Part 24

The trouble with many business men is that they imagine good examples and kindness have no place in business. They think the time to be kind is after they have attained success financially. They think the time to show kindness is outside of business hours.

The real way to be happy is to do the thing now, live each day for itself. Get kindness in each day.

The man who is grave, austere, the man who tries to skin the other fellow, who devotes all his energies to money-making alone, finds as the years go by and he has attained his goal, but that he does not know how to enjoy himself.

There are three periods in a man's life--the future, the now and the past. When we attain old age our life is largely made up of reminiscences, or looking back over the past. If our past life has been one of struggle, worry and getting the best of the other fellow, then there is little happiness in looking back over such a life.

The true philosopher does the thing now, he lives each day. He puts kindness into his action, and when he grows old, he can look back through a life that was pleasant as he lived it, and pleasanter now in living it over again.

One of the Greek philosophers expresses the following beautiful thought: "If there is any good deed I can do, or kindness I can show, let me do it now. Let me not defer or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again."

The trouble is that some of us keep our kindnesses, or rather the expression of it, until it is too late.

We should remember--"Do not keep the alabaster box of your love and tenderness sealed up until your friends are dead. Fill their lives with sweetness, speak approvingly cheerful words while their ears can hear them; the kind things you mean to say when they are gone say before they go. The flowers you mean to send for their coffins send to brighten and sweeten their homes before they leave them. If my friends have alabaster boxes laid away full of fragrant perfumes of sympathy and affection which they intend to lay over my dead body, I would rather they would bring them out in my weary and troubled hours, and open them, that I may be refreshed and cheered by them while I need them. I would rather have a plain coffin without a flower and a funeral without an eulogy, than a life without the sweetness of love and sympathy. Let us learn to anoint our friends beforehand for their burial. Post-mortem kindness does not cheer the troubled spirit. Flowers on the coffin cast no fragrance backward over life's weary way."

The Salesman

Selling goods or soliciting requires careful study. The salesman who makes the greatest success in the long run is the man who has practiced truth and established himself in the confidence of his customers.

The whirlwind makes a good showing on the start, but, by the law of compensation, what a man gains in speed he loses in power.

Some customers are slow to open up and extend their confidence to a salesman. Others make up their minds quickly and express their preferences.

A great deal of preliminary work can be avoided if the salesman is tactful on the start. First impressions are lasting, and a salesman should study carefully his first appearance. He should be neatly but not flashily dressed. He should be a gentleman above all things. The gentleman dresses so that later we can not accurately describe the clothes he wore. It is the flashily dressed salesman we can describe later on, for his clothes are so out of the ordinary that they are remarkable in this respect. The flashily dressed salesman is remembered by his clothes rather than by his personality.

The solicitor should never smoke in the presence of the customer on first acquaintance. The matter of smoking in a customer's presence has prejudiced many a man against a salesman who has this practice. Business men have prejudices, and to some smoking is highly obnoxious. Under no circumstances smoke in a customer's presence unless the customer is smoking, or until at least you are well acquainted with him, and have received his permission to smoke.

Times without number the writer has left his half-finished cigar in the hall-way before entering the customer's presence.

Story telling is like a two-edged sword; sometimes it helps and sometimes it is a distinct disadvantage to tell stories. You must know when to tell stories, and, above all, do not tell stories to your customer that he could not repeat in his home.

Above all things, the salesman must know his man. If the customer gives evidence that he is fond of a story, then remember a good story and tell it to him. No salesman ever made a distinct hit by telling vulgar stories. While a customer may laugh, he forms an opinion of you that is not complimentary, and, if you are always telling stories that you would not repeat where women were present, the customer forms a very low estimate of your character.

The facts are the world is full of good stories, and good stories help your case, while vulgar stories hurt it.

Drinking is another method used by many salesmen to gain favor with a customer, and what we have said about vulgar stories may be applied to the matter of drinking.

Years ago it was a general practice to take the customer out and get him half seas over before trying to sell him.

The customers who are most susceptible to influence through whiskey are the ones who are most likely later on to cause you trouble, either through failure in business or through their preference for some other individual who can outdo you in the matter of drinking.

You must get your customer by the heart and not by the stomach. You must make your customer believe in you.

In these days the business man likes to deal with a salesman who is business from the start. He only buys goods because he expects to make money on them, and the sooner the transaction is over, the sooner he can turn his attention to other matters.

The best advertising solicitors and best salesmen are those who get business on business grounds and through their knowledge of their business, rather than through their ability to tell stories, order dinners and drink liquor.

The good salesman studies the other side of the question. He acquaints himself with the method used by the customer in disposing of his goods. He does not talk his own side of the case all the time. He works with the customer, tries to give him good advice and shows an interest in the customer's business. Such a salesman gets close to the customer, and retains his patronage long after the good fellow has passed away.

Be wise, be patient, and above all things, acquaint yourself thoroughly with the goods you are selling. Know more about them than your customer does. Live up to your obligations. Keep your appointments. Study your customers' welfare. Help them when opportunity offers.

The life insurance solicitor who gets the most turn-downs is the one who writes the most policies, because the fact he gets so many turn-downs is owing to the fact that he has seen so many people.

Hard work, cheerfulness, honesty, patience, sobriety and knowledge of good goods will make a man a successful salesman.