Certain Success by Norval A. Hawkins

N >> Norval A. Hawkins >> Certain Success

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"Prospects," in salesmanship has a very different meaning. The master
salesman does not regard himself as merely a "prospect_ee_," but as a
prospect_or_. He thinks of "prospecting" as the gold miner uses the word
to describe his activities when he searches for valuable mineral
deposits. "Prospects" do not just "happen" in the selling process of
achieving success. They do not result from circumstances merely, but
_must be accumulated by the activity of the salesman_.

[Sidenote: Making Good Luck]

"Your Prospects," as the subject of this chapter, does not mean your
fondest _hopes_, or confident _expectations_. We are studying the _ways
to assure_ your success. If your prospects depended on mere happenings,
they would be highly uncertain; because what you hope and expect may
occur, may never take place in fact. The master salesman does not depend
on such prospects. _He makes his own luck_ to a very large extent by
skillful prospecting; as the trained prospector for gold tremendously
increases his chances of discovering a rich lode by thoroughly and
intelligently investigating a mining region. We are to consider now the
prospects you are capable of _controlling_, the opportunities you can
bring within reach by your own exploration of possible fields of
success.

We will study _particular things you can do, and exactly how to do
them_, to increase the number and quality of your chances to succeed. A
trained prospector for gold has more chances to strike it rich than a
greenhorn because he knows the indications of valuable minerals, and is
skilled in the use of that knowledge. So your opportunities for success
will certainly be increased if you know how to search for, to discern,
and to make the right use of your prospects.

[Sidenote: Prospecting Not Gambling]

Do not think, because we have compared prospecting in mining and in
selling, that the success of the salesman prospector, _your_ success,
must be largely a "gamble" anyway, as is the case with the explorer for
gold. However experienced and skillful in prospecting the miner may be,
he is very uncertain of discovering a bonanza. He cannot be absolutely
sure there _is_ gold in the region he explores, in paying quantities and
practicable for mining. Though he has every reason to feel confident of
the richness of a particular field, he may nevertheless be so
unfortunate as not to discover the gold lode or profitable placer
deposit. He is helpless to control the _existence_ of the indications of
success. They are predetermined by nature. By no effort of his own is he
able to increase or decrease the fixed quantity and quality of the
golden chances about him. He can only increase his _likelihood of
discovering_ gold. Even the most intelligent, skillful prospecting will
not make a miner's success certain.

You, the salesman prospector for opportunities to succeed, are not so
limited. There are particular things you can do, and particular ways of
doing them, that will _assure your finding chances_ to make sales of the
best that is in you. If you learn the scientific principles of
prospecting for opportunities, if you make yourself highly skillful in
looking for and digging into the success chances that surround you
always, there will be nothing uncertain about your prospects to succeed.
You will know _surely_ that you _have_ prospects, just _what_ and
_where_ they are, and their _full worth_ to you.

Of course, prospecting is only _part_ of the selling process; so your
knowledge and skill as a prospector will not suffice to guarantee your
_complete_ success. However, at this preliminary stage you can be
certain that your search for rich chances to succeed will not be a
barren quest.

The present chapter will help you to make sure of gaining for yourself
such opportunities as lead to complete success in the field of your
choice. We will observe and understand how the skillful salesman
prospects for the purpose of increasing his sales efficiency. We will
study the principles and methods of prospecting he uses successfully;
for his practices, applied to your job of selling yourself, will
certainly improve your chances to succeed. We will see also how your
very best prospects can be _created_ by masterly salesmanship.

[Sidenote: Hard Work Necessary]

At the outset comprehend that no other step in the selling process
involves so much _hard work_ as you will need to do in order to find all
your possible chances of success and to make the most of them. It is
necessary that you look _intelligently_, most _earnestly_, and
_constantly_. You must expect to spend a great deal of time and energy
in your quest for prospects. So it is essential to your success as a
prospector that the investigation of your field of opportunity be
carefully _planned_ in order to make the most effective use of the time
you spend prospecting. It is vitally important, too, that you develop
sufficient physical stamina to do a tremendous amount of hard work. The
gold miner has little chance to discover the bonanza he seeks if he
searches only a few days or weeks, or if he lacks the strength and
endurance required for making a thorough exploration of the mineral
region. Similarly it may take a master salesman months of unremitting
toil to prospect a sale that he then is able to close in an hour or two.

