The process of selling ideas comprises several steps, part or all of which the salesman may need to take in order to close a particular sale successfully. In our study we are considering step after step in regular order, but the actual selling process cannot be reduced to such exactitude and routine. Before we begin our analysis of this “presentation” step, it should be clearly understood that success in selling ideas is not achieved by going through a machine-like process. We follow a regular sequence in these chapters, but it is unlikely that you will ever complete a sale of your services by taking the various steps of the selling process in the precise order of our study.

You may need to use them all in order to succeed in a specific instance. Again, without taking many of the steps here analyzed, you might be able to gain the success opportunity you most desire. The object of this book is to fit you for any and every condition you are likely to meet in your efforts to gain opportunities for your ambition. It is improbable that in order to get your desired chance and to make the most of it you will have to use all you learn of the secret of certain success. You cannot afford, however, to run an avoidable risk of being at a loss regarding what to do at any stage of the process of selling to a selected prospect true ideas of your best capability. You need to know the most effective ways to deal with situations that may never happen, but which, on the contrary, might be encountered. You cannot start confidently on your quest for success unless you are fully equipped.

If you believed it would be necessary for you to do everything contained in this book in order to gain the opportunities you desire, you likely would feel very skeptical about succeeding. You might think, “A single little slip and I’d lose out. It’s a thousand to one against me.” The fact is that the odds on the side of failure are very heavy in the case of an ordinary man. If you can reduce them only a little in your own case, you will get a start towards success because of the slight lessening of your handicap.

I recall a man who mastered but three principles of prospecting needs. With this limited knowledge of salesmanship he was able to induce a great financier to open the door of opportunity and take him into a field of rich chances to earn a fortune. Another friend of mine got his start solely from knowledge of a manufacturer’s principal hobby. What he knew about the “single tax” enabled him to plan a sure approach to the mind of the factory owner. A young lawyer in Chicago seized upon a chance for fame and wealth in his first meeting with a poor, seemingly unsuccessful inventor. In each of these instances a single step of the selling process, taken correctly, carried the salesman through the door of opportunity and brought him within reach of the beginnings of success.

You may not need to knock at that door, nor wait for an invitation to come in. In your case, perhaps, the door stands open, with a “Welcome” mat just outside. Yet if you do need to knock with your ideas for admittance to another man’s mind, and if it ever becomes necessary for you to win a welcome, this chapter will prove valuable reading. You will be helped to gain your desired chance, and the danger of your failure will be minimized, if you know how to knock and exactly what to do to assure your welcome.

Even the master salesman can never be absolutely certain of the reception he will have from any prospect. Therefore he “goes loaded” for all imaginable contingencies. You, the salesman of yourself, should be likewise prepared with knowledge of how each and every step in the selling process may be taken most effectively. Whatever emergency arises, you must be ready to take the fullest advantage of a favorable turn, and equally ready to reduce as much as possible any disadvantage you encounter.

Of course it will avail you nothing if you succeed only in reaching the particular man through whom you have planned to gain success. And after you meet him it will do you no material good to size him up correctly; if you are then unable to hold his attention to your presentation of ideas. Your preliminary skillful salesmanship would all be wasted. Evidently, in order that you may continue the process of gaining your chance, it is necessary that you should know how to knock on the door of his mind in such an agreeable but compelling way that he will be forced to let his attention come out pleasantly to you and your purpose. Hence right knocking at the door of opportunity immediately follows the size-up as an essential part of the process of making success certain.

It is necessary next for you to know how to prevent a turn-down on the front porch of your prospect’s mind, and how to insure the admission of your ideas to his thoughts. You can compel your prospect to open the door of his attention, but in order to get inside his mind and secure his interest in your purpose, you must win his willing invitation for your ideas to enter his thoughts and make themselves at home there.

We have seen how you can make certain of gaining your chance to reach the door of opportunity. You can size up surely your prospect’s dominant characteristics and what he is thinking. Likewise you can guarantee to yourself, first the attention, and second the interest of the man you have come to see. It is necessary only that you use the methods of the master salesman to compel the opening of the door and to induce the extension of welcome to your ideas.

