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Transcriber's note:
The author's use of three asterisks (* * *) to serve as
ellipses has been preserved as printed in the original
publication.
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SALESMANSHIP
by
WILLIAM WALKER ATKINSON
L.N. Fowler & Company
7, Imperial Arcade, Ludgate Circus
London, E.C., England
1912
The Elizabeth Towne Co.
Holyoke, Mass.
Copyright 1912
By
Elizabeth Towne
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF
SALESMANSHIP
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. Psychology in Business 9
II. The Mind of the Salesman 28
III. The Mind of the Salesman (continued) 47
IV. The Mind of the Buyer 70
V. The Mind of the Buyer (continued) 91
VI. The Pre-Approach 114
VII. The Psychology of Purchase 137
VIII. The Approach 167
IX. The Demonstration 193
X. The Closing 222
CHAPTER I
PSYCHOLOGY IN BUSINESS
Until the last few years the mere mention of the word "psychology" in
connection with business was apt to be greeted with a shrug of the
shoulders, a significant raising of the eyebrows--and a change of the
subject. Psychology was a subject that savored of the class room, or
else was thought to be somehow concerned with the soul, or possibly
related to the abnormal phenomena generally classified as "psychic." The
average business man was apt to impatiently resent the introduction into
business of class room topics, or speculation regarding the soul, or of
theories and tales regarding clairvoyance, telepathy, or general
"spookiness"--for these were the things included in his concept of
"psychology."
But a change has come to the man in business. He has heard much of late
years regarding psychology in business affairs, and has read something
on the subject. He understands now that psychology means "the science of
the mind" and is not necessarily the same as metaphysics or "psychism."
He has had brought home to him the fact that psychology plays a most
important part in business, and that it is quite worth his while to
acquaint himself with its fundamental principles. In fact, if he has
thought sufficiently on the subject, he will have seen that the entire
process of selling goods, personally, or by means of advertising or
display, is essentially a mental process depending upon the state of
mind induced in the purchaser, and that these states of mind are induced
solely by reason of certain established principles of psychology.
Whether the salesman, or advertiser, realizes this or not, he is
employing psychological principles in attracting the attention, arousing
the interest, creating the desire, and moving the will of the purchaser
of his goods.
The best authorities on salesmanship and advertising now recognize this
fact and emphasize it in their writings. George French, in his "_Art
and Science of Advertising_" says regarding psychology in advertising:
"So we can dismiss the weird word, and simply acknowledge that we can
sell things to a man more readily if we know the man. We can't
personally know every man to whom we wish to sell goods. We must
therefore consider if there are not certain ways of thinking and of
acting which are common to all men, or to a large proportion of men. If
we can discover the laws governing the action of men's minds we will
know how to appeal to those men. We know how to appeal to Smith, because
we know Smith. We know what will please Brown, because we know Brown. We
know how to get our way with Jones, because we know Jones. What the
advertiser must know is how to get at Smith, Brown, and Jones without
knowing any of them. While every man has his personal peculiarities, and
while every mind has its peculiar method of dealing with the facts of
life, every man and every mind is controlled, in a large sense and to a
great extent, by predilections and mind-workings which were established
before he lived, and are operated in a manner separate from his
personality. Our minds are more automatic, more mechanical, than we are
willing to admit. That which we loosely call mind is largely the
automatic expression of tendencies controlled by physical conditions
wholly apart from conscious intellectual or moral motives or qualities.
What those physical conditions are, and how the knowledge of what they
are may be utilized by advertisers, forms the body of that new knowledge
some like to call psychology, so far as it concerns advertising." Mr.
French has well expressed the idea of the important part played in
business by psychology. What he says is, of course, as applicable to
personal salesmanship as to salesmanship through advertisements--the
same principles are present and operative in both cases.
In order to bring to the mind of the reader the full idea of the
operation of psychological principles in the sale of goods, we shall
mention a few particular instances in which these principles have played
a part. Each reader will be able to recollect many similar instances,
once his attention is called to the matter.
