To-day there are many men and women attracted by the big profits in salesmanship, who would like to become salesmen and saleswomen, but they feel they have not this natural aptitude to insure permanent success.
It is true that, just as certain men and women are born with natural gifts for music and for art, so certain men and women have, in a high degree, the natural qualities which enable them to succeed in selling either their brain power or merchandise. But while it is true that some people have more natural capacity than others, it is not true to-day, and it was never true in the fine arts, in athletics, or in commercial pursuits, that the untrained man is the equal of the trained man.
Man is always improving Nature, or, if you prefer, he is always helping Nature. Central Park, New York, is more beautiful because the landscape gardener has been helping Nature; the farmer is the reaper of bigger and better crops because he is following the advice of the chemist, who tells him how to fertilize the soil; the Delaware River and Hell Gate have become more easily navigable, because the engineer has removed obstacles which Nature had placed in those waters; Colorado’s arid lands are irrigated, thanks to the skill of the civil engineer; the horticulturist aids Nature by grafting and pruning; the scientist comes to the help of human nature with antiseptic methods in surgery; and the inventor shows Nature how electricity can be put to numberless practical uses.
Let us not fool ourselves; we need to study, we need to be trained for every business in life. And in these days the training by which natural defects are overcome and natural aptitude is developed into effective ability can be obtained by every youth. No matter how great your natural ability in any direction, in order to get the best results, it must be reënforced by this special training.
The untrained man may get results here and there because he has natural ability and unconsciously uses the right methods. The trained man is getting results regularly because he is consistently using the right methods.
Business men no longer attribute a lost sale, where it should have been made, to “hard luck,” but to ignorance of the science of salesmanship.
The “born” salesman is not as much in vogue as formerly. Business is becoming a science, and almost any honest, dead-in-earnest, determined youth can become an expert in it, if he is willing to pay the price.
It is scientific salesmanship to-day, and not luck, that gets the order.