Chapter 24 A Lesson In Salesmanship At The Seashore
Selling is like fishing. You must bait your hook with the food the prospect likes. Joseph Day sells Carnegie a building.
FLUKE ARE FISH caught in salt water, and they are quite abundant around Long Island. I like to fish for fluke. It is an interesting sport at times, although fluke are lazy fish. They are thin and wide. Some people c all them “door mats.” They are white on the bottom and dark on the top. This is for protection. The dark top is invisible from above the fish. The fluke swims close to the bottom of the sea. It is easy-going and is influenced by the tides. When the tide begins to flow, the fluke is stirred up, permits itself to move in the direction of the tide. To catch the fluke, you attach a live killie, a small fish about two or three times the size of a minnow, by its tail to a hook with a three-foot leader and a sinker that takes the killie down close to the bottom of the sea. The killie swims around trying to get away from the hook that is holding it by its tail. The fluke opens its mouth, takes the killie’s head, and holds it for several minutes. The fisherman do esn’t realize this. After a while the fisherman becomes restless and begins moving the line up and down, and the killie begins to slide out of the fluke’s mouth. The fluke is evidently warned that it is going to lose the killie and so he takes the killie entirely into its mouth. Hooking The Fluke If the fisherman stops moving the line, the fluke continues to hold the killie in its mouth, but if the fisherman again moves the line, the fluke becomes fearful of losing the nice morsel and swallows the killie entirely. He is then hooked. Now the experienced fisherman knows this eating habit of the fluke. He raises his anchor and allows his boat to drift with the tide, so that the killie is drifting on the sea bottom when it comes upon a lazy fluke. The fluk e takes hold of the killie’s head, immediately feels the killie start drifting away, and, fearing he will lose his bait, swallows it and is hooked. Therefore, if you want to catch fluke, keep the line moving up and down. Drift with the tide and you will float by the lazy fluke. On the other hand, if you let the
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