Prof. Halleck, a well known authority on psychology says: "Business men
say that the ability to gain the attention is often the secret of
success in life. Enormous salaries are paid to persons who can write
advertisements certain to catch the eye. A publisher said that he had
sold only five thousand copies of an excellent work, merely because it
had failed to catch the attention of many, and that twenty-five thousand
copies could have been disposed of in the same time, if agents had
forced them upon the notice of people. Druggists say that any kind of
patent medicine can be sold, if it is so advertised as to strike the
attention in a forcible manner. Business life has largely resolved
itself into a battle to secure the attention of people."
The same excellent authority says, regarding the effect of associated
ideas: "An eminent philosopher has said that man is completely at the
mercy of the association of his ideas. Every new object is seen in the
light of its associated ideas. * * * The principle of the association of
ideas is sufficient to account for the change in fashions. A woman in a
southern city had a bonnet that she particularly admired, until she one
day saw three negresses wearing precisely the same pattern. She never
appeared again in that bonnet. When a style of dress becomes 'common,'
and is worn by the lower classes, it is discarded by the fashionable
people. Fashions that are absolutely repulsive will often be adopted if
they are introduced by popular or noted people. * * * A knowledge of the
power of the association of ideas is of the utmost importance in
business. One man has his store so planned that all its associations are
pleasing, from the manner of the clerks to the fixtures and drapery.
Another store brings up unpleasant associations. * * * When negligee
hats first made their appearance, a shrewd hatter sent for a
well-dressed and popular collegian and offered him his choice of the
best hats in the store, if he would wear a negligee hat for three days.
He objected to making such an exhibition of himself, until he was
flattered by the hatter's wager that the hats could, in this way, be
made the fashion for the entire town. When the collegian first put in
his appearance on the campus with the hat, he was guyed for his oddity.
Late in the afternoon, some of his friends concluded that the hat
looked so well that they would invest. On the following day large
numbers reached the same conclusion. For some time after this the hatter
found difficulty in keeping a sufficient supply in stock. Had an
unpopular or poorly dressed man appeared first on the campus with that
hat, the result would have been the reverse. The hat would have been the
same, but the association of ideas would have differed. Some of the
ladies of fashion in a large European city selected on their own
responsibility, without consulting the milliners, a cheap spring Manilla
hat, which was very handsome. The milliners found themselves with a
high-priced stock for which there was no demand. They held a council,
bought a large number of the cheap hats, and put them on the heads of
all the female street sweepers and scavengers in the town. When the
ladies of fashion went out the next day, they were amazed to see the
very dregs of the city arrayed in headgear like their own. It was not
very long before the result was what might have been expected."
In a previous work of the present writer, the following illustrations
of the effect of psychological suggestion in advertising were used:
The use of the "direct command" as the "ad. men" call it, is very
common. People are positively told to do certain things in these
advertisements. They are told to "take home a cake of Hinky-dink's Soap
tonight; your wife needs it!" And they do it. Or they see a mammoth hand
pointing down at them from a sign, and almost hear the corresponding
mammoth voice as it says (in painted words): "Say you! Smoke Honey-Dope
Cigars; they're the best ever!!!" And, if you manage to reject the
command the first time, you will probably yield at the repeated
suggestion of the same thing being hurled at you at every corner and
high fence, and "Honey-Dope" will be your favorite brand until some
other suggestion catches you. Suggestion by authority and repetition,
remember; that's what does the business for you! They call this the
"Direct Command" in the advertising schools. Then there are some other
subtle forms of suggestion in advertising. You see staring from every
bit of space, on billboard and in newspapers and magazines: "Uwanta
Cracker," or something of that sort--and you usually wind up by
acquiescing. And then you are constantly told that "Babies howl for
Grandma Hankin's Infantile Soother," and then when you hear some baby
howling you think of what you have been told they are howling for, and
then you run and buy a bottle of "Grandma Hankin's." Then you are told
that some cigar is "Generously Liberal" in size and quality; or that
some kind of Cocoa is "Grateful and Refreshing"; or that some brand of
soap is "99.999% Pure"; etc., etc. Only last night I saw a new
one--"Somebody's Whisky is Smooth," and every imbiber in the car was
smacking his lips and thinking about the "smooth" feeling in his mouth
and throat. It _was_ smooth--the idea, not the stuff, I mean. And some
other whiskey man shows a picture of a glass, a bottle, some ice and a
syphon of seltzer, with simply these words: "Oldboy's Highball--That's
all!" All of these things are suggestions, and some of them are very
powerful ones, too, when constantly impressed upon the mind by
repetition. * * * I have known dealers in Spring goods to force the
season by filling their windows with their advance stock. I have seen
hat dealers start up the straw hat season by putting on a straw
themselves, their clerks ditto, and then a few friends. The sprinkling
of "straws" gave a suggestion to the street, and the straw hat season
was opened.
