in this book give you an understanding of the three phrases–but you must open your mind and look for meanings.
1. Inspiration to Action
2. Know-how
3. Activity knowledge
Get Ready for Tomorrow
One of the most important lessons of my life forced itself on me at about the time I was graduating from grammar school. It was a lesson that turned into a major principle: You are subject to your environment. Therefore, select the environment that will best develop you toward your desired objective.
Although I was not then able to state the thought as succinctly as that, I was aware of the principle behind it. When it came time for me to enter high school, I concluded that Senn High was a better school than Lakeview High, which I would have to enter if we continued to live in the neighborhood in which we had our apartment at the time. Because an important change that my mother was making in business required that she move to Detroit, we made arrangements with a fine English family in the Senn district for me to live in their home.
I also decided that I would select my own friends on going to the new school. In choosing, I searched for individuals of character and intelligence. And because I searched, I found what I was looking for: fine, wonderful persons who had a tremendous influence for good upon me.
Get Your Money’s Worth
With me in a good home environment and attending a fine public school, mother made an investment in a small insurance agency representing the United States Casualty Company in Detroit, Michigan.
I’ll never forget it. She pawned her two diamonds to get sufficient cash to add to the money she did have to buy the agency. Remember: she hadn’t learned to use bank credit in establishing a business. After renting desk space in a downtown office building, she looked with anticipation to her first day’s sales. That day she was lucky. She worked hard, but she didn’t make a single sale–and that was good!
What do you do when everything goes wrong? What do you do when there is no place to turn? What do you do when you are faced with a serious problem?
Here’s what she did, the way she later told it to me: “I was desperate. I had invested all the cash I had, and I just had to get my money’s worth out of this investment. I had tried my best, but I hadn’t made a sale.
“That night I prayed for guidance. And the next morning I prayed for guidance. When I left home, I went to the largest bank in the city of Detroit. There I sold a policy to the cashier and got permission to sell in the bank during working hours. It seemed that within me there was a driving force that was so sincere that all obstacles were removed. That day I made 44 sales.”
Through trial and error the first day, my mother developed inspirational dissatisfaction. She was inspired to action. She knew Whom to ask for guidance and help in her efforts to make a livelihood, just as she knew Whom to ask for guidance and help when she was faced with a problem regarding her son.
And through trial and success the second day, she acquired know-how in selling her accident policies that developed for her a successful sales system. Now she had know-how in addition to inspiration to action and activity knowledge. So the upward climb was rapid.
Salesmen, like other persons, often fail in the upward climb because they do not reduce to a formula the principles applied on those days when they are successful. They know the facts, but they fail to extract the principles.
Now that she was earning a good living in personal sales, my mother began to build a sales organization that operated throughout the state of Michigan under the trade name of
Liberty Registry Company.
Mother and I would see each other on holidays and during vacation periods. My second high school summer vacation was spent in Detroit. That’s when I, too, learned to sell accident insurance, and, that’s where I started to search for a sales system for myself– a system that would never fail.
Do Twice as Much in Half the Time
The Liberty Registry Company office was in the Free Press Building. I spent a day in the office, reading and studying the policy I was to try to sell the next day.
My sales instructions were as follows:
1. Completely canvass the Dime Bank Building.
2. Start at the top floor and call on each and every office.
3. Avoid calling in the office of the building.
4. Use the introduction, “May I take a moment of your time?”
5. Try to sell everyone you call on.
So I followed instructions. Remember, I had learned as a Boy Scout: When you set out to do something–don’t come back until you have done it.
Was I frightened? You bet I was.
But it never occurred to me not to follow instructions. I just didn’t know any better. I was, in this respect, a product of habit–a good habit.
The first day I sold two policies–two more than I had ever sold before. The second day, four–and that was a 100 per cent increase. The third day, six–a 50 per cent increase. And the fourth day I learned an important lesson.
I called at a large real estate office, and when I stood at the desk of the sales manager and used the introduction, “May I take a moment of your time?” I was startled. For he jumped to his feet, pounded his desk with his right fist and almost shouted: “Boy, as long as you live never ask a man for his time! Take it!”
So I took his time and sold him and 26 of his salesmen that day.
That started me thinking: There must be a scientific way to sell many policies every day. There must be a method that will make one hour produce the work of many. Why not find a system for selling twice as much in half the time? Why can’t I develop a formula that will bring maximum results for each hour of effort? From that point on, I was consciously trying to discover the principles that have since built for me my sales system that never fails. I reasoned: “Success can be reduced to a formula. And failure can be reduced to a formula, too. Apply the one and avoid the other. Think for yourself.”
Think for Yourself
Regardless of who you are, it is desirable to learn the techniques of good salesmanship. For selling is merely persuading another person to accept your service, your product, or your idea. In this sense, everyone is a salesman. Whether or not you are a salesman by vocation, the minute details of my selling system are not really important to you; but the principles may be–if you are ready.
What is important to you is that you reduce to a formula, preferably in writing, the principles you learn from your successful experiences and your failures, in whatever activities you may be interested. But you may not know how to extract principles from what you read, hear, or experience. I’ll illustrate how I did it. But you must think for yourself.
How I Overcame Timidity and Fear
Before I describe how I overcame timidity and fear when opening up closed doors, entering plush offices, and trying to sell to businessmen and women as a teenager, let me first tell how I faced the same problem as a boy.
Many
