Now let us discriminate between muscle training to develop the characteristic of persistence and the training already described for the building of determination. In order to strengthen your persistence, you must transmit through the distinct brain center of persistence to the corresponding mind center, the impression of muscles permanently developed in firmness, not just capable of temporary hardening on occasion.
The characteristically persistent man has gradually developed his lax-muscled, sagging, baby chin into a jaw that is habitually firm, whether or not he happens to be determined to do anything at a given moment. His muscles do not sag utterly, even when he is asleep. He probably wakes up in the morning with his teeth clenched. So, whenever his coordinated brain-mind center perceives that the quality of persistence is required, and starts to apply it, the mental impulse to persist is backed by a permanent firm muscle structure that can stand up as long as the mind needs the physical support.
In contrast, the man who is only characteristically determined, but who lacks persistence in his determination, has developed just the habit of hardening his muscles for the time he is determined on doing a particular thing. That does not exercise his muscles sufficiently to make them firm all the time, whether under tension or not. Consequently his determination is likely to slump if his resolution is subjected to a long strain. He does not possess muscular structure sufficiently strong to support persistence in his determination.
Habitual lack of firmness in the jaw muscles, as you know, results in a sagging chin; which detrimentally affects the brain-mind center of persistence. A man whose jaw habitually hangs loose may be capable of great determination for a while, but he is not persistent in character. He might clench his teeth, stiffen his body, and plunge into the surf to rescue a drowning person; but his first resolution to effect the rescue would be weakened by the cold water and by fear. He lacks the quality of the bulldog that will die rather than loose its teeth from another dog's throat.
The coordinated muscles express the mental attitude, as we have perceived; and equally they impress the mind with their attitude. If you have a sagging chin, you are incapable of the mental bulldog grip of persistence. So tighten up your jaw muscles, and never let them hang utterly loose, if you are resolved to develop the characteristic of "stick-to-it-iveness." Begin with muscle training, for your muscles must be utilized to start the process of building up your brain-mind center of persistence.
When you train the particular sense muscles that transmit external impressions to a particular brain-mind unit (the same muscles that reflexively express the ideas of that one part of your multiplex ego) you may be absolutely sure of developing a particular related characteristic. For example, if you want to sharpen your perceptive faculties so that you will see with the eyes of your mind much more than the ordinary man perceives, exercise your physical eyes in taking snap-shots that you can see clearly in detail with your imagination when you look away from an object after a glance at it. Try glancing at the furnishings of your room, then shut your eyes and construct a mental picture. When this is definitely clear to you, open your eyes. The reality will be very different from your imagined picture. But sharpen your perceptive faculties, develop a "camera eye;" then the reality will be exactly impressed on your mind. Witnesses in court often contradict one another, in all honesty, simply because their ability to perceive actualities is not highly developed. In consequence, they get false mental impressions of happenings or things they severally have seen.
There are but three processes of mental development:
The first process comprises getting information from a sense to its associated brain center, which then makes the mind center conscious that particular information has been transmitted to it.
The second process is organizing the information in the mind center, with relation to other information previously brought to the mind.
In the third process the mind center directs its co-related brain center to send out certain impulses of action to the corresponding muscular structure.
Let us analyze an illustration of these three processes of mental development. Suppose first you hear something that concerns a particular prospect for your "goods of sale." Second, you comprehend the significance to you of what you have heard. Third, your mind directs your muscles to make a particular use of what you have comprehended. The original mental impression has been fully developed because you employed all three processes. If you had not completed the cycle of development, you would have given your mind only partial exercise with what you heard.
In order to become a master salesman, you must take in many impressions, perceive their significance to you and how you can make use of them, then act on your comprehension of what you have learned. There are countless failures in the world who might have been successes if they had not stopped their possible mental development at the first or second stages.
A man might know an encyclopedia of facts, but be a failure.
He might comprehend how to use his knowledge, and still be a failure.
Success comes only to the man who acts most effectively on what he knows.
In order to secure quick and effective results, the practice of the three necessary processes of development should be:
First, definitely conscious. You need to know just what quality you want to develop in yourself.
Second, discriminative. You must learn the differences between what you want, and what you don't want to develop in particular.
Third, restrictive. It is necessary that in your training to develop a certain quality, you concentrate your practice on the respects in which this particular quality differs from other qualities.
Most of us are pretty definitely conscious of what we want. We know just the qualities we would like to have. But very few people employ most effectively the discriminative-restrictive methods of training in their processes of development.
