How To Win Friends And Influence People

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Sometimes it is difficult to remember a name, particularly if it is hard

to pronounce. Rather than even try to learn it, many people ignore it

or call the person by an easy nickname. Sid Levy called on a

customer for some time whose name was Nicodemus Papadoulos.

Most people just called him "Nick." Levy told us: "I made a special

effort to say his name over several times to myself before I made my

call. When I greeted him by his full name: 'Good afternoon, Mr.

Nicodemus Papadoulos,' he was shocked. For what seemed like

several minutes there was no reply from him at all. Finally, he said

with tears rolling down his cheeks, 'Mr. Levy, in all the fifteen years I

have been in this country, nobody has ever made the effort to call

me by my right name.' "

What was the reason for Andrew Carnegie's success?

He was called the Steel King; yet he himself knew little about the

manufacture of steel. He had hundreds of people working for him

who knew far more about steel than he did.

But he knew how to handle people, and that is what made him rich.

Early in life, he showed a flair for organization, a genius for

leadership. By the time he was ten, he too had discovered the

astounding importance people place on their own name. And he

used that discovery to win cooperation. To illustrate: When he was a

boy back in Scotland, he got hold of a rabbit, a mother rabbit.

Presto! He soon had a whole nest of little rabbits - and nothing to

feed them. But he had a brilliant idea. He told the boys and girls in

the neighborhood that if they would go out and pull enough clover

and dandelions to feed the rabbits, he would name the bunnies in

their honor.

The plan worked like magic, and Carnegie never forgot it.

Years later, he made millions by using the same psychology in

business. For example, he wanted to sell steel rails to the

Pennsylvania Railroad. J. Edgar Thomson was the president of the

Pennsylvania Railroad then. So Andrew Carnegie built a huge steel

mill in Pittsburgh and called it the "Edgar Thomson Steel Works."

Here is a riddle. See if you can guess it. When the Pennsylvania

Railroad needed steel rails, where do you suppose J. Edgar Thomson

bought them?. . , From Sears, Roebuck? No. No. You're wrong.

Guess again. When Carnegie and George Pullman were battling each

other for supremacy in the railroad sleeping-car business, the Steel

King again remembered the lesson of the rabbits.

The Central Transportation Company, which Andrew Carnegie

controlled, was fighting with the company that Pullman owned. Both

were struggling to get the sleeping-car business of the Union Pacific

Railroad, bucking each other, slashing prices, and destroving all

chance of profit. Both Carnegie and Pullman had gone to New York

to see the board of directors of the Union Pacific. Meeting one

evening in the St. Nicholas Hotel, Carnegie said: "Good evening, Mr.

Pullman, aren't we making a couple of fools of ourselves?"

"What do you mean.?" Pullman demanded.

Then Carnegie expressed what he had on his mind - a merger of

their two interests. He pictured in glowing terms the mutual

advantages of working with, instead of against, each other. Pullman

listened attentively, but he was not wholly convinced. Finally he

asked, "What would you call the new company?" and Carnegie

replied promptly: "Why, the Pullman Palace Car Company, of

course."

Pullman's face brightened. "Come into my room," he said. "Let's talk

it over." That talk made industrial history.

This policy of remembering and honoring the names of his friends

and business associates was one of the secrets of Andrew Carnegie's

leadership. He was proud of the fact that he could call many of his

factory workers by their first names, and he boasted that while he

was personally in charge, no strike ever disturbed his flaming steel

mills.

Benton Love, chairman of Texas Commerce Banc-shares, believes

that the bigger a corporation gets, the colder it becomes. " One way

to warm it up," he said, "is to remember people's names. The

executive who tells me he can't remember names is at the same time

telling me he can't remember a significant part of his business and is

operating on quicksand."

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Karen Kirsech of Rancho Palos Verdes, California, a flight attendant

for TWA, made it a practice to learn the names of as many

passengers in her cabin as possible and use the name when serving

them. This resulted in many compliments on her service expressed

both to her directly and to the airline. One passenger wrote: "I

haven't flown TWA for some time, but I'm going to start flying

nothing but TWA from now on. You make me feel that your airline

has become a very personalized airline and that is important to me."

People are so proud of their names that they strive to perpetuate

them at any cost. Even blustering, hard-boiled old P. T. Barnum, the

greatest showman of his time, disappointed because he had no sons

to carry on his name, offered his grandson, C. H. Seeley, $25,000

dollars if he would call himself "Barnum" Seeley.

For many centuries, nobles and magnates supported artists,

musicians and authors so that their creative works would be

dedicated to them.

Libraries and museums owe their richest collections to people who

cannot bear to think that their names might perish from the memory

of the race. The New York Public Library has its Astor and Lenox

collections. The Metropolitan Museum perpetuates the names of

Benjamin Altman and J. P. Morgan. And nearly every church is

beautified by stained-glass windows commemorating the names of

their donors. Many of the buildings on the campus of most

universities bear the names of donors who contributed large sums of

money for this honor.

Most people don't remember names, for the simple reason that they

don't take the time and energy necessary to concentrate and repeat

and fix names indelibly in their minds. They make excuses for

themselves; they are too busy.

But they were probably no busier than Franklin D. Roosevelt, and he

took time to remember and recall even the names of mechanics with

whom he came into contact.

To illustrate: The Chrysler organization built a special car for Mr.

Roosevelt, who could not use a standard car because his legs were

paralyzed. W. F. Chamberlain and a mechanic delivered it to the

White House. I have in front of me a letter from Mr. Chamberlain

relating his experiences. "I taught President Roosevelt how to handle

a car with a lot of unusual gadgets, but he taught me a lot about the

fine art of handling people.