[Sidenote: The Food of Salesmanship]

_Prospecting supplies the food of salesmanship._ The salesman thrives if
his prospecting is sufficient and good. He grows thin and weak to the
point of failure if it is bad, or inadequate in quantity. Every salesman
should realize that prospecting furnishes the nourishment for
salesmanship, but some so-called salesmen do practically nothing to
ensure themselves an abundant food supply. They merely absorb the tips
that come their way. Like sponges they sop up the limited quantity of
selling chances they happen to get. That is not the way to feed one's
ambition with opportunities.

Comprehend that you must _seek actively_ for your best prospects. You
should not stop searching until you find what you are looking for.
Myriads of men have failed because they did not make _an earnest, hard
effort to discover chances_ to succeed, or because they _did not persist
in the exploration_ of their fields of opportunity. You know that other
men no more capable than you are succeeding all about you. Certainly,
then, _your_ chance _exists_. Seek it in your own thoughts and in the
circumstances of your every-day living. Put a great deal of time and
toil into your search. You cannot afford to loaf on this preliminary
job.

[Sidenote: Prospect Continually Act Quickly]

_Every moment you are awake should be used in prospecting_; unless it is
required for some other part of the process of assuring your success.
There is no keener pleasure than the eager, continual search of a miner
for gold and of a master salesman for possible big buyers. It is
necessary that you feel their thrilling zest for discovery; that you
develop their unflagging energy; that you be fired by their ardor for
the quest. In order to be a highly successful prospector you will need
especially a quality they have in common--"pep."

How eagerly the miner prospector drinks in every bit of news he hears
about a new strike! How alertly the master salesman listens to casual
gossip that holds a clue which may lead to a sale! But the miner and the
salesman prospectors would not benefit in any degree by what they learn
through their perception of prospects if they did not then _act_
intelligently upon the clues secured. Not only should you keep your
eyes and ears open for indications of opportunities to succeed, but you
should be ready in advance _to take instant advantage_ of any you may
discover. What a fool a miner would be if, after finding rich prospects
of gold, he were to lose his chance to someone else because he did not
know how to file a mining claim! Could there be a greater failure in
salesmanship than learning about a big contract to be let, and being
unprepared to bid on it? Before doing any _outside_ prospecting, be sure
you know what you have _in you_. Make certain of your ability to take
full advantage of your chances to succeed when you come upon them.

[Sidenote: Little Doors To Big Success]

Prospects that seem at first glance to be hardly worth following may
lead to other prospects. Merely because your ambitions are _big_, do not
neglect a chance to make a _little_ success. Investigate completely
every minor prospect you find. Until you look into it thoroughly, you
cannot be sure of all that a clue holds. The indication of an
opportunity that seems of slight importance may possibly lead straight
to the bonanza lode.

An elevator boy in an office building made up his mind to rise
permanently in the world; to get out of the vocation in which he was
just going up and down all the time without arriving anywhere in
particular. He prospected the tenants of the building, learned all he
could about them, and determined who were the biggest men. He studied
the directory, asked questions, and finally selected the one big
business man to whom he was resolved to sell his capabilities.

[Sidenote: Persistent Effort After Prospecting]

This man was known to be unapproachable. So, instead of attempting to
interview him, the elevator boy prospected to discover his
characteristics. He found out exactly what qualities were most likely to
please his intended employer. Then he cultivated the tone, manner, and
habits of action that he felt certain would impress the difficult
prospect most favorably. It took the resolute elevator boy nearly a year
of continual, skillful work to make the big business man notice him and
distinguish him from the other elevator boys. Six months more were
required to develop the big man's attention into thorough interest. But
at the end of a year and a half of faithful prospecting, the ambitious
youth gained his selected, self-created opportunity to succeed. There
was no stopping him after he got his start. In less than a decade he had
sold his qualifications so successfully to a group of powerful
financiers that he, too, had become a multi-millionaire.

