Napoleon Hill's Science of Successful Selling

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• Publisher: G&D Media
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781722524227
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Sales
• Index: Business

Many followers of Napoleon Hill often miss the fact that he was not only a gifted writer and speaker, but also a man who made a living teaching other people how to sell. In 1913, Hill began working for the LaSalle Extension University in Chicago, giving him valuable insight into what he liked doing and what he did well: teaching people how to sell — products, services, and above all, themselves. This book will give you the tools you can use to effectively sell yourself and your ideas.Learn:

• The principles of practical psychology used in successful negotiation
• How to create intelligent promotion in order to succeed
• The strategy of professional salesmanship
• The qualities the professional salesperson must develop
• Autosuggestion: the first step in salesmanship
• About the Master Mind
• Concentration
• Initiative and Leadership
• How to qualify the prospective buyer
• How to neutralize the prospective buyer's mind
• The art of closing the sale

The ability to influence people without irritating them is the most important trait in salesmanship. This book is devoted to an analysis of the principles of psychology through which anyone may negotiate with others without causing friction. The principles were conceived from the life experiences of some of the most successful leaders in business, industry, finance and education known to the American people in the first half of the 20th century. They are also the principles by which one may win friends and influence people without unneccessarily flattering them.br>
The world needs new leaders and is rich with opportunities for professional salespeople who are creative, energetic and desire to benefit others. You can be one of them!

Chapter One

THE PRINCIPLES OF PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY USED IN SUCCESSFUL NEGOTIATION

The ability to influence people without irritating them is the most profitable art known to humanity. This entire book is devoted to an analysis of the accepted principles of psychology, through which anyone may negotiate with others without friction.

These are the only known principles by which one may win friends and influence people without unnecessarily flattering them. The principles were organized from the life experiences of some of the most successful leaders in business industry, finance, and education known to the American people in the first half of the twentieth century. In this book, one may find modern salesmanship in its most fitting, streamlined clothes.

Professional salespeople are artists who can paint word pictures in the hearts of others as skillfully as Rembrandt could blend colors on a canvas. They are artists who can play symphonies on the human emotions as effectively as Paderewski could manipulate the keys of a piano. Professional salespeople are strategists at mind manipulation; they can marshal the thoughts of others as ably as Eisenhower directed the Allied armies during World War II.

Professional salespeople are philosophers who can interpret causes by their effects and effects by their causes. They are character analysts; they know people as Einstein knew higher mathematics. They are mind readers. They know what thoughts are in other people’s minds by the expressions on their faces, by the words they utter, by their silence, and by the feeling the salesperson experiences in their presence.

Professional salespeople are fortune tellers. They can predict the future by observing what has happened in the past. They are masters of others, because they are masters of themselves.

The attributes of professional selling will be described in this book, as well as the means by which these qualities may be acquired. This book’s purpose is to enable the reader to transform mediocrity into professionalism in the art of persuasion.

Life is a series of ever changing and shifting circumstances and experiences. No two experiences are alike. No two people are alike. Day after day, we experience life’s kaleidoscopic changes. This makes it necessary for us to adapt ourselves to people who think and act in ways different from our own. Our success depends largely upon how well we negotiate our way through these daily contacts with other people without friction or opposition. This sort of negotiation calls for an understanding of the art of salesmanship. We are all salespeople regardless of our calling, although not all of us are professional salespeople.

Politicians must sell their way into office. If they are to remain in office, they must keep themselves sold to their constituents. Salaried people must sell themselves into a job. Salesmanship must be used to keep the position after it has been obtained. Anyone who seeks a loan in a bank must sell the banker on making the loan. Clergy must sell their sermons, and themselves as well, to their followers. If they do a poor job, they soon find themselves looking for another call. Lawyers must sell the merits of their clients’ cases to the judge and jury, even if they know the case has but little merit. If a man chooses to marry, he must sell himself to the woman of his choice (albeit the woman may and often does remove many of the obstacles in the path of the sale). Laborers must sell themselves to employers, although the form of salesmanship required is not as difficult as that which must be employed by those who sell themselves into job at top-level salaries. These are examples of salesmanship through which people sell intangibles.

Any form of effort through which one person persuades another to cooperate is salesmanship. Most efforts at salesmanship are weak, and for this reason most people are poor salespeople. If someone attains a high station in life, it is because they have acquired or have been blessed with native ability in sales. Schooling, college degrees, intellect, and brilliance are of no avail to those who lack the ability to attract the cooperative efforts of others and thus to create opportunities for themselves. These qualities help individuals to make the most of opportunities, but they must first create these opportunities. Perhaps by the law of averages, opportunity is thrust upon one out of every hundred thousand people; the others must create opportunity.

Salesmanship is often as necessary in the development of opportunity as in its creation. Salesmanship, as described in this book, does not apply only to marketing commodities and services. You can sell your personality; indeed, you must. As a matter of fact, the major object of this book is to teach men and women how to sell their way through life successfully, using the selling strategy and the psychology used by the professional salesperson in selling goods and services.

