When you call on another person or meet him in a business transaction you naturally have in mind a definite idea of what you want to accomplish. That is, if you expect to carry your point. You know that this end cannot be reached except by a presentation which will put your proposition in such a favorable light, or offer such an inducement, or so mould the minds of others to your way of thinking that they will agree with you. And so before you meet the other person you proceed to plan your campaign, your talk, your attitude to fit his personality and the conditions under which you expect to meet.
An advertising man in an eastern mining town was commissioned to write a series of letters to miners, urging upon them the value of training in a night school about to be opened. Now he knew all about the courses the school would offer and he was strong on generalities as to the value of education. But try as he would, the letters refused to take shape. Then suddenly he asked himself, "What type of man am I really trying to reach?"
And there lay the trouble. He had never met a miner face to face in his life. As soon as he realized this he reached for his hat and struck out for the nearest coal breaker. He put in two solid days talking with miners, getting a line on the average of intelligence, their needs—the point of contact. Then he came back and with a vivid picture of his man in mind, he produced a series of letters that glowed with enthusiasm and sold the course.
A number of years ago a printer owning a small shop in an Ohio city set out to find a dryer that would enable him to handle his work faster and without the costly process of "smut-sheeting." He interested a local druggist who was something of a chemist and together they perfected a dryer that was quite satisfactory and the printer decided to market his product. He wrote fifteen letters to acquaintances and sold eleven of them. Encouraged, he got out one hundred letters and sold sixty-four orders. On the strength of this showing, his banker backed him for the cost of a hundred thousand letters and fifty-eight thousand orders were the result.
The banker was interested in a large land company and believing the printer must be a veritable wizard in writing letters, made him an attractive offer to take charge of the advertising for the company's Minnesota and Canada lands.
The man sold his business, accepted the position—and made a signal failure. He appealed to the printers because he knew their problems—the things that lost them money, the troubles that caused them sleepless nights—and in a letter that bristled with shop talk he went straight to the point, told how he could help them out of at least one difficulty—and sold his product.
But when it came to selling western land he was out of his element. He had never been a hundred miles away from his home town; he had never owned a foot of real estate; "land hunger" was to him nothing but a phrase; the opportunities of a "new country" were to him academic arguments—they were not realities.
He lost his job. Discouraged but determined, he moved to Kansas where he started a small paper—and began to study the real estate business. One question was forever on his lips: "Why did you move out here?" And to prospective purchasers, "Why do you want to buy Kansas land? What attracts you?"
Month after month he asked these questions of pioneers and immigrants. He wanted their viewpoint, the real motive that drove them westward. Then he took in a partner, turned the paper over to him and devoted his time to the real estate business. Today he is at the head of a great land company and through his letters and his advertising matter he has sold hundreds of thousands of acres to people who have never seen the land. But he tells them the things they want to know; he uses the arguments that "get under the skin."
He spent years in preparing to write his letters and bought and sold land with prospects "face to face" long before he attempted to deal with them by letter. He talked and thought and studied for months before he dipped his pen into ink.