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SIXTY PAGES.
REVIEW
V O L . X L V I I . N o . 2 1 . Published Every Saturday by Edward Lyman BUI at 1 Madison Ave., New York, November 21,1908. SINGL$ ioS 0 PEi S YE°AR CENTS
I
It is a natural law that men are prone to fear the unknown and it is a law of salesmanship that
salesmen most fear the competition which they least understand.
Every salesman should get acquainted with a competitor's wares that seem most formidable to
him, not in order to "knock" them when speaking to a prospect, but simply because it will enable him
to stand his ground manfully and meet any argument which a prospect may hurl at him in some
sweeping statement about the Blank piano.
Convincing statements cannot be made by "knocking" or by abuse and weakness in the mind
will surely betray itself in the salesman's face. His face unconsciously will somehow take on a
look of tacit admission and to recover himself he is too apt to resort to a torrent of abuse. Now abuse
never did or never will constitute argument and in the minds of successful people, the man who re-
sorts to such methods is invariably injured in the estimation of prospective customers. The way to
meet competition is to meet it manfully and not by "knocking."
Competition in general is apt to be very much over-rated by salesmen. It has been over-rated
by all kinds of men ever since the civilized world began. Doubtless the first man who began to print
a newspaper in a city trembled with fear when he heard that some one else was about to put in an-
other one.
We indulge perhaps too much in "knocking" and unfortunately it seems natural in business
circles to resort to abuse. Even trade papers are not exempt and it is a popular tendency to bewail the
inaccuracies of the press." But when you contemplate the haste with which newspapers are prepared,
it is really marvelous that mistakes are not more frequent than they are.
A Kentucky editor who performed all his own work, even to setting the type, once published
this paragraph: "Col. Mose Brown, a battle scared veteran of the Civil War, was in town this
week." Col. Brown was indignant and demanded "a retraction, sah." Next week the editor made
a correction, which was as follows: "We referred last week to Col. Mose Brown, of Tottenville,
and termed him a 'battle scared veteran/ We intended to say 'a bottle-scarred veteran/ " So mis-
takes will occur, no matter how studiously we may seek to avoid them.
Mistakes, yes, but ofttimes of the head and not of the heart.
"Knocking," yes, any amount of it, and the evils of competition too frequently arise through
participation of inefficient men in business affairs.
Before any man attempts to criticise the work of another he should first acquaint himself with
the merits or demerits of that product.
Men who shout the loudest about the evils of competition are the first to violate aU the
ethics of good business. What we need is the old-fashioned code of good business morals for sales-
man and merchant. For us all for that matter for
We are hurrying all together
Toward the silence and the night;
There is nothing worth the seeking
But the sun-kissed moral height—
There is nothing worth the doing
But the doing of the right.
EDWARD LYMAN BILL,