Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: the answer when the traveling man asked what was wrong with the present job. A little later, the proprietor of that store asked the traveling man if he could put him next to a man who could make the most of a good opportunity there in the store—said the young man at present in the job wasn't alive to the possibilities! Who was right? It reminds us of the advertising man, who, on resigning, was asked by the boss to advertise for a successor. The ad. man's own advertisement about the possibilities of the job was so convincing that it changed his decision about leaving. THE STEPS OF A SALE Analyzing a sale from the scientific point of view, we find that there are just four steps, which are well represented by the following four words: Attention. Interest. Belief. Action. Every exchange transaction does not necessarily include all of these steps. The customer may know the merchandise so thoroughly that he believes in it fully even before he enters the store. But in such cases the salesman can hardly be said to make a sale; it is rather a case of filling an order. Speaking from a salesmanship point of view, the word "sale" refers to a transaction where the salesman is called on to present the merits of the goods. The attention must be favorable. Mark that. It is easy to get a certain kind of attention, but unless the attention is favorable, it counts for little or nothing. Advertisements, window-displays, and counter-displays aid greatly in securing favorable attention. With favorable attention secured, it is the salesman's next task to develop that attention into interest, and to build up the customer's belief in the merit or desirability of the article. This may mean determining and removing various objections or doubts that are in the customer's mind...