The buyer looked at the sketches for a while without
uttering a word. Finally he said: “Leave these with me
for a few days, Wesson, and then come back and see
me.”
Wesson returned three davs later, got his suggestions,
took the sketches back to the studio and had them finished
according to the buyer’s ideas. The result? All accepted.
After that, this buyer ordered scores of other sketches
from Wesson, all drawn according to the buyer’s ideas.
“I realized why I had failed for years to sell him,” said
Mr. Wesson. ” I had urged him to buy what I thought he
ought to have. Then I changed my approach completely.
I urged him to give me his ideas. This made him feel
that he was creating the designs. And he was. I didn’t
have to sell him. He bought.”
Letting the other person feel that the idea is his or
hers not only works in business and politics, it works in
family life as well. Paul M. Davis of Tulsa, Oklahoma,
told his class how he applied this principle:
“My family and I enjoyed one of the most interesting
sightseeing vacation trips we have ever taken. I had long
dreamed of visiting such historic sites as the Civil War
battlefield in Gettysburg, Independence Hall in Philadelphia,
and our nation’s capital. Valley Forge, James-town
and the restored colonial village of Williamsburg
were high on the list of things I wanted to see.
“In March my wife, Nancy, mentioned that she had
ideas for our summer vacation which included a tour of
the western states, visiting points of interest in New
Mexico, Arizona, California and Nevada. She had
wanted to make this trip for several years. But we
couldn’t obviously make both trips.
“Our daughter, Anne, had just completed a course in
U.S. history in junior high school and had become very
interested in the events that had shaped our country’s
growth. I asked her how she would like to visit the
places she had learned about on our next vacation. She
said she would love to.
“Two evenings later as we sat around the dinner table,
Nancy announced that if we all agreed, the summer’s
vacation would be to the eastern states, that it would he
a great trip for Anne and thrilling for all of us. We all
concurred.”
This same psychology was used by an X-ray manufacturer
to sell his equipment to one of the largest hospitals
in Brooklyn This hospital was building an addition and
preparing to equip it with the finest X-ray department in
America. Dr. L—-, who was in charge of the X-ray department,
was overwhelmed with sales representatives,
each caroling the praises of his own company’s equipment.
One manufacturer, however, was more skillful. He
knew far more about handling human nature than the
others did. He wrote a letter something like this:
Our factory has recently completed a new line of X-ray
equipment. The first shipment of these machines has just
arrived at our office. They are not perfect. We know that,
and we want to improve them. So we should be deeply
obligated to you if you could find time to look them over
and give us your ideas about how they can be made more
serviceable to your profession. Knowing how occupied you
are, I shall be glad to send my car for you at any hour you
specify.
“I was surprised to get that letter,” Dr. L —- said as
he related the incident before the class. “I was both
surprised and complimented. I had never had an X-ray
manufacturer seeking my advice before. It made me feel
important. I was busy every night that week, but I canceled
a dinner appointment in order to look over the
equipment. The more I studied it, the more I discovered
for myself how much I liked it.
“Nobody had tried to sell it to me. I felt that the idea
of buying that equipment for the hospital was my own. I
sold myself on its superior qualities and ordered it installed.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson in his essay “Self-Reliance”
stated: “In every work of genius we recognize our own
rejected thoughts; they come back to us with a certain
alienated majesty.”
Colonel Edward M. House wielded an enormous influence
in national and international affairs while Woodrow
Wilson occupied the White House. Wilson leaned
upon Colonel House for secret counsel and advice more
than he did upon even members of his own cabinet.
What method did the Colonel use in influencing the
President? Fortunately, we know, for House himself revealed
it to Arthur D. Howden Smith, and Smith quoted
House in an article in The Saturday Evening Post.
” ‘After I got to know the President,’ House said, ‘I
learned the best way to convert him to an idea was to
plant it in his mind casually, but so as to interest him in
it – so as to get him thinking about it on his own account.
The first time this worked it was an accident. I had been
visiting him at the White House and urged a policy on
him which he appeared to disapprove. But several days
later, at the dinner table, I was amazed to hear him trot
out my suggestion as his own.’ ”
Did House interrupt him and say, “That’s not your
idea. That’s mine” ? Oh, no. Not House. He was too
adroit for that. He didn’t care about credit. He wanted
results. So he let Wilson continue to feel that the idea
was his. House did even more than that. He gave Wilson
public credit for these ideas.
Let’s remember that everyone we come in contact
with is just as human as Woodrow Wilson. So let’s use
Colonel House’s technique.
A man up in the beautiful Canadian province of New
Brunswick used this technique on me and won my patronage.
