SOME YEARS AGO, a man hired the Opera House in a small
Pennsylvania town for one night, but engaged no ush-
ers or other staff. About a month before the date for which
he had rented the hall, he put a large sign on the most
prominent billboard in town, stating in huge letters: “HE
IS COMING!”

A week before the fateful night this was replaced by: “HE
WILL BE AT THE OPERA HOUSE THURSDAY NIGHT,
OCTOBER 15th, AT 8:30!”
That night, the man himself sat in the box office and sold
tickets at $1 a head to a capacity audience. When the lights
went up inside, however, all that the crowd could see was a
huge sign reading: “HE IS GONE!”

All the principles of selling are wrapped up in this story.
Attention was gained. Interest was developed. Desire was
stimulated. The prospect was convinced to act, and to “close
the deal” by buying a ticket. I do not recommend this pro-
cedure, but the principles applied contain the basic elements
necessary to create a sale. In this chapter, let us unfold and
develop these principles and endeavor to learn how to apply
them to create a sale or to improve our present Sales Plan.
When I was sixteen years old, which was over 42 years
ago, I began to sell. I am still at it. In fact, I get more real
pleasure and enjoyment out of it today then ever before.

Selling furnishes me with a modern school and a complete
laboratory that is made up of living people, and affords me
the opportunity to study every phase of human behavior and
to understand the relations that exist in the varying aspects
of selling. When you analyze selling, and especially creative
selling, you find that you are dealing with the greatest and
most interesting thing in the world. You are dealing with
ideas and thoughts. By the application of ideas and thoughts,
man has the ability to create. He creates by the power of an
invisible idea. It is an invisible idea before it is a visible
thing. It must be a thought before it can be a product or
service. Therefore, if man has the capacity and ability to
create a product or service by the means of an invisible idea,
it must stand to reason that he has the power to create a
sale, and to establish a market for that product or service.

This is the line of reasoning that I have always followed,
and it has never failed. I know from my experience that a
man can create a demand and a market for anything, even
for a product that never existed before.

The Law of Attraction is very plainly expressed in the
Bible. It reads: “To him that hath shall be given, and from
him that hath not shall be taken away, even that which he
hath.” As applied to attracting the prospect, this simply
means that if you have the thoughts and ideas to attract him,
and give them out, then you attract other things to you, and
therefore more things shall be given unto you. On the other
hand, if you do not make use of the thoughts and ideas you
now have, then even that which you already have shall be
taken away. It merely expresses the inexorable and immu-
table law that you have to give in order to get.

In selling you have only one thing to give, and that is
your ability, intelligently reviewed and appraised, and con-
veyed to others through a system or a plan of action. Your
ability can be expressed through a Sales Plan. You can
create this plan in a haphazard, hit-or-miss way, or you can
create it in a scientifically planned way. To attract a pros-
pect and to create a sale, the latter is imperative. The per-
fection of selling starts with you. How high do you register
in the scale of perfection? What are you doing to improve
your efficiency? Have you learned to harness all your forces
and concentrate them on the job of selling? Have you ac-
quired the knowledge and skill to do the greatest amount of
work with the least possible amount of effort in the shortest
period of time? Can you get maximum results with minimum
effort? Are your thoughts liquid? Can you adjust yourself
quickly? Have you the power of adaptability? Can you apply
common sense? Do you assume the role of self-importance
when shouldered with the responsibility of serving others?

Does your expert knowledge and keen sales ability lose its
charm and savor at the expense of impudence and arro-
gance? Do you use your head for other things as well as a
place to hang your hat? Always remember that if the product
or service could talk and reveal its qualities, services, merits,
usefulness, and its benefits and advantages to the prospect,
the power of creative selling would be unessential and your
services as a salesman would no longer be needed. However,
since the product or service cannot do this, it is your job to
do it effectively. This requires positive thinking, creative
planning, and dynamic action.

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SELLING is not a new art. It is as old as man himself. When
man first began to exchange ideas he began to sell. Sell-
ing has always been employed as a means of influencing
someone to do something. It has been demonstrated in the
form of exchanging ideas, products, plans, or services. How-
ever, it was soon discovered that, in order to influence a man,
it was necessary to please him. If the man was pleased, he
would listen and pay attention to your story; otherwise, he
paid no attention. Therefore, in order to sell him, it was
necessary to know how to please him.

Thus opened up an entirely new field for selling. To be
successful at this art it was necessary to know the charac-
teristics of the prospect. A study had to be made of his
wants, his needs, his hopes, his aspirations, and the many
other hidden attributes that controlled his desire to buy. In
order for the salesman to understand his prospect, he was
compelled to turn the searchlight on himself. This was not
all. It was necessary for the salesman to know everything
possible about his product, its history, its background, and
the part it played in the life of the prospect. It was essential
to analyze the markets to comprehend the possibilities of
the product, and the various uses in which it might be ap-
plied. The salesman had to uncover the unknown needs, and
to supply those needs, and to create markets that did not
exist before. He had to be able to sense trends and to evalu-
ate them in the light of reason and common sense.

The salesman is no longer an order taker with a worn-out
valise, a bag of tricks, a bundle of sales cliches, and a stock
of stale stories. The salesman of today is a psychologist, a
scientist, an analyst, and an artist, all rolled up in one. He is
dealing with the greatest thing in life: the mind and its ideas,
as applied to the continued development of our economy
and the distribution of its products.