Dr. Herbert A. Parkyn, an authority on Suggestion, draws the following
picture from life of a retail merchant who is suffering from the effect
of adverse psychological influences resulting from his pessimistic
mental attitude. The present writer can vouch for the accuracy of Dr.
Parkyn's picture, for he knows the original of the sketch. Dr. Parkyn
says of the storekeeper:
"He is the proprietor of a store in a neighboring city; but such a
store--it almost gives me the blues to go into it! His windows are
dressed year in and year out with the same old signs, and there is
nothing to give the store the cheerful appearance so essential to an
up-to-date business establishment. But the atmosphere of the place is
only in keeping with the proprietor. When he started in business thirty
years ago he employed eight clerks, but his business has fallen off till
he does all the work himself and is scarcely able now to pay rent,
although competitors around him are increasing their business steadily
every year. In the course of a fifteen minute's conversation, the first
time I met him, he told me all his troubles, which were many. According
to his story, everyone had been trying to get the better of him ever
since he started in business; his competitors resorted to unfair
business methods; his landlord was endeavoring to drive him out by
raising his rent; he could not get an honest clerk in his store; an old
man had not an equal chance with a young man; he could not understand
why people he had catered to so faithfully should be so ungrateful or so
fickle as to give their patronage to every upstart who went into
business in the same line as his; he supposed that he could work along,
as he was doing, from morning till night without a holiday till he was
driven to the poorhouse or died, and although he had been in the same
stand for fifteen years there was not a single person he could call on
if in need of a friend, etc. Although I have had occasion to visit him
many times during business hours, I have never heard him address a
cheerful or encouraging remark to a customer. On the other hand he
waited on them, not only with an air of indifference, but apparently as
if he were doing them a favor by allowing them to trade at his store,
while others who dropped in to ask permission to use his telephone or to
enquire about residents in the neighborhood were soon given to
understand by his manner and answers that he considered them a nuisance
and hoped they had not mistaken his store for an information bureau. I
have purposely led him into other channels of conversation, with the
same result; everything was going to the dogs--the city, the country,
etc. No matter what was talked about, his remarks were saturated with
pessimism. He was ready to blame everything and everyone for his
condition, and when I ventured to suggest that much of his trouble was
due to his attitude he was ready to show me to the door. * * * If he
would but cast his bread upon the waters for a few weeks by bestowing a
smile here and a smile there, or a cheerful encouraging word to this
customer and that customer, he would certainly feel better for the
giving, and they would return to him a thousand fold. If he would only
assume that he is prosperous and proceed to give his store an air of
prosperity, how much more attractive he could make his place look and
how much more inviting it would be for customers! If he would assume
that every person that entered his store was his guest, whether he made
a purchase or not, people would feel like returning to his store when
they wanted anything in his line. I could suggest a hundred ways in
which this man could employ suggestion and auto-suggestion to increase
his business, to draw friends to him, instead of driving them away, and
to make the world and himself better and happier while he lives in it."
But, you may ask, what has all this to do with psychology in
salesmanship--what has the matter of advertising, store display,
personal manner, etc., to do with salesmanship? Just this much, that all
these things are based on the same fundamental principles as is
salesmanship, and that these fundamental principles are those of
psychology. All that has been said refers to psychology--all is the
effect of psychology pure and simple. All depends upon the mental
attitude, the suggestions offered, the mental states induced, the motive
to the will--all these outward things are merely the effects of inner
mental states.