This illustration of persistent effort to gain a desired chance should
help to keep you from becoming discouraged about your prospects for
success. Bear in mind the old, familiar motto, "If at first you don't
succeed, try, try again." Stick to your prospecting when you know you
are on the right lead. It has been estimated that the busy bee inserts
its proboscis into flowers 3,600,000 times to obtain a single pound of
honey. But the bee is the only insect, remember, that _lives on honey_.

[Sidenote: No Poor Territory For Success]

The poor salesman is apt to complain that his territory is poor. _The
good salesman makes any territory good._ So in prospecting your field of
immediate opportunities, make the best, not the worst, of your present
circumstances. The star base-ball player does not refuse to play on the
small-town team because it isn't good enough for him. The great Ty Cobb
first made them "sit up and take notice" in a bush league. Undoubtedly
he felt then that he was fit for better company, but he put in his best
licks and played big-city ball on the small-town team. That was
excellent prospecting for the chance he wanted with the best clubs. From
the very beginning of his career, Ty Cobb has used masterly salesmanship
to get across to the world true ideas of his best capabilities in his
chosen field.

_To-day there is no poor territory for success._ Telegraph and telephone
and wireless methods of communication, electric light and power,
railroads and inter-urban car service, farm tractors, passenger
automobiles, motor trucks, and the airplane have so revolutionized the
inter-relations of men that all the former great distances of different
locations and view-points have been shortened almost to nothingness.
The whole world lives now in a single community of interest. The great
war has taught us that each individual is close to everyone else. In
your prospecting for success you are not limited by any narrow boundary
of opportunities. Wherever you are, newspapers and magazines bring to
your door chances for big success. If you search for prospects in
everything you read you should be able to reach out all over the earth
with your capability. An ambitious man I never had heard of before wrote
to me at one time from South Africa to secure a selected territory for
the sale of automobiles in a western city of the United States. From a
distance of nearly half the circumference of the earth he got his chance
to succeed.

[Sidenote: The Fields of Opportunity Are Broad]

A clerk in a Los Angeles real estate office received a letter from an
acquaintance in Chicago who had spent his summer vacation in Michigan.
The Chicago man wrote that the farmers of the Traverse Bay region were
made rich by a bumper crop of potatoes just harvested. The Californian
saw a chance for success in this bit of information. He worked out his
idea and talked it over with his employers. He sold them on it. They
sent him East loaded with facts about "the glorious West" and brim-full
of Los Angeles peptimism. Aided by cold weather in Michigan that winter,
the western real estate man eventually sold California irrigated
ranches to a score of Michigan farmers who suddenly had made sufficient
money to retire from potato raising, and who were old enough to be
strongly attracted by the idea of owning and cultivating land in a more
genial climate. Thus a sentence in a letter led straight to the success
of the clerk who perceived his prospects and knew how to make the most
of them.

[Sidenote: Know Local Conditions]

While distances have been bridged by modern swift means of communication
and transportation, every locality has opportunities for success that
are peculiar to it alone. Conversely every locality is handicapped in
certain ways. Therefore in your prospecting for success _study the
conditions in your especial field_. As a salesman of yourself, you
should know your "territory," its advantages and disadvantages in
particular respects. Men are doing business in your town. There is no
better way to gain a prospect to succeed with a house in your home
community than to demonstrate to the head of the concern that you
comprehend just what he is "up against" on the one hand, and on the
other what "edge" he has on businesses in the same line located
elsewhere. You could make no worse mistake, you could injure your own
prospects no more, than by showing ignorance of local conditions, or
inappreciation of the circumstances in which your prospect's business is
being conducted.

[Sidenote: Turn to Account What You Learn]

Not only should you know as many facts as possible regarding
opportunities in your chosen field; it is even more important that, by
the use of your _imagination_ you relate these facts to _practical ways
of turning them to account_ for your benefit. In order to derive the
maximum of benefit from your prospecting, you must make the _best use_
of every item of knowledge you gain. Sometimes the mere _possession_ of
particular knowledge will increase your chances to succeed. But almost
invariably you can multiply the value of what you learn if you _prospect
in your own mind for ideas_ about putting the facts to the most
profitable use.

