Certain Success. Norval A. Hawkins
you will have an innate consciousness of your man-equality with him. You should realize that this sale of yourself, like all other true sales, is to be a transaction of reciprocal benefits, and should be conducted on the basis of mutual respect.
It is your right to take pains that the prospective buyer of your services shall sell himself to you as the boss you want to work with. Expect him to sell himself to you as a desirable employer just as thoroughly and satisfyingly as you intend to sell yourself to him as a worthy applicant for an opportunity in his business. When you have definite, sure knowledge of your capability and service value, you certainly should not be willing to take "any old job."
There is no better way to make the impression of your desirability as an employee than to demonstrate that you are choosing your employment intelligently. In explaining your choice, give specific reasons for your selection of this particular opening. Show that you comprehend what is to be done. Give some indication of your ability to do it efficiently and satisfactorily. Suggest the worth of your services when you shall have proved your fitness.
Require Employer to Sell You the Job
The ordinary man who applies for a job in the ordinary way is accepted or turned down wholly at the discretion of the employer. If you use the selling process skillfully, you will suggest that you are out of the ordinary class. Of course, you should demonstrate in your salesmanship that you are not over-rating your ability. The other man must be made to feel you have sound reasons for your bearing of equality and self-confidence when you seek to make sure that in his business you will have your best chance to succeed. By showing him that you are taking intelligent precautions against making a mistake in your employment, you indicate conclusively that you are not merely a "floater," but that you have a purpose "to stick and make good."
In the same measure that you require proof of a desirable personality in an employer, you should make sure that the work is exactly what you expect. See that your prospective "new boss" sells you the job at the same time you are selling him your services. If he perceives in you the one man who best fits his needs, he will put forth every effort to buy your services. Every employer will respect the man who states, with salesmanship, a sound reason for selecting and seeking connection with a business house; since such a man gives promise of making the sort of dependable, loyal worker that every business values and appreciates.
Sell to Satisfy Real Needs
The true salesman sells to satisfy a real need of the buyer. Therefore, when you have charted your salable qualities, select the field of service in which such capability as you possess is needed. That, you may be sure, is your right market—the field where you are certain to succeed. Enter it, and no other field. Apply there for a place of opportunity to serve; with the absolute confidence of a good salesman come to satisfy a want, and conscious of his individual fitness "to deliver the goods."
You may not get just what you desire at the first attempt. The best professional salesman often has to make repeated efforts to close orders. But in the end, if you "have the goods," that are needed where you bring them, and you know how to sell true ideas of your best self (as you will know after mastering the selling process) you will be sure of getting sufficient opportunities to succeed. You will be as certain about getting enough chances as the first-class professional salesman is certain of attaining his full quota of business despite some turn-downs. Success is a matter of making a good batting average.
Parts of Complete Process
Remember as you read that you are studying a completed process. An unfinished sales effort is not a sale at all. You will not be a certainly successful salesman until you perfect your knowledge and skill in all the steps of salesmanship. You can learn only a single part of sales efficiency at a time. The relative significance of each point, its full importance in the entire selling process, will not be comprehended until you have read at least once all there is in this set of books. When you re-study the successive chapters, the details you may at first understand but vaguely in a disconnected way will be clear. You will comprehend them as various elements of salesmanship which must be fitted together to complete the process of selling.
Thus far in the present chapter we have been considering principally the "goods of sale." We have been looking at our subject from the material aspect. Now let us turn our attention to the mental view of sales.
Mental Nature of Selling Process
In the effective selling process the skilled salesman is able to be the controlling party. He makes the other man think as he thinks. As has been stated repeatedly, he sells ideas, not goods. So the real nature of any sale is mental, not material. You must "deliver the goods" to the mind of the man to whom you wish to sell your best capabilities. You should use the same process as the professional salesman, who works to control the thoughts of his prospect regarding the line of goods presented. Hence when you plan to make sure of getting a desired position, it is necessary that you know exactly how to put true ideas about yourself into the head of the person whom you have chosen as your prospective employer. Further, you need to know precisely what psychological effects you can secure with certainty by using skillful salesmanship.
Three Sales Mediums
Ideas of your best capability may be sold through three mediums—advertising, correspondence, and personal selling. Take advantage of all three, wherever and whenever possible, to gain your chance for success. Use these mediums with real salesmanship.
Advertising
If you advertise for a position, think out in detail the impression of your true best self that you wish to make on the minds of readers. Put your personality into the advertising medium in such carefully selected language as will reach the needs of particular employers, and will not appear to be just a broadside of words shot into the air without aim. Indicate clearly that you are not seeking "any old job so long as the salary is good." Analyze and know just what you suggest about yourself in print. Many a successful business man has sold himself through the door of his initial big opportunity by real salesmanship in his advertisement of his capabilities.
Correspondence
Each letter you write should be regarded as "a sales letter." It makes an impression, true or false, of you. Take the greatest pains to have that impression what you want it to be. Never be slovenly or careless in writing to anyone on any subject. Put genuine salesmanship into all your letters consciously; instead of conveying ideas unwittingly, without realizing what the reader is likely to think of you and the things you write. You can scatter impressions of your best self broadcast over the earth by using your ordinary correspondence as a medium of salesmanship. So you can open both nearby and far distant opportunities for the future; even while you still are training yourself to make the most of these chances you hope to gain.
Good sales letters are so rare that the ability to write them has erroneously been called "a gift." It is not. Any one of educated intelligence can write his ideas; provided he has clear, definite thought-images in his own mind. But cloudy thinking reflects only a blur on paper.
Using Sales Letters
A letter that plainly conveys true ideas is a sales letter; for it gets across to the mind of the recipient a clear, definite mental impression of the writer's real personality and thoughts.
In all your correspondence, throughout the period of preparation for your chosen life career, send out true ideas of your best capability. If you do, you doubtless will find the door of your desired opportunity open by the time you are fully prepared to knock. Successful business is always ready in advance to welcome "comers;" whenever and wherever they are sighted. Therefore project your personality far and wide through your letters. Employ the medium of correspondence, with salesmanship knowledge and skill, even when you write the most ordinary messages to your acquaintances or to strangers. That is, think out certain ways to sell particular ideas about yourself; then incorporate these bits of salesmanship in your letters.
A young man in his senior year at college selected