How To Sell Your Way Through Life

Napoleon Hill

• Publisher: Wiley
• Year: 2009
• ISBN:
  9780470570173
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Sales
• Index: Business

TIMELESS WISDOM from the ORIGINAL PHILOSOPHER of PERSONAL SUCCESS

"No matter who you are or what you do, you are a salesperson. Every time you speak to someone, share an opinion or explain an idea, you are selling your most powerful asset... you! In How to Sell Your Way Through Life, Napoleon Hill shares valuable lessons and proven techniques to help you become a true master of sales."
—SHARON LECHTER, Coauthor of Think and Grow Rich: Three Feet from Gold; Member of the President's Advisory Council on Financial Literacy

"These proven, time-tested principles may forever change your life."
—GREG S. REID, Coauthor of Think and Grow Rich: Three Feet from Gold; Author of The Millionaire Mentor

"Napoleon Hill's Think and Grow Rich and Laws of Success are timeless classics that have improved the lives of millions of people, including my own. Now, we all get the chance to savor more of his profound wisdom in How to Sell Your Way Through Life. It is a collection of simple truths that will forever change the way you see yourself."
—BILL BARTMANN, Billionaire Business Coach and Bestselling Author of Bailout Riches (www.billbartman.com)

Napoleon Hill, author of the mega-bestseller Think and Grow Rich, pioneered the idea that successful individuals share certain qualities, and that examining and emulating these qualities can guide you to extraordinary achievements.

Written in the depths of the Great Depression, How to Sell Your Way Through Life explores a crucial component of Achievement: your ability to make the sale. Ringing eerily true in today's uncertain times, Hill's work takes a practical look at how, regardless of our occupation, we must all be salespeople at key points in our lives. Hill breaks down concrete instances of how the Master Salesman seizes advantages and opportunities, giving you tools you can use to effectively sell yourself and your ideas. Featuring a new Foreword from leadership legend Ken Blanchard, this book is a classic that gives you one beautifully simple principle and the proven tools to make it work for you.

I

The Principles of Practical Psychology Used in Successful Negotiation

ABILITY to influence people without irritating them is the most profitable art known to man. The entire first section of this book has been devoted to an analysis of the accepted principles of psychology, through which anyone may negotiate with others without friction. These are the only known principles by which one may win friends and influence people without unnecessarily flattering them. The principles were organized from the life experiences of some of the most successful leaders in business, industry, finance, and education known to the American people during the past 50 years. In this section of the book, one may find modern salesmanship in its most fitting, streamlined clothes.

EMPLOYERS are always on the lookout for a man who does a better job of any sort than is customary, whether it be wrapping a package, writing a letter, or closing a sale.

1

Introduction

Definition of Salesmanship

A Master Salesman is an artist who can paint word-pictures in the hearts of men as skillfully as Rembrandt could blend colors on a canvas. He is an artist who can play a symphony on the human emotions as effectively as Paderewski can manipulate the keys of a piano.

A Master Salesman is a strategist at mind manipulation. He can marshal the thoughts of men as ably as Foch directed the allied armies during the World War.

A Master Salesman is a philosopher who can interpret causes by their effects and effects by their causes.

A Master Salesman is a character analyst. He knows men as Einstein knows higher mathematics.

A Master Salesman is a mind reader. He knows what thoughts are in men’s minds by the expressions on their faces, by the words they utter, by their silence, and by the feeling that he experiences from within while in their presence.

The Master Salesman is a fortune teller. He can predict the future by observing what has happened in the past.

The Master Salesman is master of others BECAUSE HE IS MASTER OF HIMSELF!

The attributes of mastery in selling will be described in this book as well as the means by which these qualities may be acquired. The purpose of the book is to enable the reader to transform mediocrity into mastery in the art of persuasion.

Life is a series of ever-changing and shifting circumstances and experiences. No two experiences are alike. No two people are alike. Day after day we experience life’s kaleidoscopic changes. This makes it necessary for us to adapt ourselves to people who think and act in ways different from our own. Our success depends, very largely, upon how well we negotiate our way through these daily contacts with other people without friction or opposition.

This sort of negotiation calls for an understanding of the art of salesmanship. We are all salesmen regardless of our calling. But not all of us are Master Salesmen!

The politician must sell his way into office. If he remains in office, he must keep himself sold to his constituency.