Do not forget that the primary object of true salesmanship is service to
the other fellow. Therefore _prospect your own thoughts with the purpose
of making what you know especially valuable to some one else_, your
intended employer for instance. In every step of the selling process you
should think first of how you can serve your prospect with something
that he lacks and needs.

[Sidenote: Prospect Needs]

Surprisingly few young men who go into business prospect their fields of
opportunity to learn what is most wanted there. The great majority take
up special professions or enter selected industries just because _they_
wish to do chosen things. The master salesman, however, _adapts himself
to the circumstances and requirements of his customers_, even at the
sacrifice of his personal inclinations. He could not succeed if he sold
only what he wanted to sell, or if he confined his salesmanship efforts
to a limited number of buyers because he liked them and disliked others.
In order to assure your success, _you must learn to like to do what is
most needed to be done, and learn to like to serve whoever lacks what
you can supply_. Therefore prospect your fields of opportunity to learn
what capabilities are principally needed. If you would make your success
as easy as possible, look about you first to determine the demand for
such services as you are able to render.

[Sidenote: Sometimes Go The Round-About Way]

Perhaps your prospecting will indicate that it is advisable for you to
go a round-about way to your goal of ambition; because the direct route
is beset with great difficulties. A young doctor wished to specialize in
bacteriology. He realized that it would take the savings of a great many
years of general medical practice to equip a complete laboratory of his
own. Accordingly he discontinued the practice of his profession; though
he went on with his studies. He engaged in business for five years. Thus
in a comparatively short time he earned the money he needed to enable
him to devote the rest of his life to bacteriological research.

[Sidenote: Racial Characteristics]

Different territories or fields of opportunity have _various
characters_, like different people. It is important to study especially
the racial types you are likely to encounter. Many a man has attained
success by accumulating discriminative knowledge regarding the national
peculiarities of the Latin peoples, Slavs, Teutons, Anglo-Saxons,
Magyars, etc.

The Italian has strong likes and dislikes in colors and patterns of
goods. To be a good salesman in dealing with him, you should know his
preferences and prejudices. If you learn what colors and patterns are
most favored in the "Little Italy" of your city, you may be able to
employ this bit of knowledge to help you very much in influencing your
fellow-residents of Italian descent.

You are aware of the effect produced on the majority of Irishmen by the
color green. But take care to learn whether the Irishmen whose political
help you would like to win are from the South or the North of the
Emerald Isle. They may be Orangemen, and you might "queer" your
prospects by going among them wearing a green necktie.

_Learn your facts with discrimination; then use them restrictively in
the circumstances where they will be most effective in promoting your
success._

[Sidenote: Temporary Conditions]

Prospect to learn not only permanent conditions in your field of
opportunity, but also any _temporary_ conditions that might affect your
chances to succeed. Mental and emotional "waves" sweep over the country
and over local communities at times. Billy Sunday's revivals in various
great cities brought success opportunities to particular businesses,
but had injurious effects on others. You should take such factors into
account when studying your prospects.

The manufacturers of that successful innovation, the "Service Flag,"
took advantage of the sudden demand for such an emblem. When war came,
they saw into the future and perceived a new lack. But the need for
Service Flags was temporary. Before the war ended they were displayed
everywhere. To-day none are seen.

Now there has come into existence The American Legion, which seems
certain to be a great political and social power in the United States
for generations, as was the G.A.R. after the civil war. Any man who
hopes for political success in the course of the next thirty or forty
years must prospect the thoughts and feelings of the veterans of
1917-18.

