Lesson Seven - Enthusiasm / Start the Burning Fire Within You

Page - 1.., 2.., Continue > 3.., 4...

​

​

​

After I discovered my mistake, I then wrote a letter that was based upon strict application of the principle of suggestion, and this letter not only brought back replies from all to whom it was sent, but many of the replies were masterpieces and served, far beyond my fondest hopes, as valuable supplements to the book.

 

For the purpose of comparison, to show you how the principle of suggestion may be used in writing a letter, and what an important part enthusiasm plays in giving the written word "flesh," the two letters are here reproduced.

 

It will not be necessary to indicate which letter failed, as that will be quite obvious: 

 

My dear Mr. Ford:

I am just completing a manuscript for a new book entitled How to Sell Your Services. I anticipate the sale of several hundred thousand of these books and I believe those who purchase the book would welcome the opportunity of receiving a message from you as to the best method of marketing personal services.

 

Would you, therefore, be good enough to give me a few minutes of your time by writing a brief message to be published in my book?

 

This will be a big favor to me personally and I know it would be appreciated by the readers of the book.

 

Thanking you in advance for any consideration you may care to show me. 

 

I am, Yours very truly, · · · · · · · ·

 

 

Hon. Thomas R. Marshall,

Vice-President of the United States,

Washington, D. C.

 

My dear Mr. Marshall:

Would you care for the opportunity to send a message of encouragement, and possibly a word of advice, to a few hundred thousand of your fellow men who have failed to make their mark in the world as successfully as you have done?

 

I have about completed a manuscript for a book to be entitled How to Sell Your Services.

 

The main point made in the book is that service rendered is cause and the pay envelope is effect; and that the latter varies in proportion to the efficiency of the former.

 

The book would be incomplete without a few words of advice from a few men who, like yourself, have come up from the bottom to enviable positions in the world. Therefore, if you will write me of your views as to the most essential points to be borne in mind by those who are offering personal services for sale I will pass your message on through my book, which will insure its getting into hands where it will do a world of good for a class of earnest people who are struggling to find their places in the world's work.

 

I know you are a busy man, Mr. Marshall, but please bear in mind that by simply calling in your secretary and dictating a brief letter you will be sending forth an important message to possibly half a million people.

 

In money, this will not be worth to you the two cent stamp that you will place on the letter, but, if estimated from the viewpoint of the good it may do others who are less fortunate than yourself, it may be worth the difference between success and failure to many a worthy person who will read your message believe in it, and be guided by it.

 

Very cordially yours, . . . . . . . .

 

Now, let us analyze the two letters and find out why one failed in its mission while the other succeeded. This analysis should start with one of the most important fundamentals of salesmanship, namely motive.

 

In the first letter, it is obvious that the motive is entirely one of self-interest.

 

The letter states exactly what is wanted, but the wording of it leaves a doubt as to why the request is made or whom it is intended, to benefit.

 

Study the sentence in the second paragraph, "This will be a big favor to me personally, etc." Now it may seem to be a peculiar trait, but the truth is that most people will not grant favors just to please others. If I ask you to render a service that will benefit me, without bringing you some corresponding advantage, you will not show much enthusiasm in granting that favor; you may refuse altogether if you have a plausible excuse for refusing. But if I ask you to render a service that will benefit a third person, even though the service must be rendered through me; and if that service is of such a nature that it is likely to reflect credit on you, the chances are that you will render the service willingly.

 

We see this psychology demonstrated by the man who pitches a dime to the beggar on the street, or perhaps refuses even the dime, but then willingly hands over a hundred or a thousand dollars to the charity worker who is begging in the name of others.

 

But the most damaging suggestion of all is contained in the last and most important paragraph of the letter, "Thanking you in advance for any consideration you may care to show me." This sentence strongly suggests that the writer of the letter anticipates a refusal of his request. It clearly indicates lack of enthusiasm. It paves the way for a refusal of the request.

