devote one evening a week to the study of influencing human behavior, to help him develop new ideas and generate new enthusiasm. He decided on this new approach. With half a dozen unfinished artists’ sketches under his arm, he rushed over to the buyer’s office. "I want you to do me a little favor, if you will,” he said. “‘Here are some uncompleted sketches. Won’t you please tell me how we could finish them up in such a way that you could use them?” The buyer looked at the sketches for a while without uttering a word. Finally he said: “Leave these with me for a few days, Wesson, and then come back and see me.” Wesson returned three davs later, got his suggestions, took the sketches back to the studio and had them finished according to the buyer’s ideas. The result? All accepted. After that, this buyer ordered scores of other sketches from Wesson, all drawn according to the buyer’s ideas. “I realized why I had failed for years to sell him,” said Mr. Wesson. " I had urged him to buy what I thought he ought to have. Then I changed my approach completely. I urged him to give me his ideas. This made him feel that he was creating the designs. And he was. I didn’t have to sell him. He bought.” Letting the other person feel that the idea is his or hers not only works in business and politics, it works in family life as well. Paul M. Davis of Tulsa, Oklahoma, told his class how he applied this principle: “My family and I enjoyed one of the most interesting sightseeing vacation trips we have ever taken. I had long dreamed of visiting such historic sites as the Civil War battlefield in Gettysburg, Independence Hall in Philadelphia, and our nation’s capital. Valley Forge, James-town and the restored colonial village of Williamsburg were high on the list of things I wanted to see. “In March my wife, Nancy, mentioned that she had ideas for our summer vacation which included a tour of the western states, visiting points of interest in New Mexico, Arizona, California and Nevada. She had wanted to make this trip for several years. But we couldn’t obviously make both trips.
151
Powered by FlippingBook