Better Salesmanship

A Discussion at the Redwood Salesmen's Meeting, San Francisco, on February llth,, 1927

"Almost the first step towards better salesmanship is dissatisfaction with what we are now doing, dissatisfaction with our present salesmanship. Dissatisfaction is almost necessary to improvement; that is, if it does not lead toward discouragement or if it does not lead to continually changing without getting anywhere. But if it leads to digging in on our present opportunities, being dissatisfied with the results we are getting, and if it leads to a determination to improve the results then it certainly is to our advantage.

One of the outstanding traits of the general public, of the Redwood industry and of ourselves is the desire to keep things as they Are, getting into a rut-the great resistance against change, against doing anything that has not been done in the past. This might be called the public inertia. We all have it, and it is a good thing if it is just a resistance against change instead of a refusal to try to do anything torvards improvement.

There is an army of people called salesmen that are continually attacking or bombarding this public inertia, this resistance against change, and this resistance is a good thing because it makes salesmen or any new idea make extra efforts to prove themselves to be an advantage; It makes it necessary and gives a reward for efficiency in salesmanship. But, any new improvement that we can think of, any new idea had to meet general resistance before it was accepted.

The public is against change and fights it in many cases; nevertheless, when the public is changed to its advantage it will give a reward in accordance with the advantages received. And one of the most necessary things to bring about any change in the general public is to implant dissatisfaction with what they already have and a desire for something that is better.

So we come back to dissatisfaction-if it is followed up correctly it is one of the desirable qualifications for im- provement. Dissatisfaction is what has really brought about many of the progressive thingS that we have done in the Redwood industry. The California Redwood Association and its work is-the result of dissatisfaction with the way things are. All future progress towards bettering our Redwood condition is going to come about through even more intense dissatisfaction and a realizatiitn that it is not from outside help but by what we do ourselves that the Redwood industry will be put on a satisfactory basis.

A Redwood representative who realizes that he is a poor salesman but starts and continues to study and plan out things that will make towards better salesmanship is the one that is going to not only reap more personal advantage but is going to be an advantage to the Redwdod industry. The worst enemy is a smug complacency in what we arc now doing, figuring that we cannot do better, thinking that we are already getting good results and classifying ourselves as good salesmen. The sooner we get this idea out of our systems, the sooner we can start to improve.

An industry, an organization, or a person can never be perfect in what they are doing. There is always room for improvement, but one of the common traits with all of us, either as an industry or personally, is to soothe ourselves into the belief that we are doing just about as good as can'be done and anyone is a fool that tries to make changes for the better.

When it comes to salesmanship, the chances for irhprovement are tremendous as no one has come anywhere near reaching perfection in salesmanship and a re"f good salesman is very rare. When we have reached the point where we really want to try to improve ourselves or improve u'hat we are doing, then we will find that there is a wonderful field and wonderful opportunities in salesmanship. We will find that it has developed into being a profession

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