Your abstract knowledge may be valueless. In order to succeed certainly you must connect the things you have learned with particular people in particular fields of activity. When you have developed the power of relating your individual ability to every imaginable use, your mental eyes will be opened to many opportunities for success that you otherwise might never perceive. Such an association of what you know and can do with the various ways your capabilities might be utilized will tremendously augment your self-confidence. When you realize in how many ways it is possible to use your especial talents, you will not be likely to doubt your own worth. You will offer your qualifications for sale with complete faith in their value to prospective buyers.
Insurance Against Undervaluation
Thorough preparation in comprehension of values is the salesman's best protection against a personal inclination, or an outside temptation, to cut prices. If your preparation for your chosen career has been limited to gaining knowledge, and you have not studied its true worth to every imaginable prospective buyer, you will be apt often to offer your services for far less than their full value. Conversely sometimes you will be likely to think your services are worth more than they really are. You may fail to close sales because your price is too high. A pre-requisite of good salesmanship is the right price. If your preparation for selling your services has been thorough, you will realize the exact worth of your knowledge and skill. You will neither suggest inferior value by quoting a cut price on your capabilities, nor demand so much as to indicate the characteristics of displeasing egotism or greed. If you know what you are truly worth, you will make the right price on your real value. Then your self-confidence in your worth will lend you power to convince the other man that your services would be a good "buy" for him.
Seeing Into Opportunities
If you can imagine all the various uses to which your ability might be put, you will appreciate the full value of every opportunity you perceive. Not only will you see the chances for success that are all about you, but you will see into them. When your mind catches sight of success chances, they will look familiar to you because of their similarity to opportunities you previously had thought about and connected with your own qualifications. If you are prepared to perceive and to appreciate fully each indication of a success opportunity that comes within the range of your mental vision, you will promptly begin working a chance "for all it is worth," as if it were a newly discovered gold mine.
Service Purpose In Preparation
Possibly what you have read has unduly impressed you with the idea that the salesman's motive in his preparation is selfish. So perhaps it is well to pause here for the reminder that your primary salesmanship purpose should be true service. You are preparing yourself thoroughly in knowledge of your full sales value, as a measure of success insurance and self-protection. It is not true sales service to give a buyer value greatly in excess of the price quoted. It is right for you to make sure in advance about your full worth. However, the obligation to render service is the principal element of right salesmanship, and should come before the objective of a good price. Prepare then primarily to serve your prospect. Demonstrate your true service purpose, and he will give secondary consideration to the cost of engaging your qualifications for his business.
Pleasing Character
You can serve best if you please in rendering service. Therefore prepare your self, your knowledge, and all your methods so that from the moment you make your first impression on a prospective employer, you will please him. Do not prepare for the interview with the purpose of pleasing yourself. What you like may be distasteful to the man you want to impress.
Since you cannot tell in advance when or where you may encounter a prospective buyer of your services, you will not be safeguarding every possible chance to succeed unless you wear your "company manners" all the time. You always should dress carefully, act with painstaking courtesy, and conduct yourself as if you might meet a rich relation at any moment. You certainly can expect more wealth from "making yourself solid" with Opportunity than you ever are likely to be willed by a millionaire uncle. It will pay you much better to please Opportunity in general than to ingratiate yourself with any person in particular.