It is impossible to develop a particular quality fully if you only recognize its likenesses to other qualities. Real mental development is accomplished only as a result of the recognition of differences. After studying twins for a year, you still might be unable to tell them apart if you were impressed solely with their remarkable similarity to each other. Another man, with a mind discriminatively and restrictively trained to recognize differences, would learn in five minutes to distinguish the individualities of the twins.
Almost phenomenal development can be attained by use of the discriminative-restrictive training method. The minutest distinctions can be perceived if one concentrates his practice for mental growth on the recognition of differences only. Individuals who have lost one or more senses become extraordinarily adept in detecting contrasts with their other senses. A normal man, possessed of all his senses, is capable of even greater development of his powers of differentiation.
You know how remarkably a blind man learns to "see" with his fingers and ears. But need you lose the sense of sight before you can comprehend the lesson of his example to you? You realize that you appear to lack many essential qualities of success. Know now that these are all merely dormant in you. They can be awakened and developed to an extraordinary degree if you train yourself consciously in the discriminative-restrictive use of all your sense tools. You would do it if you were blind. It certainly should be much easier to accomplish the desired transformation with your eyes open to aid your other senses.
The significance of all this is that you need not be permanently handicapped in your sales-man-ship by any present lack of particular qualifications for success. It makes no difference what you happen to be short of now. By properly coordinating your brain-mind-muscle sets or centers, and by using all three in the processes of your development, you can make yourself over almost miraculously. Will power, courage, exact and wise judgment, persistence, patience, rapid thinking, constructive imagination—any and all qualities you want CAN be developed in you, even though they now seem not to exist.
Your development is limited only by the practically limitless number of unawakened cells in your brain. Most of your potential mind centers are asleep yet. You can wake up the slumberers with your various sense muscles, and vigorously exercise them into activity for your success. You have been handicapped because you have been carrying so many "dead-heads" that ought to be working or paying their way.
Remember that growth of any brain-mind center can be begun and continued only by the exercise of the coordinated set of sense muscles in transmitting impressions from outside yourself and in expressing your thoughts.
The number of cells in the human brain has been estimated at from six hundred millions to two billions. The greatest genius who ever lived doubtless had scores of millions of brain cells that remained more or less idle, if not sound asleep, all his life. Nature has furnished you with a plentiful surplus of grey matter in your head. Do not be afraid that you will exhaust or tire out your brains by your self-development. Put into your work all the brains you can waken with your various senses. And keep the alarm clocks wound up.
William James, the great psychologist, wrote, "Compared with what we ought to be, we are only half awake. Our fires are damped; our drafts are checked. We are making use of only a small part of our physical and mental resources. There are in every one potential forms of activity that actually are shunted from use. Part of the imperfect vitality under which we labor can thus be easily explained. One part of our mind dams up—even damns up—the other part."
Can you become a big sales MAN? Of course! You have all the necessary tools to make yourself over in any way you will—your muscles, nerves, brain, and mind. Use them cooperatively, as they were meant to be used, in their respective sets—not as if you were a mental-physical unit. To develop your sales manhood you need only to apply real thinking in the processes of your daily life. Study out the reasons and effects of all your acts and expressions. Your experimental psychological laboratory should be yourself, undergoing at your hands the transformation from what you are to what it is possible for you to become. Begin making your man-stuff over. Each successive step will be easier to take. Your growth, when you employ the right processes and methods, is certain. Therefore your success in making yourself a big sales man can be assured.
CHAPTER III
Skill In Selling Your Best Self
If you have developed real capability and first-class manhood, you have "the goods" that are always salable. But you realize now that the mere possession of these basic qualifications for success will not insure you against failure in life. You cannot be certain of succeeding unless you know how to sell true ideas of your best self in the right market or field of service, and until you develop sales skill by continual correct practice.
We will assume that you have had little or no selling experience. You are conscious that you entirely lack sales art. Therefore, though in other ways you feel qualified to succeed in life, you may be dubious about your future. Perhaps you realize that skill in selling true ideas of your best capabilities is all you need to make your success certain. But you question, "Can I be sure of becoming a skillful salesman of myself?" You have no doubt of your ability to learn the selling process, but very likely you do not believe you ever could practice it with the art of a master salesman. Consequently you are not yet convinced of the certainty of your success.