J.W. Kennedy, in "Judicious Advertising" says: "Advertising is just
salesmanship on paper; a mere money-making means of selling goods
rapidly. That 'mysterious something' is just printed persuasion and its
other name is 'selling conviction.' Conviction can be imparted at will
by those few writers who have closely studied the thought processes by
which conviction is induced. The mission of every ad. is to convert
readers into buyers." Geo. Dyers, in the same journal says: "Advertising
takes into account the sub-conscious impressions, the varying phases of
suggestion and association as received through the eye, the psychology
of the direct command,--all worth earnest consideration, and seriously
to be reckoned with, however we may balk at the terms." Seth Brown in
"Salesmanship" says: "To make advertising which will sell goods requires
development of the human part of the writer. He must realize the
different forces which command Attention, Interest, Desire and
Conviction. The buyer wants your goods because they will produce for him
some definite effect or result. It is this result that the ad. man must
keep in mind."
"But," you may also say, "after all this 'psychology' seems to be
nothing else than what we have always known as 'human nature'--there is
nothing new about this." Exactly so! Psychology is the inner science of
human nature. Human nature depends entirely upon psychological
processes--it is bound up with the activities of the mind. The study of
human nature is the study of the minds of people. But whereas the study
of human nature, as usually conducted, is a haphazard, hit-or-miss sort
of undertaking, the study of the mind, according to the established
principles of psychology, is of the nature of the study of science, and
is pursued according to scientific methods.
Particularly in its phase of Salesmanship does the study of human nature
along the lines of psychology become a science. From the first to the
last Salesmanship is a psychological subject. Every step in the process
of a sale is a mental process. The mental attitude and mental expression
of the salesman; the mental attitude and mental impression of the
customer; the process of arousing the attention, awakening curiosity or
interest, creating desire, satisfying the reason, and moving the
will--all these are purely mental processes, and the study of them
becomes a branch of the study of psychology. The display of goods on the
counters, shelves, or windows of a store, or in the hands of the
salesman on the road, must be based upon psychological principles. The
argument of the salesman must not only be logical but must be so
arranged and worded as to arouse certain feelings or faculties within
the mind of the prospective buyer--this is psychology. And finally, the
closing of the sale, in which the object is to arouse the will of the
buyer into final favorable action--this also is psychology. From the
entrance of the salesman to the final closing of the sale, each and
every step is a psychological process. A sale is the action and reaction
of mind upon mind, according to well established psychological
principles and rules. Salesmanship is essentially a psychological
science as all must admit who will give to the subject a logical
consideration. To those who object to the term "psychology" because of
its newness and unfamiliar sound, we do not care to urge the term. Let
such cling to their old term of "human nature," remembering however that
"human nature" is essentially mental. A dead man, a man asleep or in a
trance, or an idiot, manifests no "human nature" in the sense the word
is generally used. A man must be alive, wide awake, and in possession of
his senses, before he is able to manifest "human nature," and before his
"human nature" may be appealed to according to the well known
principles. "Human nature" cannot be divorced from psychology, try as we
may.
We do not for a moment wish to imply that Salesmanship is entirely
dependent upon a knowledge of psychology. There are other factors
concerned. For instance, the salesman must possess a practical knowledge
of his goods; of the seasons; of the trend of fashion in relation to his
line; of the adaptability of certain goods for certain sections. But,
waiving for the moment the point that even these are concerned with the
mind of people at the last, and admitting that they may be considered as
independent of psychology, all of these points will avail nothing if the
salesman violates the psychological principles of the sale. Give such a
man the best goods, of the best house, with a thorough knowledge of the
requirements of the trade and the goods themselves, and send him forth
to sell those goods. The result will be that his sales will fall below
the mark of a man far less well equipped in other respects but who
understands the psychology of salesmanship, either intuitively or else
by conscious acquirement.
Inasmuch as the essence of Salesmanship is the employment of the proper
psychological principles, does it not seem imperative that the salesman
should know something of the Mind of Man--the instrument upon which he
must play in plying his vocation? Should not the salesman possess the
same kind of knowledge of his instrument as does the musician, the
mechanic, the artisan, the artist? What would be thought of one who
would expect to become an expert swordsman without a knowledge of the
principles of fencing, or of one who would expect to become a boxer
without mastering the established principle of boxing? The instruments
of the salesman are his own mind and the mind of his customers. He
should acquaint himself thoroughly with both.