 

There is not one single word in the entire letter that places in the mind of a man to whom it is sent a satisfactory reason why he should comply with the request. On the other hand, he can clearly see that the object of the letter is to secure from him a letter of endorsement that will help sell the book. The most important selling argument - in fact, the only selling argument available in connection with this request, has been lost because it was not brought out and established as the real motive for making the request.

 

This argument was but faintly mentioned in the sentence, "I believe those who purchase the book would welcome the opportunity of receiving a message from you as to the best method of marketing personal services." The opening paragraph of the letter violates an important fundamental of salesmanship because it clearly suggests that the object of the letter is to gain some advantage for its writer, and does not even hint at any corresponding advantage that may accrue to the person to whom it is sent.

 

Instead of neutralizing the mind of the recipient of the letter, as it should do, it has just the opposite effect; it causes him to close his mind against all argument that follows; it puts him in a frame of mind that makes it easy for him to say no.

 

It reminds me of a salesman - or, perhaps I should say, a man who wanted to be a salesman - who once approached me for the purpose of selling me a subscription to the Saturday Evening Post.

 

As he held a copy of the magazine in front of me he suggested the answer I should make by this question: "You wouldn't subscribe for the Post to help me out, would you?"

 

Of course I said no! He had made it easy for me to say no. There was no enthusiasm back of his words, and gloom and discouragement were written all over his face.

 

He needed the commission he would have made on my subscription had I purchased; no doubt about that - but he suggested nothing that appealed to my self-interest motive, therefore he lost a sale. But the loss of this one sale was not the sad part of his misfortune; the sad part was that this same attitude was causing him to lose all other sales which he might have made had he changed his approach.

 

A few weeks later another subscription agent approached me. She was selling a combination of six magazines, one of which was the Saturday Evening Post, but how different was her approach. She glanced at my library table, on which she saw several magazines, then at my book shelves, and exclaimed with enthusiasm: "Oh! I see you are a lover of books and magazines."

 

I proudly pleaded guilty to the charge. Observe the word "proudly," for it has an important bearing on this incident.

 

I laid down the manuscript that I was reading when this saleswoman came in, for I could see that she was a woman of intelligence. Just how I came to see this I will leave to your imagination. The important point is that I laid down the manuscript and actually felt myself wanting to hear what she had to say.

 

With the aid of eleven words, plus a pleasant smile, plus a tone of genuine enthusiasm, she had neutralized my mind sufficiently to make me want to hear her. She had performed her most difficult task, with those few words, because I had made up my mind when she was announced that I would keep my manuscript in my hands and thereby convey to her mind, as politely as I could, the fact that I was busy and did not wish to be detained.

 

Being a student of salesmanship and of suggestion, I carefully watched to see what her next move would be. She had a bundle of magazines under her arm and I expected she would unroll it and begin to urge me to purchase, but she didn't. You will recall that I said she was selling a combination of six magazines; not merely trying to sell them. 

 

She walked over to my book shelves, pulled out a copy of Emerson's Essays, and for the next ten minutes she talked about Emerson's essay on Compensation so interestingly that I lost sight of the roll of magazines that she carried. (She was neutralizing my mind some more.) Incidentally, she gave me a sufficient number of new ideas about Emerson's works to provide material for an excellent editorial.

 

Then she asked me which magazines I received regularly, and after I told her she smiled as she began to unroll her bundle of magazines and laid them on the table in front of me.

 

She analyzed her magazines one by one, and explained just why I should have each of them.

• The Saturday Evening Post would bring me the cleanest fiction;

• Literary Digest would bring me the news of the world in condensed form, such as a busy man like myself would demand;

• The American Magazine would bring me the latest biographies of the men who were leading in business and industry, and so on, until she had covered the entire list.

 

But I was not responding to her argument as freely as she thought I should have, so she slipped me this gentle suggestion: "A man of your position is bound to be well informed and, if he isn't, it will show up in his own work!"

 

She spoke the truth! Her remark was both a compliment and a gentle reprimand.

 

She made me feel somewhat sheepish because she had taken inventory of my reading matter - and six of the leading magazines were not on my list. (The six that she was selling.)

