Establish confidence as quickly as possible. Business men are constantly dealing with mean, tricky men, unscrupulous men, hypnotizers, bull-dozers, but when they strike the real article, the genuine man, they will give him their confidence.
Remember your whole success will often turn on the first two or three minutes of your interview. Just here your knowledge of human nature is a tremendous factor. You must size up your man quickly and find the line of least resistance, the best approach to his mind. Not only his temperament but his health, the frame of mind he happens to be in, all must be taken in at a glance.
Be a tactful salesman. You will often be told that tact cannot be cultivated, that it is a quality that is born in one, but remember that every man is tactful when he is courting the girl he is dead in love with. If you are dead in love with your work and bound to win you will be tactful.
Make it an invariable rule never to use any influence or to say anything in the presence of a prospect which will lessen your self-respect. If you do, you lose power. You are not paid for being less than a man.
A real salesman sells goods. Fakers sell customers. Don’t be a mere order-taker; be a salesman.