During his youth, Herbert Hoover was handicapped by the loss of his parents. Millions of other orphans have lived and died without having had the opportunity to make themselves known outside their local communities. What distinguishing features did Mr. Hoover possess to enable him to set his sights in the direction of the White House and ride with fortune to that high goal? He discovered how to sell his way through life successfully.

This course is intended to teach others to do the same. One author has given five definitions of salesmanship:

1.  Selling is the ability to make known your goods, services, or propositions to a person or persons to the point of creating a desire for a privilege, opportunity, possession, or an interest.

2.  Selling is the ability of professional and public individuals to render services, assistance, and cooperation to the point of creating a desire on the part of people to remunerate, recognize, and honor.

3.  Selling is the ability to perform work duties and services as an employee to the point of creating a desire on the part of an employer to remunerate, promote, and praise.

4.  Selling is the ability to be polite, kind, agreeable, and considerate to the point of creating a desire on the part of those you meet to respect, love, and honor you.

5.  Selling is the ability to write, design, paint, invent, create, compose, or accomplish anything to the point of creating a desire on the part of people to acclaim its possessors as heroes, celebrities, and people of greatness.

These definitions are very broad; they cover a great variety of all human activity. The whole of any life is one long, unbroken chain of sales endeavors. The newly born babe is a salesperson: when it wants food, it yells for it and gets it. When it is in pain, it yells for attention and gets that too. Women are the greatest salespeople on earth. They are often more subtle and more dramatic and use greater finesse than men. Men often believe they are selling themselves to women in proposals of marriage. Generally, however, it is the woman who does the selling. She does it by making herself charming, attractive, and alluring.

While these definitions are comprehensive, we could add to this list one more: selling is the art of planting in the mind of another a motive that will induce favorable action. The importance of this definition will be apparent throughout this book.

A salesperson becomes a professional salesperson because of his or her ability to induce other people to act upon motives without resistance or friction. There is little competition among professional salespeople, because there are so few of them.

Professional salespeople know what they want, and they know how to plan the acquisition of it. Moreover, they have the initiative to put such a plan into action.

There are two forms of sales endeavor: when the salesperson is negotiating with only one person and when he or she is negotiating with a group of people. The latter is commonly known as group selling or public speaking. The professional salesperson’s education is not complete unless they have the ability to persuade groups of people as well as individuals.

The ability to speak to groups with a force that carries conviction is a priceless asset. It has given many people their biggest opportunity. This ability must be self-acquired. It is an art that can be acquired only through study, effort, and experience. Here are some specific instances.

William Jennings Bryan lifted himself from obscurity to a position of national prominence through his famous Cross of Gold speech during the Democratic convention of 1896.

Patrick Henry immortalized himself through his famous “Give me liberty or give me death” speech in the days of the American Revolution. But for that speech, his name might never have achieved renown.

Robert Ingersoll changed the trend of theology by his eloquent art and forceful group salesmanship.

One of the most effective lessons in salesmanship ever written is in Shakespeare’s masterpiece: Mark Antony’s speech at the funeral of Julius Caesar.

John F. Kennedy will always be remembered for this line: “Think not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.”

The professional salesperson has the ability to influence people through the printed page as well as by the spoken word. Elbert Hubbard accumulated a modest fortune and indelibly impressed his name upon the minds of men through the selling power of his pen. Perhaps Thomas Paine, through the power of his pen, did more than anyone else to inspire the American Revolution. Benjamin Franklin immortalized himself and left his imprint for good upon civilization by the forceful simplicity and quaintness of his written salesmanship. Abraham Lincoln immortalized himself through a single speech: his Gettysburg Address—simple in theme, pure in composition, moving in thought. Albert Schweitzer, philosopher, theologian, musician, medical missionary, and winner of a Nobel Peace Prize, dedicated his life to selling his personal philosophy: respect for the lives of other beings and the demand for the highest development of an individual’s resources.

Caesar, Alexander, Napoleon, Hitler, Castro, and hundreds of others of their type were also professional salesmen, but they built their sales presentations around motives that were destructive of the best impulses of civilization. They sold and delivered wars—wars for which the people paid in blood and tears and suffering. Enduring success and selling is always predicated upon sound motive. Remember this, you who aspire to mastery in selling: sell neither stones nor serpents nor swords.

The world now faces the greatest opportunity for professional salesmanship in history. New leaders and a new brand of leadership are needed throughout the world in almost every line of human endeavor. This is a great reconstruction period. It is rich with opportunity for professional salespeople who have the imagination to build their efforts around motives that are beneficial to the general public and who release their full energies through their work.

Racial privileges are passing. Mass privileges are in the ascendancy. Remember this too when selecting a motive as a guiding spirit of your sales efforts: the people must be served. The whole of America stands at the crossroads of progress, waiting for able leadership. Millions of people have been slowed down by fear and indecision. Here is an unparalleled opportunity for men and women who are prepared to adapt themselves to the new brand of leadership, fortified by courage dedicated to service.

High-pressure salesmanship, of which we heard so much during the recent decades, is now a thing of the past. The go-getter will have to make room for the go-giver in every walk of life, selling included. Successful leaders of the future, whether in the field of selling or in other walks of life, must make the Golden Rule the basis for their leadership. In the future the question of paramount importance will be, how much can I give in the way of service to others? rather than how much can I get away with and keep out of jail?

A great economic renaissance is sweeping the entire world. Anyone who cannot see this is mentally and morally blind. The old order of things and business in industry has already been swept away, and the new order is rapidly taking its place. Wise beyond description are those who see this change and adapt themselves to it harmoniously, without force. We are approaching an era during which we shall see the reincarnation of the spirit of Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, and Abraham Lincoln in politics, and the reincarnation of the spirit of Marshall Field and John Wanamaker in industry, business, and finance.

People have become rebellious against the oppression forced upon them by the avaricious and the greedy. This spirit of resentment is not transient; it will remain until it rights a wrong. It will gain organized momentum. America will not soon again see the sad spectacle of millions of people starving to death in the midst of an overabundance of both the necessities and the luxuries of life. We are on the grand concourse that leads out of the wilderness of human exploitation, and we are not going to be driven or coerced into giving up our rights to remain on this highway.

In recent years, we in the United States have been losing our ability to compete. For a long time, we could pay the world’s highest wages with no problems. We were ahead of the parade in inventions and in productivity per man-hour. We had huge natural resources and didn’t need to import much, so we had the best of all possible worlds: both self-sufficiency and competitiveness.

That’s why from 1896 until the 1970s, Uncle Sam invariably had trade surpluses. What has happened to us?

We have received a double whammy. First, because of our high living standards, we have run through much of our natural treasure house. The Mesabi Hematites in Minnesota, which produced iron ores, have pooped out, and we had to go to Ongaba in southwestern Africa and the Orinoco in Venezuela for iron ores. Our copper no longer sufficed, and we had to turn to Chile and the Congo. We have come increasingly to depend on Canada, Venezuela, and the Middle East for oil. To buy these commodities, we need foreign exchange, which requires either dribbling away our diminishing gold reserves or selling American gold abroad. Second, other nations have bright, energetic, and skillful people who have learned our mass-production tricks. We have seen a constant loss of American jobs.

America has turned the corner. We’re going to have to get to work. We can’t hide behind new tariff walls, not as long as we must buy more and more foreign raw materials. We must modernize. We must produce not only more per man-hour, but more per wage dollar.

These statements of fact, and of prophecy, may be helpful to those who aspire to leadership in selling or in some other walk of life. Those who have imagination will not wait for time to prove their soundness. They will anticipate the changes that are to take place and will adapt themselves to the new conditions. The great changes occasioned by economic upheavals, which have thrown millions out of adjustment in all fields of human activity, accentuate the need for discovering those fundamental principles by which one may come back into the path of ordered progress.

Since all people must use some form of salesmanship to promote themselves and adjust themselves to satisfactory relations, both social and commercial, it behooves one to lend an ear to a presentation of those fundamental principles with suggestions for their practical application. This book attempts to teach such principles. Those who master these fundamental principles of persuasion can sell their way through life, successfully surmounting obstacles, overcoming opposition, and harnessing and redirecting adverse forces.

No matter who you are or how much you know, you will not succeed unless you are a salesperson. You must sell your services, you must sell your knowledge, you must sell yourself, you must sell your personality. As you approach the study of fundamentals, keep ever before you the fact that your only limitations are creatures of your own mind. Remember too that you can remove any limitation you create. This book was written for men and women who will not permit themselves to be bound down by blind circumstance or hedged in by psychological limitations.

Chapter Two

YOU NEED INTELLIGENT PROMOTION TO SUCCEED

It may be true that the world will beat a path to your door if you make a better mousetrap than your neighbor, even though your house may be far back in the woods, but you may as well know that the big rush toward your place of business will not begin until you have given the location and have properly promoted your product.

Jack Dempsey was a good but unknown prizefighter. He stepped up front and won the world championship, with its million-dollar income, only after boxing manager Jack Kearns had promoted him into that highly desirable position. Jack Dempsey’s fists and arms did the punching, but Jack Kearns’ brain guided the blows so they would find th...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Chapter One: The Principles of Practical Psychology Used in Successful Negotiation
• Chapter Two: You Need Intelligent Promotion to Succeed
• Chapter Three: The Strategy of Professional Salesmanship
• Chapter Four: Qualities the Professional Salesperson Must Develop
• Chapter Five: Autosuggestion: The First Step in Salesmanship
• Chapter Six: The Master Mind
• Chapter Seven: Concentration
• Chapter Eight: Initiative and Leadership
• Chapter Nine: Qualifying the Prospective Buyer
• Chapter Ten: Neutralizing the Prospective Buyer’s Mind
• Chapter Eleven: The Art of Closing the Sale