Pleasing Personality

Then, after I was in a state of complete mesmerism, and thoroughly receptive, my visitor tactfully switched the conversation to a subject which, I suspect, she had in mind to discuss with me long before she presented herself at my office; but - and this is another point at which most salespeople blunder - had she reversed the order of her conversation and begun where she finished, the chances are that she never would have had the opportunity to sit in that big easy-chair.

During the last three minutes of her visit, she skillfully laid before me the merits of some securities that she was selling. She did not ask me to purchase; but, the way in which she told me of the merits of the securities (plus the way in which she had so impressively told me of the merits of my own "game") had the psychological effect of causing me to want to purchase; and, even though I made no purchase of securities from her, she made a sale - because I picked up the telephone and introduced her to a man to whom she later sold more than five times the amount that she had intended selling me.

If that same woman, or another woman, or a man, who had the tact and personality that she possessed, should call on me, I would again sit down and listen for three-quarters of an hour. We are all human; and we are all more or less vain!

We are all alike in this respect - we will listen with intense interest to those who have the tact to talk to us about that which lies closest to our hearts; and then, out of a sense of reciprocity, we will also listen with interest when the speaker finally switches the conversation to the subject which lies closest to his or her heart; and, at the end, we will not only "sign on the dotted line" but we will say, "What a wonderful personality!"

In the city of Chicago, some years ago, I was conducting a school of salesmanship for a securities house, which employed more than 8 1,500 salespeople. To keep the ranks of that big organization filled, we had to train and employ six hundred new salespeople every week.

Of all the thousands of men and women who went through that school, there was but one man who grasped the significance of the principle I am here describing, the first time he heard it analyzed.