Masonry Magazine July 1966 Page. 20
THE SELLING PARADE
by Charles B. Roth, America's no. 1 salesmanship authority
The Selling Parade by Charles B. Roth is another new feature added by Masonry. Watch for it in all future issues of the magazine for the entire Masonry Industry. Cut out this article and future articles and place them in your business file for further reference.
The Wonder of Words
To me one of the most fascinating things about a sales presentation is that it gives you a chance to work with the wonderful power of words. Although most salesmen do not respect this power and use it loosely and many times not effectively, every salesman has with him day by day the most powerful tool mankind has ever used; more powerful than dynamite or TNT or nuclear material.
Look at it this way. Behind a certain door you have never seen before sits a prospect you have never seen before either. Your purpose in calling on this stranger is to cause him, willingly, nay, eagerly to part with some of his money, for which he worked hard, and which he guards jealously, to put it into your hands, a total stranger. With words you can accomplish what might be hard to accomplish with a pistol. With words...
One writer said this about words "WORDS-They sing. They hurt. They teach. They sanctify. They were man's first immeasurable feat of magic. They liberated us from ignorance and our barbarous past. We live by words: LOVE, TRUTH, GOD. We fight for words: FREEDOM, COUNTRY, FAME. We die for words: LIBERTY, GLORY, HONOR... words."
And we also buy because of words, properly selected, properly uttered by a salesman.
The way to make words work for you as well as they should is to start thinking about the effect of every word you use. Become a word student. Look up words. Think words. Learn which words cause man to act, which repel him, which please him, which anger him. But think, live words because if you use words properly they will make you rich. Don't ever forget this: that it is words which will earn you every dollar you make in selling.
A Job For Your "Second Mind"
You've known them of course. "Lucky" men and women who seem to get done in hours what it takes you days to accomplish; "lucky" salesmen who always seem to be with the right prospect at the right time and out-earn you five to one. And you have envied people like this, their gifts of achievement.
This skill of theirs, you know, is merely the power of putting their "second" or subconscious mind to work. We all have such a mind; and it is powerful; so powerful that its effect on our lives psychologists say it is ten times as powerful as the conscious, or thinking, mind. But most of us don't use it, don't direct it, scarcely know it is anywhere around.
Elihu Root, great American statesman and lawyer, great thinker and scholar, once said that to use this gift of power and success is simple: all you have to do is four simple things.
The first is, whenever you have a problem, no matter what, to consider it seriously. Give it as much thought and attention as you can. Bound it on all four sides with ideas and thoughts.
Then forget it for a while second step. Here your subconscious mind takes over. It sets to work on your problem.
In due time your brain will give you the "flash" the answer to your problem, all worked out and gift-wrapped for you.
There is one final step but it is quite anti-climactic: check the answer to make sure it is right. It likely is, but check anyway.
You cannot control your subconscious power, but you can cultivate it and increase its power.
This subconscious power is one which, unluckily for them, most persons never discover, much less woo and cultivate.
The Look-It-Up-Now Habit
By changing one little habit in your life, you can become a well educated, purposeful, more charming, more successful person and salesman.
It sounds too much like an open sesame secret to be believed and accepted at first, doesn't it? But wait until you read about the plan and the man who espouses it before you reject it.
The man behind the plan is Dr. Leonard Carmichael, one of the greatest scholars in America. He is secretary of the venerable and honored Smithsonian Institution in Washington.
The plan itself is this: Acquire the habit, whenever you do not know a thing, of looking it up NOW.
The secret of the plan is in the last word NOW. So many of us want to know something, tell ourselves we will look it up next time we are near a dictionary or an encyclopedia-and completely forget the matter. And so we lose another bit of knowledge that would add to our personalities, contribute to our success.
Cut out this article and future articles and place them in your business file for further reference.
All rights reserved. JULY 1966 CHARLES ROTH. MASONRY. July, 1966