Here again we meet our old acquaintance, the discriminative-restrictive method. You must discriminate between the process of knocking at the door of opportunity and the process of securing the invitation to come in. Then, in practicing these related but different steps of the selling process, it is necessary that when you knock you restrict yourself to the use of the methods that are most effective in gaining attention. Similarly you should restrict yourself to using the very different methods of securing interest, when you work to get an invitation for your ideas to come inside the other man’s mind and make themselves at home there.

Psychologists define “Attention” as “that act of the mind which holds to a given object perceived by one or more senses, to the exclusion of all other objects that might be perceived at that time by the same or other senses.” A knock at a door attracts attention because it temporarily diverts the previous attentiveness of the mind to other things, and concentrates it on a new object of attention. The sense of hearing is struck. Whether or not the mind is willing to hear, it cannot help perceiving the sudden new sound. Its attention is forced. The instant the knock is heard, the mind is compelled to drop or suspend what it has been thinking about; though this exclusive new attention to the knock may last but a fraction of a second.

Our senses function under the control of the sub-conscious mind. It is futile for us to will that we won’t hear, or see, or taste, etc. We have to take in sense impressions, whether we want to do so or not. Therefore, if you employ restrictively the sense-hitting method, you can force the man upon whom you call to give his attention to you or to the presentation of your ideas.

It is necessary to discriminate, however, between the use of the avenues to reach the mind center of attention, and the use of very different ways into the mind center of interest. If you start wrong, there is very little chance that you will arrive at the right destination. The center of interest is wholly under the control of the conscious mind. Your prospect can refuse to be interested, if he chooses, despite your determination to interest him. His interest must be induced. Any attempt to compel it is apt to have a fatal result. Nearly always such an effort to force interest develops antagonism, instead.

But there are methods of inducing interest that are just as sure to succeed as are the sense-hitting methods by which attention may be compelled. This double step in the process of selling the true idea of your best capabilities in the right market can be taken with absolute certainty of success if you know and practice the principles in accordance with which the master salesman sells his ideas of goods to prospects. We are to study these principles now, as applied to the sale of your qualifications for success in the field you have selected.

When you enter the office of your prospect your chosen future employer, for example he will be giving his attention to something. No one, while he is awake, can be wholly non-attentive. Your function, at this stage of the selling process, is to compel him to stop paying attention to something or somebody else, and to give you and your ideas his exclusive attention.

Of course good salesmanship makes it advisable also to avoid creating a disagreeable impression while forcing yourself and your ideas upon the attention of your prospect. The conscious mind governs a man’s likes and dislikes. So if you knock compellingly at the door of that mind to gain attention, you may arouse very unfavorable attention. For illustration, a boisterous greeting of your prospect, or a very noisy entrance into his office, would doubtless compel his attention by the direct hammering on his senses. But the attraction of his attention to you would affect the operations of both his conscious and sub-conscious minds, and his conscious mind would be disagreeably impressed. His compelled attention, therefore, might result in your being thrown out.

However, you can knock at the sense doors of the sub-conscious mind with such unobjectionable sense-hitting methods that while agreeable attention will be compelled thereby, you can also be sure that a favorable impression on the conscious mind of the prospect will be induced. For illustration, if your prospect is evidently busy at his desk when you are admitted to his office, you might compel his attention by entering very quietly and by standing in silence without interrupting him until he has had an opportunity to finish what he is doing. His sound sense would be struck, paradoxically, by your exceptional quietness. His sense of equilibrium would also be affected by your perfect poise while waiting. Your whole attitude would impress him so favorably that his especial interest in you would be induced. His greeting would be pleasant.

Suppose your prospect looks up from his work when you enter his presence, and you approach close to his desk; if you are immaculate in dress and body, you will appeal agreeably to his olfactory sense. The law of the association of ideas will then begin to work in your favor. Your prospect will get subconsciously a conscious impression of your clean character.

You might wear a fresh flower in your buttonhole and so strike several of his senses pleasantly. But unless the flower is inconspicuous and in good taste it would make an unfavorable impression.

Let us assume now that when you enter the office of your prospect, he is disgruntled about something. You can take some of the heat out of his ill temper by your appearance of cool self-confidence and good nature.