 

Then I began to "slip" by asking her how much the six magazines would cost. She put on the finishing touches of a well presented sales talk by this tactful reply: "The cost? Why, the cost of the entire number is less than you receive for a single page of the typewritten manuscript that you had in your hands when I came in."

 

Again she spoke the truth.

 

And how did she happen to guess so well what I was getting for my manuscript? The answer is, she didn't guess - she knew! She made it a part of her business to draw me out tactfully as to the nature of my work (which in no way made me angry). She became so deeply interested in the manuscript which I had laid down when she came in, that she actually induced me to talk about it. (I am not saying, of course, that this required any great amount of skill or coaxing, for have I not said that it was my manuscript?)

 

In my remarks about that manuscript, I suspect I admitted that I was receiving $250.00 for the fifteen pages; yes, I am sure I was careless enough to admit that I was being well paid for my work. Perhaps she induced me to make the admission. At any rate, the information was valuable to her and she made effective use of it at the psychological moment. For all I know it was a part of her plan to observe carefully all that she saw and heard, with the object of finding out just what my weaknesses were and what I was most interested in discussing.

 

Some salesmen take the time to do this; some do not. She was one of those who did.

 

Yes, she went away with my order for the six magazines; also my twelve dollars. But that was not all the benefit she derived from tactful suggestion plus enthusiasm; she got my consent to canvass my office, and before she left she had five other orders from my employees.

 

At no time during her stay did she leave the impression that I was favoring her by purchasing her magazines. Just to the contrary, she distinctly impressed me with the feeling that she was rendering me a favor. This was tactful suggestion. Before we get away from this incident, I wish to make an admission - when she drew me into conversation she did it in such a way that I talked with enthusiasm.

 

There were two reasons for this. She was one of them; and the other one was the fact that she managed to get me to talk about my own work! Of course I am not suggesting that you should be meddlesome enough to smile at my carelessness as you read this; or that you should gather from this incident the impression that this tactful saleswoman actually led me to talk of my own work for the purpose of neutralizing my mind so that I would listen to her when she was ready to talk of her magazines, as patiently as she had listened to me.

 

However, if you should be clever enough to draw a lesson from her method, there is no way for me to stop you from doing so. As I have stated, when I talked, I mixed enthusiasm with my conversation. Perhaps I caught the spirit of enthusiasm from this clever saleswoman, when she made that opening remark as she came into my study. Yes, I am sure this is where I caught it, and, I am just as sure that her enthusiasm was not a matter of accident. She had trained herself to look for something in her prospective purchaser's office, or his work, or his conversation, over which she could express enthusiasm.

 

Remember, suggestion and enthusiasm go hand in hand!

 

I can remember, as though it were yesterday, the feeling that came over me when that would-be salesman pushed that Saturday Evening Post in front of me, as he remarked: "You wouldn't subscribe for the Post to help me out, would you?" His words were chilled, they were lifeless; they lacked enthusiasm; they registered an impression in my mind, but that impression was one of coldness.

 

I wanted to see the man go out at the door at which he had come in. Mind you, I am not naturally unsympathetic, but the tone of his voice, the look on his face, his general bearing suggested that he was there to ask a favor and not to offer one.

 

Suggestion is one of the most subtle and powerful principles of psychology. You are making use of it in all that you do and say and think, but, unless you understand the difference between negative suggestion and positive suggestion, you may be using it in such a way that it is bringing you defeat instead of success.

 

Science has established the fact that through the negative use of suggestion life may be extinguished.

 

Some years ago, in France, a criminal was condemned to death, but before the time for his execution an experiment was performed on him which conclusively proved that through the principle of suggestion death, could be produced.

 

The criminal was brought to the guillotine and his head was placed under the knife, after he had been blindfolded. A heavy, sharp edged plank was then dropped on his neck, producing a shock similar to that of a sharp edged knife. Warm water was then gently poured on his neck and allowed to trickle slowly down his spine, to imitate the flow of warm blood.

 

In seven minutes the doctors pronounced the man dead. His imagination, through the principle of suggestion, had actually turned the sharp edged plank into a guillotine blade and stopped his heart from beating.

