Masonry Magazine August 1967 Page. 16
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.
Be a Member of a Select Group
The late Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler, long head of Columbia University, once classed people into three goups. In the first group was a small number of persons who get things done. A second group, slightly larger, watched them do it. The third group was made up of a great mass of people that didn't know anything was going on.
Now, the big difference between the first and the other two groups is that members of the first group are what we call noticers.
To notice is to be aware of the world around you; to notice is the first step to leadership; to notice is to be worthy of everything good which life can provided.
The chief reason why more men and women do not have better human relationships, more friends, greater good will, more success is not that they don't recognize the importance in life of these things. They do. Everyone does. But only one person out of a large number has developed alertness in sensing just what to do and say and when to say and do it.
It's practice in noticing opportunities which most of us need!
A British writer says interesting things on the subject of noticing.
"To notice is to see with the brain -really to see a thing and think about it. Everybody looks only a few people notice.
"The eye is at one end of the optic nerve and the brain is at the other end. The eye sends in pictures and the brain may or may not notice them.
"Success with others starts you on your way to be a skilled observer. You begin to discover the value of observation. You notice things that you formerly only looked at."
Then he follows with four "Noticing Exercises" which he says he found invaluable in developing his own quickness and shrewdness:
First, during a half-hour bus ride, notice twenty things you never noticed before.
Second, study window displays and notice how many have clashing colors.
Third, visit two large stores and notice five differences between them.
Four, when you are talking with someone, pick out five ways in which you feel you can please him.
These sound pretty rudimentary to you, don't they; mere kindergarten stuff. So they are, so they are.
But noticing is also rudimentary- the most rudimentary of all mental functions, hence the most ignored. But not for that reason unimportant!
So why don't you practice these exercises for a few days, and see how much more you notice, not only while undergoing the exercises, but also in all your other waking hours.
When you become a noticer you will notice that others will begin noticing you more.
The Selling Power of Cheerfullness
Many tests have been made-personality and disposition test-among salesmen, and they all lead to the same conclusion; namely that the more cheerful the salesman the more successful the salesman.
And that leads me to tell you the story of one of the most successful Americans who ever lived.
His name was Henry P. Davidson. He was hugely successful in business while quite young. He was successful as a statesman and civic leader. But he was even more successful as an attractive human being.
Many persons to this day will tell you that they never met a bigger, grander man.
It was this power to inspire others to feel that way about him which made Henry Davison so successful.
The secret of the man, the keystone of his personality was cheerfulness.
No matter how he felt, no matter what the situation, he was invariably cheerful. Others might be grumpy, downcast, discouraged. He never was. So he uplifted everyone he met.
One man told of taking several ideas to Mr. Davison's approval. He was used to having his ideas steeped on, shot full of holes, criticized. When he called on this eminent financier, he was prepared to defend his ideas against attack.
Instead of attacking them, however, Henry Davison became more enthusiastic over them than the man himself was. He found merit in the ideas which their originator had not seen.
It was Mr. Davison's belief-and he lived his belief that the one indispensable quality in a human being who wants to get ahead, who wants to live with other human beings, who wants happiness, is cheerfulness.
It is just as easy to be cheerful as any other way, he reasoned, and cheerfulness is an asset, whereas other states of mind-crankiness, unhappiness, and their ugly kin-are liabilities,
If you want others to like you; if you want to influence them more, practice this art of cheerfulness until it becomes a fixed part of your personality.
You may have difficulty, though, in being cheerful. Perhaps your nature is not a cheerful nature. You are serious, of sober mind. It is possible for you, if you are that kind of person, to develop cheerfulness?
Why not? It is as much a habit as most other things that make up our personalities.
(Continued on page 29)
Cut out this article and future articles and place them in your business file for further reference.
All rights reserved. August, 1967. Copyrighted by CHARLES ROTH.
MASONRY August, 1967