depending on the mental characteristics of each individual. But tell a story of great courage, of self-sacrifice, of love—the same fundamental effect will be produced on all the hearts in the audience; though, of course, the various individuals will respond with different degrees of emotional intensity.
As has been said before, in order to look into the heart of another man you need but see clearly into your own. There you will find all the emotions of human nature, no matter how you may differ from other men in mentality. Hence if you would prompt the heart of another man to want your services, just do the things he would need to do to win your liking for him. Imagine the cases reversed, and be guided in your selling process by what you see.
To look at this step from another angle—if you would be likable, you must find other men likable. If you like people only within a limited range, you will similarly narrow your own likableness. If, however, you genuinely like all men—like them for their faults and frailties as well as for their merits—you will appeal to the intuitive heart of any other man. You will draw out his liking for you because the magnetic power of your own heart will not be restricted to pulling your way the friendly feelings of only a few people. Instead, you will be a "popular" man, a man who is generally well liked.
You meet certain men whom you like at sight. You desire further acquaintance, or friendship with them. But these men have not prepared themselves to suit you in particular. Most other people who meet them have the same feeling toward them that you experience. The men you like at sight, and who make friends wherever they go have developed in themselves feelings of friendliness for all men. As like breeds like, liking draws liking.
If you try to develop particular traits, only because you believe they will attract other men to you, you will not make your nature likable. Such artificial methods of making yourself attractive never deceive heart intuitions. You will not become popular by proceeding selfishly. But if you develop within yourself a heartfelt interest in your fellow men, if you are full of genuine desire to serve them with your friendship, you will attract the liking of nearly all the people you meet. They will want to know you better and to be your friends.
There is "no sich critter" as a natural grouch. A man who has that reputation is repressing his natural emotions—that is all. He does not express his true feelings. He attempts to deny that he has them. But they are inside him, and you can pull them toward you if you bring your likableness to bear upon his heart. He will feel the tug, and will be drawn to you by your magnetic power. There is no insulation that can prevent the pull of human magnetism. So treat the crab with a feeling of real liking for the human nature inside, and don't be discouraged by his shell. Be more than ordinarily likable when you have to deal with a surly prospect. Exert all the magnetism you have. He will feel drawn to you. You will get yourself wanted.
J. Pierpont Morgan, Senior, was noted for being unapproachable. But it is said that he took a great liking to a certain newsboy who never acted afraid of him and who treated him as an ordinary mortal. This gamin always had a cheery word for everybody. That he made no exception in Mr. Morgan's case won the heart of the austere financier, who helped the boy to get an education and to start in business.
The emphasis placed on the importance of likableness as the principal factor in getting yourself wanted may have made you forget the primary necessity of showing your prospect a real lack in his business, and that you are capable of filling it. It is possible to attract an employer's liking for you, whether he has a place for you or not. But his liking will do you no good unless you can also make him see he has a need for you.
Success is not to be won by getting in where you are not wanted, however likable you may be. You must sell the idea of your service value as well as the ideas that your services would be liked. You cannot over-develop the quality of likableness, but you can over-sell it, to the detriment of your own best interest.
One of the most conspicuous failures I know is a man who has "a winning personality." Times without number his genuine agreeableness has won him fine chances to succeed, but in the positions he has held he has never studied the needs of his employers for other qualities than likability. Consequently he has fallen down on all his big chances. Today he is just a popular door man for a big department store. His intelligence and his physical ability are so evident that he is an object of pity and wonder as he smiles and bows to customers of the store. Undoubtedly if he had studied the different opportunities he has had, and had fitted himself into all the requirements of a particular situation, his winning personality would have helped him higher and higher toward the mountain peaks of success instead of leaving him on an ant hill.
Of course the mind of your prospective employer acts in co-ordination with his heart when you attract him so much that he really wants the service you proffer. He imagines you rendering that service. He thinks what "might be" if you were associated with his business. He paints mental pictures that please him, and he wishes his vision to come true. But when he begins to imagine you rendering service, the picture of your agreeable personality will not be pleasant to him if he sees that he doesn't really need you. In order to get yourself wanted it is necessary that you show him the lack, and that you can fill it, and that you would be likable when filling it. If you make these three impressions on the mind and heart of your prospect, your success in your purpose will be assured. You will not fail to get yourself wanted.
In salesmanship "desire is the determinant of the sale." By this is meant that when the salesman sufficiently stimulates a real desire in his prospect, he has climbed the highest grade of difficulty. If he is skillful, the selling process from then on should be comparatively easy sledding. You realize that if you can get yourself wanted by an employer, the matter of landing a job in his business should not be hard. We therefore are considering now the turning point in the process of selling the true idea of your best capabilities in the right field. After you get yourself wanted, the odds are no longer against you, but grow increasingly in your favor. If, having succeeded in getting yourself wanted, you then fail in your ultimate purpose, you should blame no one but yourself.