I was planning at the time to do some fishing
and canoeing in New Brunswick. So I wrote the tourist
bureau for information. Evidently my name and address
were put on a mailing list, for I was immediately overwhelmed
with scores of letters and booklets and printed
testimonials from camps and guides. I was bewildered.
I didn’t know which to choose. Then one camp owner
did a clever thing. He sent me the names and telephone
numbers of several New York people who had stayed at
his camp and he invited me to telephone them and discover
for myself what he had to offer.
I found to my surprise that I knew one of the men on
his list. I telephoned him, found out what his experience
had been, and then wired the camp the date of my arrival.
The others had been trying to sell me on their service,
but one let me sell myself. That organization won.
Twenty-five centuries ago, Lao-tse, a Chinese sage,
said some things that readers of this book might use
today:
” The reason why rivers and seas receive the homage
of a hundred mountain streams is that they keep below
them. Thus they are able to reign over all the mountain
streams. So the sage, wishing to be above men, putteth
himself below them; wishing to be before them, he putteth
himself behind them. Thus, though his place be
above men, they do not feel his weight; though his place
be before them, they do not count it an injury.”
PRINCIPLE 7
Let the other person feel that the idea is his or
hers.
8
A FORMULA THAT WILL WORK
WONDERS FOR YOU
Remember that other people may be totally wrong. But
they don’t think so. Don’t condemn them. Any fool can
do that. Try to understand them. Only wise, tolerant,
exceptional people even try to do that.
There is a reason why the other man thinks and acts
as he does. Ferret out that reason – and you have the key
to his actions, perhaps to his personality
.
Try honestly to put yourself in his place.
If you say to yourself, “How would I feel, how would
I react if I were in his shoes?” you will save yourself
time and irritation, for “by becoming interested in the
cause, we are less likely to dislike the effect.” And, in
addition, you will sharply increase your skill in human
relationships.
“Stop a minute,” says Kenneth M. Goode in his book
How to Turn People Into Gold, “stop a minute to contrast
your keen interest in your own affairs with your
mild concern about anything else. Realize then, that
everybody else in the world feels exactly the same way!
Then, along with Lincoln and Roosevelt, you will have
grasped the only solid foundation for interpersonal relationships;
namely, that success in dealing with people
depends on a sympathetic grasp of the other persons’
viewpoint.”
Sam Douglas of Hempstead, New York, used to tell
his wife that she spent too much time working on their
lawn, pulling weeds, fertilizing, cutting the grass twice
a week when the lawn didn’t look any better than it had
when they moved into their home four years earlier. Naturally,
she was distressed by his remarks, and each time
he made such remarks the balance of the evening was
ruined.
After taking our course, Mr. Douglas realized how
foolish he had been all those years. It never occurred to
him that she enjoyed doing that work and she might
really appreciate a compliment on her diligence.
One evening after dinner, his wife said she wanted to
pull some weeds and invited him to keep her company.
He first declined, but then thought better of it and went
out after her and began to help her pull weeds. She was
visibly pleased, and together they spent an hour in hard
work and pleasant conversation.
After that he often helped her with the gardening and
complimented her on how fine the lawn looked, what a
fantastic job she was doing with a yard where the soil
was like concrete. Result: a happier life for both because
he had learned to look at things from her point of view
– even if the subject was only weeds.
In his book Getting Through to People, Dr. Gerald S.
Nirenberg commented: “Cooperativeeness in conversation
is achieved when you show that you consider the
other person’s ideas and feelings as important as your
own. Starting your conversation by giving the other person
the purpose or direction of your conversation, governing
what you say by what you would want to hear if
you were the listener, and accepting his or her viewpoint
will encourage the listener to have an open mind
to your ideas.” *
* Dr Gerald S. Nirenberg, Getting Through to People (Englewood Cliffs,
N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1963), p. 31.
I have always enjoyed walking and riding in a park
near my home. Like the Druids of ancient Gaul, I all but
worship an oak tree, so I was distressed season after
season to see the young trees and shrubs killed off by
needless fires. These fires weren’t caused by careless
smokers. They were almost all caused by youngsters
who went out to the park to go native and cook a frankfurter
or an egg under the trees. Sometimes, these fires
raged so fiercely that the fire department had to be called
out to fight the conflagration.
There was a sign on the edge of the park saying that
anyone who started a fire was liable to fine and imprisonment,
but the sign stood in an unfrequented part of the
park, and few of the culprits ever saw it. A mounted
policeman was supposed to look after the park; but he
didn’t take his duties too seriously, and the fires continued
to spread season after season. On one occasion, I
rushed up to a policeman and told him about a fire
spreading rapidly through the park and wanted him to
notify the fire department, and he nonchalantly replied
that it was none of his business because it wasn’t in his
precinct! I was desperate, so after that when I went riding,
I acted as a self-appointed committee of one to protect