Modern salesmanship is based primarily upon common sense. A man with
brains, though possibly lacking in other desirable qualifications, may
easily outdistance the more experienced salesman. It is a valuable thing
in any man to be able to think accurately, reason deeply, and size up a
situation promptly.
The salesman should at all times be on his best talking behavior. It is
not advisable for him to have two standards of speech, and to use an
inferior one excepting for special occasions. He should cultivate as a
regular daily habit discrimination in the use of voice, enunciation,
expression, and language. This should be the constant aim not only of
the salesman, but of every man ambitious to achieve success and
distinction in the world.
MEN AND MANNERISMS
There is a story of a politician who had acquired a mannerism of
fingering a button on his coat while talking to an audience. On one
occasion some friends surreptitiously cut the particular button off, and
the result was that the speaker when he stood up to address the audience
lost the thread of his discourse.
Gladstone had a mannerism of striking the palm of his left hand with the
clenched fist of his other hand, so that often the emphatic word was
lost in the noise of percussion. A common habit of the distinguished
statesman was to reach out his right hand at full arm's length, and then
to bend it back at the elbow and lightly scratch the top of his head
with his thumb-nail.
Balfour, while speaking, used to take hold of the lapels of his coat by
both hands as if he were in mortal fear of running away before he had
finished.
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