Of course success cannot be absolutely assured in advance unless every element of the secret we have analyzed can be mastered. Hence it is necessary that you now be shown certain ways to sell ideas—ways that cannot fail, that are adaptable to the sale of any right "goods," and that you surely can master. You need to feel absolutely confident that if you follow specific principles and use particular methods, you can impress on any other man true ideas of your best capabilities. When you become skillful in making good impressions, you certainly will be able to sell yourself into such chances to succeed as fit your individual qualifications.
Your success with the best that is in you can be made directly proportionate to your skill as a salesman of "your goods." Mastery of the art of selling will enable you to cut down to the minimum the possibilities of failure in whatever you undertake. Remember that success does not demand perfection. There never was a 100% salesman. To be a success, you need only make a good batting average in your opportunities to sell. It is not necessary to hit 1000 to be a champion batsman in the game of life. Ty Cobb led his league a dozen years with an average under .400.
The foundation of sales art is knowledge of selling technique. So the first step in the process of developing your skill as a salesman of yourself is the study of the right tools for making impressions of "true ideas of your best capabilities." You must know, also, the scientific rules that govern the most effective use of these right tools. Technique, however, is only the basic element of salesmanship. On the foundation of your sales knowledge it is necessary to build sales skill that will completely cover up your technique. Your perfected sales art should seem, and really be second nature to you.
Your salesmanship probably will be crude until you overcome the awkwardness of handling unfamiliar tools, or familiar tools in ways that are new to you. But "practice makes perfect." The use of the right technique in selling true ideas about your best self will soon become natural.
The skillful sale of ideas is accomplished without waste of time or energy in the selling process. The unskillful, would-be salesman not only fritters away his own time and effort, he also wastes the patience and power of the man to whom he wants to sell his "goods." The sales artist, however, gets his ideas into the mind of a prospect quickly, with the least possible wear and tear on either party to the sale. No one appreciates a fine salesman so thoroughly as the best buyer. Skill in selling true ideas about your particular qualifications will not only assure your success, but will make it easy for you to succeed.
The skillful salesman is the captain of his own sales-man-ship. But in order to make certain of landing his cargo of right impressions he takes aboard the pilot Science to begin with, and then concentrates on four factors of the art of selling ideas:
First, discovering and traversing the best channel into the prospect's mind;
Second, locating the particular point of interest upon which the salesman's cargo can be most effectively unloaded;
Third, maneuvering alongside this center of the buyer's interest;
Fourth, securely tying to the interest pier so that the shipload of ideas may be fully discharged.
The primary aim of the skillful salesman when making port is to get safely to the right landing place as soon as possible and with the least danger of failure in his ultimate purpose of completing the sale. At this initial stage of the selling process, however, he concentrates his thoughts on the skillful docking of his sales-man-ship. The nature of the cargo a sailor ship captain brings to port has little or nothing to do with the art of reaching and tying up to the pier. Similarly, whatever his "goods of sale," the skillful salesman uses the same principles and methods to dock his salesman-shipload of ideas most effectively in the harbor of the prospect's mind. So the art you are studying is standardized. When you master it, you can apply it successfully to the sale of your best self or any other "goods of sale."
Before considering the methods of selling that are most effective, it will be well to get rid of a mistaken idea that is all too common. A great many people regard reasoning power, or the force of pure logic, as an important selling tool. There are so-called salesmen who attempt to "argue" prospects into buying. Unthinking sales executives sometimes instruct their representatives to employ certain "selling arguments." But the methods and language of the debater have no place in the repertory of a truly artistic salesman or sales manager.
One debater never convinces the other. At best he only can defeat his antagonist. In a skillfully finished sale, however, there should be neither victor nor vanquished. The selling process is not a battle of minds. There is no room in it for any spirit of antagonism on the part of the salesman. So in your self-training to sell true ideas of your best capabilities, do not emphasize especially the value of logic and reasoning. If you use them at all in selling yourself, disguise their character most skillfully. Never suggest that you are debating or arguing your qualifications with prospective buyers of your mental or physical capacity for service. You cannot browbeat your way into opportunities to succeed.
Most employers buy the expected services of men and women in order to satisfy their own desires for particular capabilities. Few will buy against their wishes. In order to sell your qualifications with certain success, you first must make the other man genuinely want what you offer. Almost always mind vision and heart hunger must be stimulated to produce desire. Therefore the most skillful salesman of himself does not use the words, tones, and actions of argument. In preference to cold reason and logic he employs the arts of mental suggestion and emotional persuasion.