The salaried person must sell himself into a job. Salesmanship must be used to keep the position after it has been obtained.

If a man seeks a loan at a bank, he must sell the banker on making the loan.

The clergyman must sell his sermons, and himself as well, to his followers. If he is a poor salesman, he soon finds himself looking for another “call.”

The lawyer must sell the merits of his client’s case to the judge and jury even if he knows his case has but little merit.

If a man chooses to marry, he must sell himself to the woman of his choice, although the woman may, and often does, remove many of the obstacles in the path of the sale.

Everybody will agree with this statement.

The day laborer must sell himself to his employer, although the form of salesmanship required is not as difficult as that which must be employed by the man who sells himself into a job at $50,000 a year.

These are examples of salesmanship through which people sell intangibles. Any form of effort through which one person persuades another to cooperate is salesmanship. Most efforts at salesmanship are weak; and for this reason most people are poor salesmen.

If a man attains a high station in life, it is because he has acquired or was blessed with native ability as a salesman. Schooling, college degrees, intellect, brilliancy, are of no avail to the man who lacks the ability to attract the cooperative efforts of others, thus to create opportunities for himself. These qualities help a man to make the most of opportunity once he gets it. But he must first contact or create the opportunity to be worked on. Perhaps, by the law of averages, opportunity is thrust upon one out of every hundred thousand people. The others must create opportunity. Moreover, salesmanship is often as necessary in the development of opportunity as in its creation.

“Salesmanship” in this book applies not merely to marketing commodities and services. You can sell your personality. You must do it! As a matter of fact, the major objective in writing this book was to teach men and women how to sell their way through life successfully using the selling strategy and the psychology used by the Master Salesman in selling goods and services.

Herbert Hoover was handicapped during his youth by the loss of his parents. Millions of other orphans have lived and died without having had the opportunity to make themselves known outside of the local communities in which they existed. What distinguishing features did Mr. Hoover possess to enable him to set his sails in the direction of the White House and ride with the winds of fortune to that high goal? He discovered how to sell his way through life successfully. This book is to teach others to do the same.

Jean Beltrand has given five definitions of salesmanship, as follows:

FIRST: Selling is the ability to make known your faith, goods, or propositions to a person or persons, to a point of creating a desire for a privilege, an opportunity, possession, or an interest.

SECOND: Selling is the ability of professional and public men to render services, assistance, and cooperation, to a point of creating a desire on the part of the people to remunerate, recognize, and honor.

THIRD: Selling is the ability to perform work, duties, and services as an employee, to a point of creating a desire on the part of an employer to remunerate, promote, and praise.

FOURTH: Selling is the ability to be polite, kind, agreeable, and considerate, to a point of creating a desire upon the part of those you meet to respect, love, and honor you.

FIFTH: Selling is the ability to write, design, paint, invent, create, compose, or accomplish anything, to a point of creating a desire upon the part of the people to acclaim its possessors as heroes, celebrities, and great men.

These definitions are very broad. They might easily cover a great variety of all human activity. The whole of any life is one long, unbroken chain of sales endeavor.

The newly born babe is a salesman! When it wants food, it yells for it and gets it! When it is in pain, it yells for attention and gets that, too.

Women are the greatest salespeople on earth. They are superior to men because they are more subtle, more dramatic, and use greater finesse. Men often believe they are selling themselves to women in proposals of marriage. Generally, however, it is the woman who does the selling. She does it by making herself charming, attractive, and alluring.

While Mr. Beltrand’s definitions are comprehensive, I would add to his list one more, viz:

“Selling is the art of planting in the mind of another a motive which will induce favorable action.”

The importance of this definition will be apparent throughout the book.

The Master Salesman becomes a master because of his or her ability to induce other people to act upon motives without resistance or friction.

There is but little competition with Master Salesmen because there are so few of them!

Master Salesmen know what they want. They know how to plan the acquiring of what they want. Moreover, they have the initiative to put into action such a plan.

There are two forms of sales endeavor. One: when the salesman is negotiating with but one person. Two: when the salesman is negotiating with a group of people. The latter is commonly known as group selling or public speaking.

The Master Salesman’s education is not complete unless he has the ability to persuade groups of people as well as influence individuals. The ability to speak to groups with that force which carries conviction is a priceless asset. It has given more than one man his big opportunity. This ability must be self-acquired. It is an art that can be acquired only through study, effort, and experience.