 

In the little town where I was raised, there lived an old lady who constantly complained that she feared death from cancer. During her childhood she had seen a woman who had cancer and the sight had so impressed itself upon her mind that she began to look for the symptoms of cancer in her own body. She was sure that every little ache and pain was the beginning of her long-looked-for symptom of cancer. I have seen her place her hand on her breast and have heard her exclaim, "Oh, I am sure I have a cancer growing here. I can feel it." When complaining of this imaginary disease, she always placed her hand on her left breast, where she believed the cancer was attacking her.

 

For more than twenty years she kept this up. A few weeks ago she died - with cancer on her left breast! If suggestion will actually turn the edge of a plank into a guillotine blade and transform healthy body cells into parasites out of which cancer will develop, can you not imagine what it will do in destroying disease germs, if properly directed?

 

Suggestion is the law through which mental healers work what appear to be miracles. I have personally witnessed the removal of parasitical growths known as warts, through the aid of suggestion, within fortyeight hours.

 

You - the reader of this lesson - can be sent to bed with imaginary sickness of the worst sort, in two hours' time or less, through the use of suggestion. If you should start down the street and three or four people in whom you had confidence should meet you and each exclaim that you look ill, you would be ready for a doctor.

 

This brings to mind an experience that I once had with a life insurance salesman. I had made application for a policy, but was undecided as to whether I would take ten or twenty thousand dollars.

 

Meanwhile, the agent had sent me to the life insurance company's doctor to be examined. The following day I was called back for another examination. The second time the examination was more searching, and the doctor carried a worried look on his face.

 

The third day I was called back again, and this time two consulting physicians were there to look me over. They gave me the most searching examination I had ever received or even heard of.

 

The next day the agent called on me and addressed me as follows: "I do not wish to alarm you! but the doctors who examined you do not agree on your analysis. You have not yet decided whether you will take ten or twenty thousand dollars' worth of insurance, and I do not think it fair for me to give you a report on your medical examination until you make this decision, because if I did you might feel that I was urging you to take the larger amount."

 

Then I spoke up and said: "Well, I have already decided to take the full amount."

 

True enough; I had decided to take the full twenty thousand dollar policy. I decided the moment the agent planted the suggestion in my mind that perhaps I had some constitutional weakness that would make it hard for me to get as much insurance as I wanted.

 

"Very well," said the agent, "now that you have decided I feel it my duty to tell you that two of the doctors believe you have the tubercular germ in your system, while the other two disagree with them." The trick had been turned. Clever suggestion had pushed me over the fence of indecision and we were all satisfied.

 

Where does enthusiasm come in, do you ask? Never mind, it "came in" all right, but if you wish to know who brought it you will have to ask the life insurance agent and his four medical accomplices, for I am sure they must have had a hearty laugh at my expense. But the trick was all right. I needed the insurance anyway.

 

Of course, if you happen to be a life insurance agent you will not grab this idea and work it out on the next prospective client who is slow in making up his mind about taking a policy. Of course you will not!

 

 

A few months ago I received one of the most effective pieces of advertising I ever saw. It was a neat little book in which a clever automobile insurance salesman had reprinted press dispatches that he had gathered from all over the country, in which it was shown that sixty-five automobiles had been stolen in a single day.

 

On the back page of the book was this highly suggestive statement: "Your car may be the next one to go. Is it insured?" At the bottom of the page was the salesman's name and address; also his telephone number.

 

Before I had finished reading the first two pages of the book I called the salesman on the telephone and made inquiry about rates. He came right over to see me, and you know the remainder of the story.

 

Go back, now, to the two letters and let us analyze the second one, which brought the desired replies from all to whom it was sent.

 

Study, carefully, the first paragraph and you will observe that it asks a question which can be answered in but one way. Compare this opening paragraph with that of the first letter, by asking yourself which of the two would have impressed you most favorably.

 

This paragraph is worded as it is for a two-fold purpose; first, it is intended to serve the purpose of neutralizing the mind of the reader so he will read the remainder of the letter in an open-minded attitude; and, second, it asks a question which can be answered in but one way, for the purpose of committing the reader to a viewpoint which harmonizes with the nature of the service that he is to be requested to render in subsequent paragraphs of the letter.