[Sidenote: Analyze Individuals]

You will have _specific_ as well as general prospects. Hence it is
essential that you supplement your study of conditions with the
_analysis of individuals_. Study men with the greatest care, especially
the one man or group of men upon whom you want to impress ideas of your
capabilities. Learn all you can regarding the personal characteristics
of the individual to whom you hope to sell your services or "goods."
Your knowledge of his traits and peculiarities, your familiarity with
his life purposes and hobbies, may assure you a chance to succeed with
him that otherwise you could not get. A friend of mine is the president
of a big ice company, but he is not so much interested in cooling
people's food as in warming their hearts with his genuine brotherhood
for all men. There isn't much prospect for anybody to sell him "a cold
business proposition," even though he is a dealer in ice.

[Sidenote: Hobbies]

Do not, however, make a "hobby of hobbies." Only the _big_ hobbies of
your man are worth especial study. Never harp on any of his little
idiosyncracies. He may be sensitive about being eccentric. It is bad
salesmanship to _pretend_ an interest in another person's whims. You
cannot use his hobbies to help your prospects _unless you share his
feelings_ to a considerable degree. My friend who believes and practices
the doctrine that all men are brothers would be sure to detect quickly a
false humanitarian bent on a selfish purpose to exploit his hobby.

As already has been emphasized, the object of the good salesman when
prospecting is to discover the lacks of men who might benefit from the
things he has to sell. If you are looking for your prospects with that
_service_ purpose, you have taken a long preparatory step in the process
of selling your qualifications. Find the employer who _needs_ your best
ability, and your success will be assured the moment you get into his
mind the true idea that you are the man he has been looking for.

[Sidenote: Prospect Lacks]

Undoubtedly you know men to whom success has come because they made
other men realize they fitted into particular needs. A young
acquaintance of mine foresaw that a manufacturer would want an assistant
within a year or two; though the executive himself was unaware that he
was developing such a need. My acquaintance got a minor job under him in
order to make a good impression in advance. Long before the head of the
business realized that he was breaking in a confidential assistant, the
young man had qualified for the position he had perceived in prospect.

Your chosen employer may not know of the lack that you have prospected
in his business. He may not have the least idea that he wants you.
Prospecting his needs is part of _your_ job as a salesman of yourself.

An expert accountant sold himself into a fine position as the auditor of
a great corporation by anticipating that the Company would need to have
its system of book-keeping revolutionized in order to prepare for the
Federal income tax. He prospected what was coming to that business; then
sold the president comprehension that he lacked an expert accountant he
was going to need badly before long.

One of my own experiences as an accountant illustrates the value of
specific prospecting. When I was studying accountancy, I bought every
authoritative publication on the subject. For one set of forty books I
had to send to London. Each volume related to the peculiar accounts,
terms, etc. of one business. There was a book on brewery accounting,
another on commission house accounting, and so on through the list of
forty businesses. To each volume I afterward owed at least one client.
For instance, I got a commission to make a cost survey for a tobacco
company, largely because I was able to convince the president that I
knew a good deal about the tobacco business. I talked intelligently to
him regarding the processes of his industry.

[Sidenote: Reasons Behind Habits]

When you prospect an individual's personal qualities, traits, or
hobbies, do not stop after learning the facts. Study out the _reasons
behind_ habits and opinions. It may help you only a little to know that
your intended employer is a Republican or a Democrat; that he is
conservative or radical in his social opinions. But your chances of
success in dealing with him will be greatly increased if you know
exactly _why_ he belongs to one or the other political party, and the
_reason_ he is a "stand-patter" or a "progressive." Use knowledge of
why's and wherefore's with the skill of a salesman bent on securing an
order from a prospective buyer. But be sure you get the _fundamental
facts_, for often "appearances are deceiving."

[Sidenote: Your Personal Responsibility]

When you look for prospects in your selected field of
service-opportunities recognize your _personal responsibility_ for the
successful development of the chances you find. Before you begin
prospecting, realize that _what you make of your opportunities is solely
up to you_. Assume all the responsibility for your own success; then you
will have no excuse to blame any one else if you fail. Should things not
go as you wish, say "It's my own fault," and feel that way. _The true
salesman never apologizes to himself._ So if you have not found your
prospects, or if you have not made the best use of the chances you have
discovered, kick at the man who is responsible. Don't get sore on the
world at large.

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