Suggestion is especially effective in producing desire; because an idea that is merely suggested, and not stated, is unlikely to provoke antagonism or resistance. A suggestion is given ready access to the mind of the other man. Usually it gets in without his realizing that a strange thought has entered his head from outside. When he becomes conscious of the presence in his mind of an idea that has been only suggested to him, he is apt to treat it as one of his own family of ideas and not as an intruder. Naturally he is little inclined to oppose a desire that he thinks is prompted by his own thoughts. However, he would be disposed to resist the same wish if he realized it had been injected into his consciousness.
All of us know the great force of suggestion; but there are very few people who so use words, tones, and movements as to make the most of their power of suggesting ideas in preference to stating them. Probably no tool of salesmanship will be of more help in assuring your success than fully developed ability in suggestion, which is the skillful process of getting your ideas into the minds of others unawares.
The words we use are intended to convey pretty definite meanings to listeners. If we are entirely honest in our words, we expect whatever we say to be taken at its face value as the truth. Yet each of us knows that his own mind seldom accepts without question the statements of other men, however well informed and honest they are reputed to be. You and I mentally reserve the right to believe or to doubt the written or spoken words of someone else; because they always enter our minds consciously. We know that the words we hear or read come from outside ourselves.
The skillful salesman proceeds on the assumption that his words will be stopped at the door of the prospect's mind and examined with more or less suspicion of their sincerity and truth. Therefore the selling artist employs words principally for one purpose—to communicate to the other man information about such facts as cannot be introduced to his consciousness otherwise. Some facts can be told only in words. But a master of the selling process uses as few words as possible to convey his meaning. He depends on his suggestive tones more than on what he says. He reenforces his speech with accompanying movements and muscular expressions, to get into the mind of the other man by suggestive action the true ideas behind the words used.
Similarly when you bring your full capability to the market of your choice, you should not rely upon a mere declaration of your qualifications; and upon word proof, written or spoken, that you are the man for the job. Your words are unlikely to be taken at their face value. Any claims you have a right to make will be discounted heavily if you say very much about your own ability. You run the risk of being judged a braggart and egotist when you talk up your good points; though you may be telling no more than the plain truth.
However, if your tones of sincerity and self-confidence denote really big manhood; and if your every act and expression indicate to a prospective employer that you are entirely capable of filling the job for which you apply, he probably will consider himself very shrewd in sizing you up. Really you have suggested to him every idea he has about you, but he will think he has found in you the very qualifications he desires in an employee. You can do more to sell yourself by the way you walk into a man's office than you could accomplish by bringing him the finest letters of introduction or by "giving him the smoothest line of talk about yourself." He is able to read the principal characteristics of the real You in your poise and movements and in the manner of your speech. He will believe absolutely any characteristic he himself finds in you. What you say to him may have little real influence on his judgment of you. But be sure that he will note how you speak; and will make up his mind about you from your tones and actions, rather than from your words. He will think the ideas you suggest to him are his own original discoveries.
Evidently, before you attempt to achieve success, it is very important that you study the art of suggestion by tones and actions. When you know the principles, you should practice this art until you make yourself a master of skillful suggestion.
You need to know precisely the effects of tone variations, the exact significance of the various tones you can use. It is necessary also for you to comprehend not only that "Every little movement has a meaning all its own," but just what that meaning is. When you are equipped with thorough knowledge of how to suggest particular ideas through tones and motions, you should practice using the principles and methods of suggestive expression you have learned, until it becomes second nature always to speak and act with selling art. Then you will be a skillful salesman, sure of your power to sell true ideas of your best capability wherever you are. Your success will have been made certain through your sales art built on the foundation of your sales knowledge by your fully developed sales manhood.
Your increased selling skill will result naturally, just as we have seen that you will grow naturally in sales manhood, if you employ the discriminative-selective method when training your human nature in the art of suggesting your best self. You need first to recognize the exact differences of significance among the various tones and movements at your command. Then your self-training in suggestive expression should be concentrated on the particular ways of speaking and acting that will best demonstrate your qualifications for success. Of course it is equally important to eliminate all tones and movements that might suggest unfavorable ideas about you. To make sure of your success, be certain that everything you do and say tells "the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth" about your capabilities. It is necessary to make sure no word, tone, or movement carries the least suggestion that might possibly leave a false impression of the real You.
