“It (suggestion) can also help you to shape the desires and direct the will of the customers you seek to influence.” In the first place, we direct the will of our customers by our very personality, which has been developed through auto-suggestion. Then the various steps of attention, interest, desire, and, finally, resolve, in the customer, must be induced by suggestion. He must forget himself and his own senses, ultimately; or at least, he must have had all his faculties so brought into harmony with those of the salesman that he readily accepts the salesman’s ideas. “If you remember that suggestion is merely the working of the subjective mental force,” says Mr. Sheldon, “and if you consider that the activity of the subjective mind is in ratio to the strength and depth of the suggestion, you have a pretty clear idea of the use that may be made of suggestion in the progress of a sale.”
I have heard the story of a preacher, in Washington, who told his congregation so dramatically and so convincingly that all humanity was hanging over hell by the single thread of a cobweb, that, when the climax was reached, one man, a very learned one too, was clinging frantically to a pillar.
The simple study of psychology reveals that the activities of the will must be stirred up by approaching and capturing the outlying sentinels, namely the intellect and feelings. We get attention through the senses, increase attention to interest through the intellect, change interest to desire through the feelings, and finally, in decision we have induced the will to act. To be sure, there is no mathematical dividing line, no architecturally apparent flights of steps; nevertheless, the true salesman is perfectly conscious of the different stages of progress of the customer’s mind, and he leads him easily and naturally from one to the other. The importance of this point in selling is emphasized by a writer in “Business Philosopher,” who says: “It is just as reasonable to expect your prospect to reach a favorable decision without first having been brought through the three earlier stages—attention, interest and desire—as to expect water to run up hill.”
A sale is a mental process, and depends largely upon the quality and the intensity of the mental suggestion, and the confidence communicated to the would-be purchaser’s mind.
Suggestion is properly used in the conduct of a sale when it is unobtrusive, and in no way savors of the pompous, swaggering, hypnotic methods of the impertinent intruder. Suggestion should be “honest and well aimed.” It should help the customer’s mind and inspire confidence. Suggestions to the customer should have for their object “not to overcome or dethrone the will, but simply to guide and influence it.” Hypnotism, consisting in dethroning a man’s will, is “the complete setting aside of the objective mind.” Every salesman should study psychology. He should be able to understand the mental laws by which the mind of his prospect acts, so as to be able to read his mental operations.
Character is largely made up of suggestion; life is largely based upon it. Salesmanship is pretty nearly all suggestion.
The salesman should always keep in mind this great truth,—“The greatest art is to conceal art.”
Suggestion, by its very nature, is subtle, if rightly used.
The salesman who has great skill in the use of suggestion helps the mind of the customer, without making him feel that any influence is being exerted. He leads his customer to buy after the same method by which Pope suggests men should be taught: