128 



SELLING LUMBER 



Distribution 



Mrs. Smith's place there would be something doing. (Laughter). 

 So Mrs. Thompson hangs her soul on the outside of her skin 

 when she talks of a thing like that. She spreads human misery. 

 And many a man in great positions of the political and business 

 world, on the platform and in other walks of life, has been damned 

 by just that insanity. And that is the way a thing spreads that 

 is perfectly insane. There are only five things that produce hap- 

 piness, and a man who is working in any one of those five is a 

 servant of God Almighty, for His highest purpose is human hap- 

 piness. 



Now, here is what our work lies in distribution. Trans- 

 portation has a little to do with that, but we are chiefly concerned 

 with mechandising. We are merchants. The salesman is a mer- 

 chant. There is where the work of this convention comes in ; 

 _ and it has these various elements in it (indicating upon the chart). 



\L lie OcllCS- 



man's Work Is Now then, we have got the position of selling. Let's go into sell- 

 ing. That classification does not depend upon my opinion or 

 your opinion. That is absolutely true, and will be true millions 

 of years from now, and there will be no sixth thing ever added 

 to it, and you can't drop one of the five. You see now, five are 

 there, and you can't think of a sixth, and hence it is a perfect 

 classification. 



Now I want to go into selling and see what classification 

 we have there; ami we lift this chart (removing the first chart 

 and exposing a second), and we will see, as there are five nor- 

 mal human activities, so there are five permanent, necessary, funda- 

 mental, always-present elements in salesmanship. First, there must 

 be a salesman, and then there must be a customer. Those are the 

 two human elements, the salesman, trying to persuade the cus- 

 tomer to think as he does about his merchandise or his proposi- 

 tion one mind trying to persuade and convince another mind 

 to think and feel as the originating mind does about the goods. 

 Then we come to two things the goods and the money. First, 

 there must be two things ; the two human beings, two minds, in- 

 dividual or composite, but two minds, one leading and the other 

 led; and of these two things (the money and the goods), the cus- 

 tomer must have this thing and the salesman must have this thing ; 

 and when these two things change hands to the satisfaction of 

 both, then only do you have a business result. If it is to the sat- 

 isfaction of the customer and the dissatisfaction of the sales- 

 man, the salesman can't stay in business; and if it is to the sat- 



An Analysis 

 of Selling 



