A necessary ingredient of real salesmanship is constructive persuasion. As an example of constructive persuasion, suppose you set off with your mind fairly well made up to buy the new model Chevrolet, and when you come to your dealer’s place you discover he is handling the Ford.
Now your intent to buy a Chevrolet comes up against your belief in the dealer, Mr. Marks, who has previously shown a good understanding of your car requirements. He knows that you use your car for business that you are reimbursed for company mileage at seven cents a mile. You have traded in your car every second year and received what you considered a fair allowance.
In the back of your mind as you enter this dealer’s place there is a big question:
Are you going to be persuaded to buy a Ford instead f a Chevrolet? Most of us pride ourselves on being open minded. You may have been thinking of a new Chevrolet. But you want help in making sure that this is the best investment. You have no selfish reason for buying a General Motors product. You don’t own any GM stock or have any relatives employed by GM or sell any of your products to GM distributors. If you are quite frank with yourself; you enter because you want this dealer’s viewpoint on your next car.
A characteristic of real salesmanship is that it always involves persuasion to accept a viewpoint. The dealer, if he is a creative salesman, will point out what he sincerely believes to be the superior features of the Ford. He will try to convince you that the Ford best fills your needs. He will try to get you to accept his viewpoint.
But the beggar peddler and the pitchman use persuasion, too. Obviously, creative salesmanship goes beyond merely convincing a customer that he should buy the salesman’s product. There is another and distinctive feature of real salesmanship. Let’s call it continued conviction.