136 



SELLING LUMBER 



A Real Start 

 in Science 



recognized by the national or international scientific bodies as 

 final, or really as a start. Well, there has been a start, and I 

 want to give you that start. The fact is, I am working with 

 you. We have some matters that I want to lay before you now, 

 and ask you whether you have found these to be true. 



Now then, I take it that if I want to influence a man my 

 way, and I have him alone, talking to him alone I don't care 

 how many people hear me but if I am talking with him alone, 

 I always begin with the known, and work to the unknown. I 

 go from the near to the remote. That is the inductive method 

 of science; that is the method that all science works upon today. 

 Why shouldn't we work upon the same principle? So I begin, 

 first, with the clothes, and in a second you can size up the man ; 

 and what you look to is whether he is dressed peculiarly, in some 

 way different from the average man of that section or of that 

 age, the men living around him. If he is, that peculiar thing is 

 your cue by which you will quickly get into his confidence and 

 into his good graces, by which he will like you and have confi- 

 dence in your judgment. 



Now I will give you some illustrations. If a man is dressed 

 ordinarily, just as the rest of us, you have to approach' him ac- 

 cordingly. Then I would approach him just as I would want 

 him to approach me, in a common sense, level headed way. But 

 let me give you an illustration. Up in Ohio in a certain town 

 they had eighteen salesmen, and every Saturday afternoon we 

 met for a campaign in salesmanship. They had eighteen sales- 

 men; and as they came in I sized them up to see if I saw any 

 peculiar type; and they came in all dressed as every other busi- 

 ness man, except one man, and I saw that his coat had four but- 

 Man 7 s Charac- tons instead 1 of three; he had a standing collar, instead of a lay- 

 ter By His down collar, although he had just come in from the road. He 

 had the sweetest little cravat tucked away there snugly, and as 

 white as the driven snow ; and I saw he was dressed spick and 

 span. I knew there was a stickler for details, a splitter of hairs, 

 a man that would make a mountain out of a molehill, or an ele- 

 phant out of a mouse. Well, I started in. I said : "Gentlemen, 

 if there is any statement I make you don't like, just get up and 

 shake your finger at me. I am a tough skinned man." And this 

 man was the first up. I expected him to be the first up. He 

 said : "Doctor, may I ask a question ?" I said : "Certainly." 

 He said: "Do you mean, when working f our second orders from 



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