Let us make a brief analysis now of words, tones, and acts—the three means of suggestive expression which are the natural equipment of every man for conveying his ideas to the minds of others. You cannot employ the discriminative-restrictive method to develop your selling skill unless you know very definitely just what your different tools of expression are, and the almost infinite variety of uses to which they can be put.
For the reasons already explained, words are of much less value than tones and movements in suggesting ideas the other man will admit to his mind unawares. But the sales efficiency of words can be very much increased if they are chosen with intelligent discrimination, and if the choice is restricted to words that have four qualifications.
First, they should be common words.
Second, short words are more forceful than long words.
Third, words of definite meanings are preferable to mere generalizations.
Fourth, words that make vivid impressions are most effective in suggesting ideas.
When you employ words to sell true ideas of your best capability, choose words that everybody understands. Do not "air your knowledge" in uncommon language. Unless you are seeking a position as a philologist in a college, restrict yourself to every-day common speech when selling your personal qualifications. An important element in the skillful sale of ideas is making them as easy as possible for the other man to comprehend. If you use unfamiliar words, it sometimes will be hard for him to understand what you mean. The truly artistic salesman avoids introducing any unnecessary element of difficulty into the selling process. So you should discriminate against all unusual expressions and restrict yourself to the common words that are easy for any man to comprehend.
A long word or phrase may convey your idea clearly, but force is lost in the drawn-out process. Remember that your words will meet the intuitive resistance of the other man's mind before they are admitted to his full belief. You cannot afford to sacrifice the driving-in power of the short word. Therefore, when your opinion is asked, it will be better salesmanship to say, "I think" so and so than "It is my impression—"
The definite word conveys a particular meaning to the mind of the other man, not merely a vague or general idea. Never say, when you apply for a position, "I can do anything." That tells the prospective employer simply nothing about your ability. Particularize.
It is of the utmost importance to make vivid impressions with your speech. You should employ words skillfully to produce in the mind of the other man distinct and lifelike mental images. He may not credit the words themselves, taken literally and alone. But he will believe in the pictures the words paint in his mind; because he will think he himself is the mental artist. He will not be suspicious of his own work. If you apply for a situation in a bank, and the cashier seeks to learn whether or not you are safely conservative in your views, you can suggest in vivid words that you have the qualification he requires. You will make the desired impression if you say to him, "I always carry an umbrella when it looks like rain."
Our analysis of the three means of self-expression turns now to tones. Rightly selected words are tremendously augmented in selling power when they are rightly spoken. Most men employ but a small part of their complete tonal equipment, and are ignorant of the full sales value of the portion they use. The master salesman, however, practices the gamut of his natural tones, and utilizes each to produce particular effects. Thus he supplements his mere statements with suggestive shades of meaning. The way he says a thing has more effect than the words themselves.
Conversely tone faults may have a disastrous effect on one's chances to succeed. For illustration, ideas of mind, of feeling, and of power can be correctly expressed by the discriminative use of particular pitches of tone. But a wrong pitch, though the words employed might be identical, would convey a directly opposite and false impression.
Suppose you are appealing only to the mind of your prospective employer—as when you quote figures to him—you should restrict your tone temporarily to the mental pitch. You are just conveying facts now. Therefore the "matter-of-fact" tone best suits the ideas expressed. Since it fits what you are saying, the way you speak impresses the other man with the suggestion that your tone and words are consistent. Therefore his mind has no inclination to resist the mental pitch on this occasion. He admits your figures to his conscious belief more readily than he would credit them if spoken in an emotive or power tone. Such tone pitches would strike him as out of place in a mere statement of fact.
If your prospective employer asks how old you are, and how many years of experience you have had, and you reply in a tone vibrant with emotion or in a deep tone of sternness, the wrong pitch certainly will make a bad impression on him. By employing an inconsistent pitch when stating facts, you might "queer" your chances for the position you most desire. The tone fault in your salesmanship would lie about your real character. The man addressed would think you were foolish to use such a pitch in merely imparting a bit of information to his mind. He would expect you to employ for that purpose simply a head tone, not a chest tone nor an abdominal tone. The head tone, when used to convey matters of fact, aids in convincing the mind of the other man because it is the pitch that fits bare facts—the tone of pure mentality.
This mental, or head tone, is most effective in gaining attention, in conveying information, in arousing the perceptive faculties of another mind. Restrict its use to these purposes only. The mental tone is not pleasing to the ear. It is pitched high. It suggests arguments and disputes. It is the provocative tone of quarrels. So it should be employed most carefully, with every precaution against giving offense by its insistence.
