Many times when you hear the term salesman or salesmanship you think in terms of someone selling you a product such as a car, phone, cloths, or other goods and services, but rarely does anyone realize that the first thing that EVERY person must learn how to sell is themselves.
From the time you’re a child until the day you die you are always in the process of trying to sell yourself to others; you sell yourself to your family to get them to like and respect you; you sell yourself to your friends and teachers to have them like and respect you and admire you; you sell yourself to people to get that special someone to love you; you are always selling yourself in some way, shape or form.
You do not need to master selling if you are happy with your life, but if you wish to ensure your success and succeed at life you need to master salesmanship; studying the “Laws of Success” will give you a great foundation on which to build and master your self-salesmanship.
On key factor in developing great self-salesmanship is to recognize your weakness and overcome them. No all people are willing to do acknowledge their weakness; they are too tied up in being who they are and prefer to life with their illusion of denial.
You must have an open mind when learning to prefect your self-salesmanship and be open to new techniques and ideas. You must evaluate these new principles and decide if they are useful; you must always question but with an open mind willing to accept whatever it is you may find.
Carl Lomen, known as the reindeer king of Alaska use to love telling a story that shows the results of having a closed mind. During one of the early American North Pole expeditions a certain Greenland Eskimo was a member of the crew and because of his great help during the expedition he was taken to New York City for a visit. He was amazed at all the sites he saw and everything he experienced and couldn’t wait to get home to tell his village.
Upon arriving back in Greenland he told everyone in the village about all the wondrous sites he had seen on his visit; buildings that rose high into the sky, street cars which he described as moving houses with people living inside, mammoth bridges, artificial lights, the masses of people and all the other things that amazed him during his visit.
When He finished telling his story the people gave his a cold look and walked away and from that point on called him “Sagdluk,” meaning Liar, his true name, after time was forgotten and he remained Sagdluk for the rest of his life.
Not many years later another Greenland Eskimo, Mitek (Eider Duck), visited Copenhagen and New Your where he saw the same amazing things but when he returned home he remembered how Sagdluk was treated and decided that it would not be wise to tell the truth. Instead Mitek told stories that his people would believe and in the eyes of his people was a great and honest man.
Truth tellers have always had a hard road to follow; Christ was crucified, Stephen stoned, Bruno burned at the stake and Galileo terrified by the church into retract his scientific finding about the solar system.
Part of developing master salesmanship is the ability to keep an open mind and accept new truths when presented with facts. Never believe you know everything or that something is impossible just because you haven’t seen it.
This does not me to be so open minded that you believe everything you are told, check things out, verify and backup what you are told with as much facts as you can, when no fact are available accept the possibility that what you have been told MAY be true.
Something in human nature resists change and new ideas; we hate to disturber our beliefs and prejudices that we learned and nurtured; it’s admitting you have been wrong. Some people are so resistant to change that they will not even look at the facts shown to them or even for a second consider change.
Master salesmanship requires an open mind, admitting when you are wrong and accepting new ideas when they are justified and back by proof that you accept.
