To be an expert in reading human nature is just as valuable to a salesman as a knowledge of law is to a lawyer, or as a knowledge of medicine is to a physician. The man who can read human nature, who can “size up” a person quickly, who can arrive at an accurate estimate of character, no matter what his vocation or profession, has a great advantage over others.
The ability to read human nature is a cultivatable quality, and we have a great opportunity in this country, with its conglomerate population, to study the various types of character. It is an education in itself to form the habit of measuring, weighing, estimating the different people we meet, for in this way we are improving our own powers of observation, sharpening our perceptive faculties, improving our judgment.
The salesman who knows anything about human nature, for instance, doesn’t need to be told it won’t do to approach a big business man, the head of a great establishment, as one would approach a small dealer. He will follow a different method with each, according to their different standing and temperament.
No two mentalities are exactly alike, and you must approach each one through the avenue of the least resistance. One man you can approach through his fads. If he is passionately fond of music or crazy about golf; or if he is a connoisseur in art, in sculpture, or in any other line, this may give you a hint as to the right line of approach.
If you see by a man’s head and face that he has a strong mentality, that he is, perhaps, “from Missouri,” you must approach him through argument, through reason. You cannot approach him in the same way you would an impressionable, fat, jolly-natured man. Then the man who is selfish, domineering, imperious, who thinks he knows it all, the man to whom you never can tell anything, must be handled in quite a different manner from any of these.
Some men will take a joke, others will consider it an impertinence. One man is only convinced by logical argument; another by the judicious use of flattery. The frigid mental temperament will not respond to pleasantry; nothing but cold logic will appeal to him; the expansive, good-natured man is often reached through his fad or hobby. Sometimes you get a point of contact with your prospective customer by finding that you belong to the same lodge. Of course, it is always a good thing to find out as much as possible about a man before you call on him. Such knowledge often gives a great advantage in sizing him up properly.
If you are a good reader of character, however, you get at a glance an impression of your prospect that is fairly reliable. You can tell whether you are facing a little, weazened, dried-up soul, a man who is stingy, selfish, grasping, or whether he is a man of generous impulses, magnanimous, open-minded, kind-hearted. You can tell whether he is good-natured, jolly; whether it will do to crack a joke with him, or whether he is austere and stern; whether you can approach him in an easy, friendly manner, or whether you must keep your distance and approach him with a proper sense of his dignity and importance. Even if your prospect only assumes a stiff, stand-off demeanor you must treat him as though it were perfectly natural, otherwise he will be offended.
In sizing up a man the first thing to do is to make up your mind what kind of a heart he has. If you conclude that he has a good heart, and that he is honest and above board, even though he may be cold in appearance, and may prove a bit close-fisted, you will stand a much better chance in doing business with him than you would with a man with small shifty eyes, and the earmarks of shrewd, sharp characteristics apparent in every feature and every look.
You can read a man by his facial expression much better than you can by the bumps on his head, because the muscles of the face respond to the passing thought and reflect the idea, the emotion, every phase of the mental state. You know how quickly a joke, something funny, is expressed in the facial muscles; how quickly they respond to any mental state-disappointment, bad news, discouragement, sorrow, anger. The muscles of the face, its varying expressions, change with the thought. In other words, the facial expression indicates the condition of a man’s mind. By this you can tell whether your prospect is in a good or a bad humor, whether he is a human icicle, cold, unfeeling, or a human magnet, tender, kind, sympathetic.
Salesmen who are poor judges of human nature, who cannot size people up, often have to batter away a long time at a wrong approach when, otherwise, they could sail right into a man’s mind through the right avenue. By making head study, face study, man study, an art, you can very quickly get your line of approach. Then you will not blunder and lose time in trying to set yourself right. Many a man calls upon a prospective buyer and goes away without an order because he didn’t know how to size him up. He had never studied this important side of his business.