Avoid its use for long at a time. Its very monotony is apt to irritate. The high pitch suggests a mental challenge to the mind of the other man, and hence arouses his mental tendency to opposition. The unskillful over-use of head tones may ruin a salesman's best opportunity to gain a coveted object.
There are times, however, when it is necessary that you should insist—briefly. If you do so artistically, and do not persist in the high, mental, rasping tone; but change to the lower, emotive, chest tone very soon after your insistence on the other man's attention, you will not hurt your chances. It is the continued use of the head tone that is to be avoided.
The emotive (chest or heart) pitch dissipates opposition as naturally as the mind tone provokes a quarrel. Even a hot argument can be ended without any lasting ill-feeling if the disputants conclude with hearty expressions of good will for one another. The same words spoken in head tones would increase the antagonism by suggesting sarcasm or insincerity. The resonant chest tone suggests that it comes from the speaker's heart. The hearer's heart makes his mind believe the heart message conveyed by the emotional pitch of the other man's voice.
Therefore if you want your ideas to penetrate a man's heart, don't aim your tone high at his head. Lower it to the pitch of true friendliness, of comradeship, of human brotherhood. Aim at his breast with your breast tone. Do not fawn or plead, however, when selling ideas of yourself. You can persuade best by suggesting that you have brought all your manhood to render the other man a real service. This suggestion will induce a feeling of respect for you, which will certainly be followed by willingness of the prospect to let you show him you are able "to deliver the goods."
Some people suggest by the over-use of head tones that they depend altogether on what they know to achieve success. They make the impression that they expect their high degree of mentality to open chances for them to succeed. "They know they know" their business; so when they secure opportunities to demonstrate their capabilities, they emphasize too much what they know. They are apt to use the mental tone continually. Perhaps the prospective employer needs a man of exactly such knowledge as is possessed by the candidate he is interviewing. But if when presenting his qualifications the applicant rasps the ears of his hearer for a long time with high-pitched head tones, the listener intuitively becomes prejudiced. He is impressed with the suggestion that the speaker is a "know-it-all" fellow. The employer is likely to turn down his application because of the unskilled tone pitch in which it is made.
When a man has talked glibly and fast about superior qualifications he knows he possesses, it dazes him if his exceptional capabilities fail to win him the job for which he is particularly fitted. He cannot comprehend why another applicant who plainly is not so well qualified should be chosen. But his voice has suggested to the employer that everything he said was just "parrot talk." Thousands of bright "parrots" remain failures all their lives for no other reason than their utter inability to get inside the hearts of other men. The ordinary canvasser who trudges from house to house with his "sing-song" patter has grown into the bad habit of using head tones almost exclusively. As a natural reflex of the unpleasant impression he makes with his voice, it is a common experience to have a door slammed in his face.
The master salesman comprehends that the mentality of a prospect is a barrier to his emotional expression. That is, the mind is an alert sentinel on guard to protect the heart from its own impulses to unthinking action. So the skillful salesman when making his "approach" goes around the mind side of the prospect to the emotional side, where there is no hostile guard. He knows that "the hearts of all men are akin," and that "the hardest heart has soft spots." He realizes it is bad salesmanship to challenge the sentinel mind of the prospect in a mental tone. So the salesman artist makes his tone resonant with chest vibrations that stimulate the direct response of the other man's heart. He works at first to draw out fellow feeling, not to drive his ideas into the head of the prospect.
The mere presentation of thoughts, or mental pictures of goods, is not enough to induce a prospect to buy. The master salesman comprehends that he has to deal with the dual personality of the individual he plans to sell. Therefore from the very beginning of his interview he works to open the mind of the other man by first establishing a unity of human feeling between his own heart and the heart of his prospect. He uses the emotive tone. He "talks like a brother." Of course he is careful not to exaggerate this show of fellow feeling. He uses a "hearty" tone without appearing in the least degree hypocritical. When their hearts are in accord, the other man is prepared to agree mentally with the salesman.
The third pitch of your voice as a salesman is the power tone. It can be used skillfully to suggest that you have the force required to succeed. It is the pitch that comes from deep down and that calls into play the powerful abdominal muscles. It is not necessarily a loud tone, however. Often it is low, with a suggestion of immense reserve strength behind it. With the power pitch you can command in a simple request which, spoken in a higher tone, might be refused because it would lack the suggestion of force. In order to succeed, you sometimes must employ power. When a situation requires a demonstration of your strong personality, augment the force of your words and acts by using the tone pitch that suggests the power of the big muscles of your waist.