There are many more such favorable sense impressions which you could make by simply standing in manly erectness while waiting to receive the exclusive attention of your prospect. You might employ all the sense-hitting features of bearing and manner referred to above. The effect of the sum of these would be the forced agreeable attention of your prospect. He simply could not help noticing the various items that would strike his different senses; nor could he help being agreeably impressed; though he might not give you any indication of the effect you had compelled.

It is highly important that you should be able first to gain the favorable attention of your prospect, and second to hold it until his interest is aroused. It may also be necessary for you to regain his attention if it is temporarily lost and diverted to some other object. The master salesman realizes it is essential to have the attention of his prospect continually centered upon the ideas presented, throughout the selling process. Only a poor salesman of ideas would go right on talking, even though it might be clearly evident that he did not have the exclusive attention of the man addressed.

When you proffer your capabilities for purchase by a prospective employer, do not make the mistake of continuing to present your best selling points if you have any doubt that his attention is exclusively yours. Stop your selling process if his attention wanders or is diverted. Use the sense-hitting method to compel it to come back to you and your ideas. If some one should enter his office while you are talking to him, or if his telephone should ring, stop short in your presentation. (Your sudden silence, in itself, will be attention compelling.) Do not go on with your sales presentation until the interruption is over. Then use some sense-hitting method of making sure that his attention is again concentrated on you and your ideas.

An acquaintance of mine who had especially fitted himself for business correspondence, typed striking paragraphs taken from form letters he had devised and pasted the slips of paper on stiff filing cards. He carried with him to his interview with the president of a large corporation about thirty-five or forty of these cards. His prospecting had indicated that in the course of the half hour he had planned to take up with a presentation of his capabilities this executive would be interrupted often by telephone calls and the entrance of subordinates. The salesman’s size-up also revealed that his prospect’s attention was likely to wander to the things on his desk. From time to time when the correspondent was presenting his ideas the president reached out his hand and picked up a paper. Evidently he was inclined to give but flighty attention to his caller.

The salesman, however, had “come loaded” for exactly this situation. He had worked out his selling plan in detail. As he developed idea after idea, he used a device for regaining attention by hitting at the prospect’s senses of sight and hearing. Just as soon as the president’s hand wandered to a paper, the salesman ruffled the cards he held, quickly selected one, and clicked it down on the desk top before his prospect. He had to do this perhaps a dozen times before he felt confident he had clinched the interest of the executive. If the salesman had used words merely, what, he said in presenting his ideas to the prospect might have gone in one ear and out the other. But his action of ruffling the cards struck the president’s senses of sight and hearing compellingly; as did the clicking of the card on the desk top when it was presented for reading. Repeatedly the return of the prospect’s wandering attention was forced subconsciously; yet no disagreeable impression was made on his conscious mind. In the course of half an hour the correspondent succeeded in selling his services at a very satisfactory salary.

If you similarly “come loaded” for sense-hitting, you will be able to get your prospect’s attention originally, and to regain it whenever it is temporarily lost. In advance of your call on the man to whom you want to sell your services, think out things you can do that will strike one or more of his senses forcibly, without making disagreeable impressions. You can take with you to the interview specimens of your work, or testimonials; and hold them in your hand where they will attract notice. Or you might plan to use attention-compelling gestures.

Changes of tone will make the other man “perk up his ears” if his attention wanders; so plan to introduce variety into your manner of speaking. Don’t just open the spigot of your mind and let your ideas run out in a monotone. Variety of voice is pleasing, as well as attention-compelling.

I know a salesman who is in the habit of using a spotlessly clean big handkerchief to help him keep the prospect’s mind concentrated on the proposition being presented. Whenever the other man’s attention is diverted, this salesman whisks his handkerchief from his pocket and touches his lips with it. The flash of white hits the sight-sense of the prospect and brings back his wandering attention to the salesman.

But such devices are superficial. The best sense-hitting means of compelling attention, directly relates some sense effect to the salesman’s purpose

The correspondent who ruffled his cards and clicked them down on the prospect’s desk would not have been so successful if on each card he had not pasted a specimen of his work as an efficient letter writer. If he had brought a pack of blank cards, for example, the repeated use of his device for getting attention might have irritated the other man. To analyze the illustration further; if the correspondent had brought the specimens of his work on letter paper, not pasted on stiff cards, they would have been much less effective. He could not have ruffled them, and would have been unable to make the clicking sound he used to hit the other man’s ears.