 

In the second lesson of this course you observed that Andrew Carnegie refused to answer my question, when I asked him to what he attributed his success, until he had asked me to define the word success.

 

He did this to avoid misunderstanding.

 

The first paragraph of the letter we are analyzing is so worded that it states the object of the letter and at the same time practically forces the reader to accept that object as being sound and reasonable. Any person who would answer the question asked in this paragraph of the letter under discussion, in the negative, would, by the same answer, convict himself on the charge of selfishness, and no man wants to face himself with a guilty conscience on such a charge.

 

Just as the farmer first plows his ground, then fertilizes it, and perhaps harrows it and prepares it to receive the seed, in order that he may be sure of a crop, so does this paragraph fertilize the mind of the reader and prepare it for the seed which is to be placed there through the subtle suggestion that the paragraph contains.

 

Study, carefully, the second paragraph of the letter and you will observe that it carries a statement of fact which the reader can neither question nor deny! It provides him with no reason for argument because it is obviously based upon a sound fundamental.

 

It takes him the second step of the psychological journey that leads straight toward compliance with the request that is carefully clothed and covered up in the third paragraph of the letter, but you will notice that the third paragraph begins by paying the reader a nice little compliment that was not designed to make him angry. "Therefore, if you will write me of your views as to the most essential points to be borne in mind by those who are offering personal services for sale," etc., Study the wording of this sentence, together with the setting in which it has been placed, and you will observe that it hardly appears to be a request at all, and certainly there is nothing about it to suggest that the writer of the letter is requesting a favor for his personal benefit.

 

At most, it can be construed merely as a request for a favor for others.

 

Now study the closing paragraph and notice how tactfully concealed is the suggestion that if the reader should refuse the request he is placing himself in the awkward position of one who does not care enough about those who are less fortunate than himself to spend a two cent stamp and a few minutes of time for their benefit.

 

From start to finish the letter conveys its strongest impressions by mere suggestion, yet this suggestion is so carefully covered that it is not obvious except upon careful analysis of the entire letter. The whole construction of the letter is such that if the reader lays it aside without complying with the request it makes he will have to reckon with his own conscience!

 

This effect is intensified by the last sentence of the last paragraph and especially by the last thirteen words of that sentence, "who will read your message, believe in it, and be guided by it." This letter brings the reader up with a bang and turns his own conscience into an ally of the writer; it corners him, just as a hunter might corner a rabbit by driving it into a carefully prepared net.

 

The best evidence that this analysis is correct is the fact that the letter brought replies from every person to whom it was sent, despite the fact that every one of these men was of the type that we speak of as being a man of affairs - the type that is generally supposed to be too busy to answer a letter of this nature.

 

Not only did the letter bring the desired replies, but the men to whom it was sent replied in person, with the exception of the late Theodore Roosevelt, who replied under the signature of a secretary. John Wanamaker and Frank A. Vanderlip wrote two of the finest letters I have ever read, each a masterpiece that might well have adorned the pages of a more dignified volume than the one for which the letters were requested.

 

Andrew Carnegie also wrote a letter that was well worth consideration by all who have personal services for sale.

 

William Jennings Bryan wrote a fine letter, as did, also, the late Lord Northcliffe.

 

None of these men wrote merely to please me, for I was unknown to all of them, with the exception of four. They did not write to please me - they wrote to please themselves and to render a worthy service.

 

Perhaps the wording of the letter had something to do with this, but, as to that, I make no point other than to state that all of these men whom I have mentioned, and most others of their type, are generally the most willing men to render service for others when they are properly approached.

 

I wish to take advantage of this appropriate opportunity to state that all of the really big men whom I have had the pleasure of knowing have been the most willing and courteous men of my acquaintance when it came to rendering service that was of benefit to others.

 

Perhaps that was one reason why they were really big men.

​

​

​

Lesson Seven - Enthusiasm / Start the Burning Fire Within You

Page - 1.., 2.., Continue > 3.., 4...