THE GREATEST SALESMAN—ENTHUSIASM
“What are hardships, ridicule, persecution, toil, sickness, to
a soul throbbing with an overmastering enthusiasm?”
Enthusiasm is the best salesman. Cultivate it; it is contagious.
You can’t build a fire with the fuel all wet.
Why is it that one salesman can often accomplish three or four times as
much as another? The difference is not always that of ability. It is
often a difference in the effort—in the character of the effort. One
salesman tries harder. He adds enthusiasm and a splendid zest to his
work, which increases the quality as well as the quantity of the result.
Joyous zeal, dead-in-earnestness, will sell more goods than all the
technical training in the world, minus enthusiasm.
How often have I heard salesmen say in the morning that they fairly
dreaded the day’s work, that the hours dragged and that they were glad
when the ordeal was over. They felt no enthusiasm for their employment.
Can any one hope to succeed in life who considers a day’s work an ordeal,
who goes to it as a slave lashed to his task?
An employer measures his employees largely by the spirit in which they do
their work. The salesman who goes to his task with energy, determination,
and enthusiasm, by his very bearing gives assurance that the thing he
undertakes will not only be done, but will be done as well as it can be
done. On the other hand, when a salesman drags himself about as though
existence were a burden, when he takes hold of his work with repugnance,
as though he dreaded it, it does not take an expert judge of human nature
to know that he will never amount to anything.
No matter how strongly and perfectly constructed, or how powerful a
locomotive may be, unless the water is heated to two hundred and twelve
degrees, the train will not move an inch. Warm water, water at two
hundred and eleven degrees will not answer. The water must be at the
boiling point.
No matter how fine a brain or how good an education a salesman may have,
without the steam of enthusiasm, which propels the human machine, his
work will be ineffective. It is the enthusiastic man in every trade or
profession, the man with fire and iron in his blood, whose enthusiasm
is at the boiling point, who makes things move in this world. The
half-hearted, indifferent, aimless worker, who is never aroused to the
two-hundred-and-twelve degree of live interest and enthusiasm in his
especial task, is headed for failure. He will never be his own manager.
He is lucky if he succeeds in holding down even a poor job.
The prizes of life are for the dead-in-earnest and enthusiastic. The
world has ever made way for enthusiasm. It compels men to listen. It
convinces the most skeptical. As Bulwer-Lytton once said: “Nothing is so
contagious as enthusiasm; it is a real allegory of the Lute of Orpheus;
it moves stones; it charms brutes. Enthusiasm is the genius of sincerity;
and truth accomplishes no victories without it.”
Knowledge and skill have never been a match for enthusiasm. It multiplies
a man’s power, raises whatever ability he has to its highest. One talent
with enthusiasm back of it has ever accomplished more than ten talents
without it. Enthusiasm is the powder that drives the bullet home to its
mark.
To produce the best results, enthusiasm must be steady, continuous, not
fitful or uncertain.
I know a man who is a valuable solicitor if his employers can only keep
him keyed up to the right point, supplied with enthusiasm. When his
enthusiasm is at high tide he accomplishes wonders, but the moment it
ebbs he is good for nothing. And his enthusiasm often ebbs; it is very
uncertain. One day he will impress you as a powerful man, a man with
great determination, vigor and push—he makes everything move; then you
meet him on one of his off days, when the tide is out, and scarcely know
him. His mentality is flabby, his courage is down. He goes about with a
blue and discouraged look, and is practically good for nothing. But when
he rallies and his courage and enthusiasm come back, he is a regular
giant.
If this man would learn to control his moods and get complete possession
of himself; if he would strengthen his will so that he should always be
ruler in his mental kingdom, instead of abdicating every now and then
and allowing his pessimism, his blue moods to take control and rule him,
he would be invaluable—a king in his line.
Enthusiasm must be guided by level-headedness or it may defeat its
object. Some people allow their enthusiasm to run away with them and
thus greatly weaken their power and possibilities. While it is an
indispensable factor in salesmanship, too much enthusiasm develops
weakness, destroys one’s good sense and good judgment and one’s ability
to convince people. And the power of carrying conviction to the mind of a
prospective buyer is the very marrow of salesmanship.
I have known over-enthusiastic young salesmen to be so completely carried
away with the possibilities of what they were selling, to exhibit so
little judgment and so much fervor in their canvass, that they aroused
suspicion in the minds of their prospects as to their good judgment.
In cases of this sort a level-headed man will say to himself: “This young
fellow is too wrought up over this article; he is hypnotized by it and
has an exaggerated idea of its merits. No man in this state of mind
is reliable; his judgment is warped. He is honest enough, but I cannot
afford to rely on what he says. He is too enthused to be trustworthy.”
You can be as enthusiastic as you please without overstepping the bounds
of reason. The A1 salesman knows how to steer his course between the
enthusiasm that excites suspicion, arouses distrust, and the enthusiasm
that persuades and convinces. There is now and then one who with
abounding enthusiasm, guided by good judgment and horse-sense, pours his
very life into his sale, just as a great advocate flings his life into
his pleading. He is the sort of man who will win out in any proposition
he attempts to put through.
On the other hand, there are lukewarm salesmen who put so little of
themselves into their sale, so little enthusiasm and zest, so little
magnetism, so little diplomacy and tact, and so little of the art of
persuasion, that they remain third or fourth rate all their lives. They
barely get a living in a field where the energetic, enthusiastic man
makes a fortune.
The salesman or other worker who gives only his second best instead
of his best, who gives indifference instead of enthusiasm, who
doesn’t think it worth while to fling his soul into his work, never
amounts to much. In an age when increasing stress is everywhere placed
on efficiency, and yet more efficiency, there is no future for the
indifferent. Give to the world the best you have and the best will come
back to you.