A very skillful use of tact and diplomacy is necessary to success in pointing out to a prospect something that he lacks, and your capability for filling that lack. A man is apt to resent your "picking flaws" in his business. He is likely to regard you as an egotist if you assert that he needs you. You will not get yourself wanted if you make the impression that you are a critical fault-finder with "the big-head." Rather, you should pattern after the example of the professional salesman of goods. In the processes of persuasion and creating desire he employs the arts of suggestion in preference to making direct statements. He is a tactful diplomat. Learn from his methods, as explained in "The Selling Process."
You have come to a chosen employer, with a real service purpose; but be careful not to offend in your presentation. Do not bring him your idea for improving his business as if it were a great discovery you have made. He won't like it if you open his eyes to his lacks in that fashion. You might better suggest that while you have perceived what he needs, you have no doubt he either has seen it already or would have perceived it if his time and attention had not been engrossed by other things. You will be liked if you so present a picture of the lack and of yourself satisfying it.
You are apt to get yourself cordially disliked if you rub your prospect's pride in his business the wrong way.
An accountant sought an opportunity to become the auditor for a manufacturing corporation. He had gained considerable "inside knowledge" of the company's lax business methods. But when talking to the president he exaggerated the relative importance of these defects. In his eagerness to impress the executive with the need for an auditor, he over-drew the danger from leaks in the company's accounting system. The president was exasperated. His pride was stung. What had been said reflected on his capability as an executive. So he turned savagely on the accountant.
"If we're so rotten as all that," he snarled, "how could we make money and pay dividends? No doubt you are right in your criticisms of our methods. But if I had a man like you around here, continually finding fault and picking everybody and everything to pieces, the whole business would be demoralized. The ideas you have brought to me are worth a thousand dollars, and I'll give you my check for that, but no crepe hanger can work for me."
When you present your capabilities for sale, don't suggest that you think your prospect's business will go to the "demnition bow-wows" if your services are not engaged. Understate the lack and your fitness to fill it. You may be sure the employer will appreciate fully the value of the new ideas you bring, and the worth of your services.
None of us really like "teachers." Nowadays the most successful educational methods follow the rule laid down by Alexander Pope, "Men must be taught as if you taught them not; and things unknown proposed as things forgot." Do not suggest that you are a "know it all." Much less make the impression that the other man does not know. Communicate to him the idea that you believe he has overlooked the lack to which you call his attention. With modest confidence present your capabilities. You need not assert in words that you will fill the bill. Your prospect can see that. In everything you suggest and say, show that you genuinely like him and his business. Manifest sincere admiration. Make him feel that you have come to his office because you especially want to work there. That will make him want you in his service. Use suggestion to increase his desire for you.
Direct presentation of ideas indicates an intention to inform, to teach, to direct the mind of the other man. Every human individual, whether a child or a centenarian, re-acts in opposition to such an effort at instruction. There is something in all of us alike which makes us wish to think and decide for ourselves. Hence the value of the art of suggestion in getting yourself wanted.
Ideas you suggest enter the mind of the other man so unobtrusively that he does not realize you originated them. He has no feeling that you intend to influence his mind. Consequently he makes no resistance to the suggested ideas. It never pays to reason when selling an idea; because reasoning invariably brings out a reaction of opposition. You will not create a desire for your services by presenting them logically, or by making an argument regarding your capabilities. One of the greatest students of the human mind assures us that "most persons never perform an act of pure reasoning; but all their acts are the results of imitation, habit, suggestion, or some related form of thinking."
Suggestion is remarkably effective in persuading and in arousing desire because:
First, every "suggested" idea is accepted as absolutely true unless it is contradicted by other ideas already in the mind of the prospect. This is because the prospect thinks a suggested idea is his. He adopts it and makes it his own. That is, his mind takes the suggestion and interprets it in terms of his own thoughts. Of course he believes what he himself thinks. Say to a prospective employer that you would particularly like to work in association with him, and he may believe you are "shooting hot air." He will have no such feeling if you tell him details about his business that have especially interested you. Show him that you have been studying and observing his methods. Give him to understand that you have also investigated other businesses. Thus without saying it, you suggest to his mind that you have come to his office because you really would prefer to be employed there. He will believe the suggested idea; though he might have scoffed at the statement.
Second, suggestion is effective in persuasion and in arousing desire because suggested ideas which include no comparisons or criticisms very seldom arouse contradictory attitudes of mind. The suggested idea enters the mind of the other man quietly, unaccompanied by a blare of the trumpet "I Tell You." Opposing ideas are not aware of its presence until it has supplanted them. Suggest to a chosen employer that he means to be up-to-date, and he agrees. If you say his methods are behind the times, he will be apt to defend them instead of following your lead along the line of suggested improvements.