The Psychology of Salesmanship

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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.