Here are some specific instances:

William Jennings Bryan lifted himself from obscurity to a position of national prominence through his famous “Cross of Gold” speech, during a Democratic National Convention.

Patrick Henry immortalized himself through his famous “Give me liberty or give me death” speech in the days of the American Revolution. But for that speech, his name might never have known its heritage.

Robert Ingersoll changed the trend of theology by his eloquent art in forceful group salesmanship.

The Master Salesman has the ability to influence people through the printed page as well as by the spoken word.

Elbert Hubbard accumulated a modest fortune and indelibly impressed his name upon the minds of men through the selling power of his pen.

Perhaps Thomas Paine, through the power of his pen, did more than any other one person to inspire the American Revolution.

Benjamin Franklin immortalized himself and left his imprint for good upon civilization by the forceful simplicity and quaintness of his written salesmanship.

Abraham Lincoln immortalized himself through a single speech, his Gettysburg Address—simple in theme, pure in composition, moving in thought.

The spirit of Jesus Christ goes marching on, influencing hundreds of millions of people 2,000 years after his death because he was a Master Salesman. He built his sales presentation around a motive universally acceptable.

Caesar, Alexander, Napoleon, the ex-kaiser Wilhelm of Germany, and hundreds of others of their type were also Master Salesmen. But they built their sales presentations around motives that were destructive of the best impulses in civilization. They sold and delivered wars—wars for which the people paid in blood and tears and suffering.

Enduring success in selling is always predicated upon sound motive ! Remember this, you who aspire to mastery in selling. Sell neither stones nor serpents nor swords!

The world now faces the greatest opportunity for Master Salesmanship in history. The Business Depression left wounds in millions of hearts that must be healed. Only master salesmanship can do it. New leaders and a new brand of leadership are needed throughout the world in almost every line of human endeavor. This is a great reconstruction period. It is rich with opportunity for Master Salesmen who have the imagination to build their sales efforts around motives that are beneficial to the general public, and who release their full energies through their work.

Class privileges are passing! Mass privileges are in the ascendancy. Remember this, too, when selecting a motive as the guiding spirit of your sales efforts: The people must be served.

The whole of America stands at the crossroads of progress waiting for able leadership. Millions of people have been slowed down by fear and indecision. Here is an unparalleled opportunity for men and women who are prepared to adapt themselves to the new brand of leadership, fortified by courage, dedicated to service.

High-pressure salesmanship, of which we heard so much during the last 20 years, is now a thing of the past. The “go-getter” will have to make room for the “go-giver” in every walk of life, selling included.

The successful leader of the future, whether in the field of selling or in other walks of life, must make the Golden Rule the basis of his leadership.

In the future, the question of paramount importance will be: “How much can I give in the way of service to others?” not, “How much can I get away with and keep out of jail?”

A great economic renaissance is sweeping the entire world!

The man who cannot see this is mentally and morally blind. The old order of things in business and industry has already been swept away, and a new order is rapidly taking its place. Wise beyond description is the person who sees this change and adapts himself to it harmoniously—without force!

We are approaching an era during which we shall see the reincarnation of the spirit of Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin and George Washington and Abraham Lincoln in politics and the reincarnation of the spirit of Marshall Field and John Wanamaker in the fields of industry, business, and finance.

The people have become rebellious against the oppression forced upon them by the avaricious and the greedy. This spirit of resentment is not transient. It will remain until it rights a wrong. It will gain organized momentum. America will not soon again see the sad spectacle of millions of people starving to death in the midst of an overabundance of both the necessities and the luxuries of life.

We are on the grand concourse that leads out of the wilderness of human exploitation, and we are not going to be driven or coerced into giving up our rights to remain on this highway.

These statements of fact and of prophecy may be helpful to those who aspire to leadership in the field of selling or in some other walk of life. Men who have imagination will not wait for time to prove their soundness. They will anticipate the changes that are to take place and will adapt themselves to the new conditions.

The great changes occasioned by the economic upheaval that has thrown millions out of adjustment in all fields of human activity accentuates the need for discovering those fundamental principles by which one may come back into the path of ordered progress. Since all people must use some form of salesmanship to right themselves and to adjust themselve...