Suppose you apply for a situation as a bookkeeper or an accountant. One of the best sense-hitting devices you could use to compel attention to your ability would be a collection of complicated tabulations in your handwriting, made neatly without a correction or an erasure. Such an exhibit of painstaking workmanship, if complemented by a neat, attractive personal appearance, would force the employer to notice you and the proofs of your qualifications. You certainly would make a most favorable impression. Your prospect would imagine his books and records as you would keep them. When presenting the evidences of your capability as an accountant, you could suggest other qualities than those mentioned such as the proper pride of a good workman, serious earnestness, dignity, keen intelligence, etc. Such suggestions made with the aid of sense-hitting devices would help you to complete the sale of your services.

Perhaps you wish particularly to impress your qualities of alertness, energy, love of work, and physical stamina. Then sit or stand easily erect when you call on your prospect. If you should slump or loll in your chair, you would suggest that you lacked the very characteristics on which you are depending to get the job.

Make your best qualities stand out noticeably in your bearing. Should you apply for a position of great trust, requiring the exercise of the finest discretion, be sure to look the other man frankly in the face and let him see into your eyes. Also modulate your tones to the pitch of discretion and confidence. Your manner, your expressions, your voice will all draw attention to your fitness for the chance you want.

Such illustrations as have been given above should be understood as merely suggestive of ways to use the sense-hitting method of compelling attention. Do not copy the suggestions offered. Think out for your individual use a collection of sense-hitting devices of your own. Then you will be able to select various ways to gain and to re-gain attention when you are in the presence of a prospect. No matter what may be your ability and ambition, there are features of your character and your service capacity that you can utilize to make direct sense appeals. Find out for yourself what they are, and plan how to use them most effectively. If you cannot gain attention to your qualifications, or if you are unable to recall wandering attention, you may lose the chance you have succeeded in getting. Insure yourself against the possibility of such a disaster; so that your previous good salesmanship in securing an interview will not all go for naught.

If you do something out of the ordinary, the force of your sense-hitting will be much greater than if you employ only common devices for gaining attention. It is better to do something that compels attention to your recommendations than to say “I want to call your attention to these letters.”

However, there is always the danger that in gaining attention by unusual means you may attract too much attention to the device you use, and so distract notice from the proposition you are presenting for sale. Therefore be sure that whatever extraordinary thing you do to compel attention contributes directly to your main purpose and does not lead your prospect off on a side track of thought.

A business house once got out an advertising novelty and had samples distributed by the salesmen as gifts to their principal customers. The novelty was an ingenious mechanical device. It attracted so much attention to itself that when a salesman put it on the desk of a prospect before beginning his sales talk, the attention of the other man was drawn from what the salesman was saying and was given to the novelty. The prospect would pick up and examine the advertising device while the salesman was presenting ideas regarding his standard line of goods. As a result, many of the best points of the sales talks were unnoticed. The advertising novelty was a detriment. The sales volume fell off while it was being distributed. The slump was traced directly to the mistake of having the salesmen pass out the attention-compelling device which was not related to the staples of the house line.

The distribution was made by mail thereafter, in advance of the salesman’s call. It was effective then as an introduction for the traveler; because by the time he came to see the prospect, the novelty of the advertising device had worn off. It was no longer an attention-distracter.

Remember that the attention of your prospect is always given to something. If another object of attention is more compelling than your means of forcing his notice, your attempt will fail. Therefore be sure that your attention-getting device has at least one of three points of superiority.

(1) It can be stronger than the other appeal to the same sense. If your prospect’s attention to what you are saying wanders because a phonograph starts to play in the next room, you can recall it to your presentation by slapping your hands together to emphasize a point, or you can change your tone suddenly. His sense of hearing will be struck compellingly by your device.

(2) Your appeal for attention can be made to more senses than are being reached by the distraction. The phonograph music hits only the ears of your prospect. Besides slapping your hands together or changing your tone, you can supplement such appeals to his tone sense by an appeal to his sense of sight. You can make a gesture, or display a letter for him to read just at that moment.

(3) Your appeal can hit the senses of your prospect more insistently than the other. If the phonograph music proves very attractive to him, you will need to keep hammering at him with forceful changes of voice, with gestures, by touching him, or by doing something else to make his attention to the music “let go.”

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