Employ the emotive tone to convey ideas of your truthfulness and honor. Show your courtesy and kindness with the heart pitch; use it to manifest your real desire to be of service to your prospect. But suggest your solidity and capacity for good judgment by employing the pitch of power. With its aid you can convince your prospect of the enduring quality of your best characteristics; you can deny disparagement or doubt of your ability; you will be able to brush aside unfounded objections; you can compel respect.
The discriminative use of various units of tone is as helpful in making suggestive impressions as is the employment of character pitches. The one-tone voice does not augment the force of words. "Yes" said with but one tonal unit is not nearly so powerful as "Y-es" in two tones, the second pitched low. A two-tone "Y-es" with the second unit high-pitched suggests the very opposite of plain "Yes." It implies "No," or a question instead of an affirmation. Sometimes it is advisable to suggest "No" when the word itself if spoken bluntly would give offense. You can convey the idea of skepticism or denial by using two tone units skillfully pitched in saying "Y-es."
While you ordinarily can double the effectiveness of your tone by using two units, and you may treble the effect if you employ three (as in the exclamation A-ha-a!), if you attempted to use more than three units of tone in any ordinary circumstances you would be likely to appear odd or fantastic, if not foolish. So be careful not to over-do the employment of multiple tone units to stress your meaning.
There is selling value, too, in the placing of tones in your mouth. A tone placed far forward indicates lack of thought and instability. It is the tone we associate with "lip judgments." On the contrary, hidden thoughts, unwillingness to tell all you know, are suggested by tones placed far back in your mouth. The middle-of-the-mouth tone makes the impression that the voice is properly balanced, and suggests the associated idea of mind balance. Avoid the extremes in placing your tones, if you would make certain of the most effective use of your voice in selling ideas. Convince and persuade by employing the secure, trustworthy tone of the "happy medium."
Undoubtedly you have little bad habits that tell lies about you—habits in the use of words, habits of tone, and especially habits of action. When you fully understand the significance of what you say, and of how you say it, and of the things you do—the effects produced on other men—you will start changing your bad characteristics into good factors that will certainly help you to succeed. So study yourself most carefully, in order to learn what your habits are, and their meanings.
Ordinarily a man is conscious of his words and tones, but he often does things unconsciously. Probably you realize only vaguely or not at all just what your various actions suggest to people who observe you. Therefore it is of the greatest importance that you study the significance of discriminated movements, gestures, and facial expressions as aids or hindrances to the making of true impressions of your best capabilities. You should restrict yourself to acts that make the best impressions.
Movements, and their results, may be analyzed under three heads: Poise, Pose, and Action.
It is a phenomenon of psychology that the balancing of the body suggests mental balance. Conversely, if the body is out of balance, there is the suggestion that the mind is no better poised. That is, if a man cannot keep his balance physically, we have an intuition that he is mentally off his equilibrium. Correct poise of course involves correct body support, and suggests a rightly supported mind. Hence you can make the impression, merely by the way you stand and walk, that you are a person of well-poised judgment. You may hurt your chances very much if it seems necessary for you to prop your body with your legs. The man who stands with his feet wide apart is out of balance, and is easily tipped over. The impression made by the incorrect poise is that such a man must be unable to stand by himself like normal men. The law of the association of ideas then immediately suggests that his thoughts are similarly unable to stand unless propped.
Incorrect poise of the body has another bad effect in the sale of ideas. It makes the impression of abnormality. Being unusual, it distracts attention from the salesman and his capabilities, and turns it to his lack of balance. You realize that in order to sell your ideas effectively you need the concentrated attention of your prospect. It will help you to succeed in life if you perfect yourself in the skillful poising of your body and its members so that you will be able to appear perfectly balanced in any normal position.
If you teeter from side to side, or rock back and forth on your heels when you are talking to a man whom you want to impress with your stability of character, you will undermine everything you say by what you do. Of course you should not stand stiffly. Your leg posts are designed to serve as a flexible pedestal for your body. Your ability to shift your weight from one foot to the other easily without losing your balance suggests associated capability of your mind to keep your judgment in balance. If you have a correctly poised mind, it can balance your body.