"When I called at the White House," Mr. Chamberlain writes, "the

President was extremely pleasant and cheerful. He called me by

name, made me feel very comfortable, and particularly impressed

me with the fact that he was vitally interested in things I had to

show him and tell him. The car was so designed that it could be

operated entirely by hand. A crowd gathered around to look at the

car; and he remarked: 'I think it is marvelous. All you have to do is

to touch a button and it moves away and you can drive it without

effort. I think it is grand - I don't know what makes it go. I'd love to

have the time to tear it down and see how it works.'

"When Roosevelt's friends and associates admired the machine, he

said in their presence: 'Mr. Chamberlain, I certainly appreciate all the

time and effort you have spent in developing this car. It is a mighty

fine job.' He admired the radiator, the special rear-vision mirror and

clock, the special spotlight, the kind of upholstery, the sitting position

of the driver's seat, the special suitcases in the trunk with his

monogram on each suitcase. In other words, he took notice of every

detail to which he knew I had given considerable thought. He made

a point of bringing these various pieces of equipment to the attention

of Mrs. Roosevelt, Miss Perkins, the Secretary of Labor, and his

secretary. He even brought the old White House porter into the

picture by saying, 'George, you want to take particularly good care of

the suitcases.'

"When the driving lesson was finished, the President turned to me

and said: 'Well, Mr. Chamberlain, I have been keeping the Federal

Reserve Board waiting thirty minutes. I guess I had better get back

to work.'

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"I took a mechanic with me to the White House. He was introduced

to Roosevelt when he arrived. He didn't talk to the President, and

Roosevelt heard his name only once. He was a shy chap, and he

kept in the background. But before leaving us, the President looked

for the mechanic, shook his hand, called him by name, and thanked

him for coming to Washington. And there was nothing perfunctory

about his thanks. He meant what he said. I could feel that.

"A few days after returning to New York, I got an autographed

photograph of President Roosevelt and a little note of thanks again

expressing his appreciation for my assistance. How he found time to

do it is a mystery to me ."

Franklin D. Roosevelt knew that one of the simplest, most obvious

and most important ways of gaining good will was by remembering

names and making people feel important - yet how many of us do it?

Half the time we are introduced to a stranger, we chat a few minutes

and can't even remember his or her name by the time we say

goodbye.

One of the first lessons a politician learns is this: "To recall a voter's

name is statesmanship. To forget it is oblivion."

And the ability to remember names is almost as important in

business and social contacts as it is in politics.

Napoleon the Third, Emperor of France and nephew of the great

Napoleon, boasted that in spite of all his royal duties he could

remember the name of every person he met.

His technique? Simple. If he didn't hear the name distinctly, he said,

"So sorry. I didn't get the name clearly." Then, if it was an unusual

name, he would say, "How is it spelled?"

During the conversation, he took the trouble to repeat the name

several times, and tried to associate it in his mind with the person's

features, expression and general appearance.

If the person was someone of importance, Napoleon went to even

further pains. As soon as His Royal Highness was alone, he wrote the

name down on a piece of paper, looked at it, concentrated on it,

fixed it securely in his mind, and then tore up the paper. In this way,

he gained an eye impression of the name as well as an ear

impression.

All this takes time, but "Good manners," said Emerson, "are made up

of petty sacrifices."

The importance of remembering and using names is not just the

prerogative of kings and corporate executives. It works for all of us.

Ken Nottingham, an employee of General Motors in Indiana, usually

had lunch at the company cafeteria. He noticed that the woman who

worked behind the counter always had a scowl on her face. "She had

been making sandwiches for about two hours and I was just another

sandwich to her. I told her what I wanted. She weighed out the ham

on a little scale, then she gave me one leaf of lettuce, a few potato

chips and handed them to me.

"The next day I went through the same line. Same woman, same

scowl. The only difference was I noticed her name tag. I smiled and

said, 'Hello, Eunice,' and then told her what I wanted. Well, she

forgot the scale, piled on the ham, gave me three leaves of lettuce

and heaped on the potato chips until they fell off the plate."

We should be aware of the magic contained in a name and realize

that this single item is wholly and completely owned by the person

with whom we are dealing and nobody else. The name sets the

individual apart; it makes him or her unique among all others. The

information we are imparting or the request we are making takes on

a special importance when we approach the situation with the name

of the individual. From the waitress to the senior executive, the

name will work magic as we deal with others.

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• Principle 3 - Remember that a person's name is to that person the

sweetest and most important sound in any language.

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4 - An Easy Way To Become A Good Conversationalist

Some time ago, I attended a bridge party. I don't play bridge - and

there was a woman there who didn't play bridge either. She had

discovered that I had once been Lowell Thomas' manager before he

went on the radio and that I had traveled in Europe a great deal

while helping him prepare the illustrated travel talks he was then

delivering. So she said: "Oh, Mr. Carnegie, I do want you to tell me

about all the wonderful places you have visited and the sights you

have seen."

As we sat down on the sofa, she remarked that she and her husband

had recently returned from a trip to Africa. "Africa!" I exclaimed.

"How interesting! I've always wanted to see Africa, but I never got

there except for a twenty-four-hour stay once in Algiers. Tell me, did

you visit the big-game country? Yes? How fortunate. I envy you. Do

tell me about Africa."

That kept her talking for forty-five minutes. She never again asked

me where I had been or what I had seen. She didn't want to hear

me talk about my travels. All she wanted was an interested listener,

so she could expand her ego and tell about where she had been.

Was she unusual? No. Many people are like that.

For example, I met a distinguished botanist at a dinner party given

by a New York book publisher. I had never talked with a botanist

before, and I found him fascinating. I literally sat on the edge of my

chair and listened while he spoke of exotic plants and experiments in

developing new forms of plant life and indoor gardens (and even told

me astonishing facts about the humble potato). I had a small indoor

garden of my own - and he was good enough to tell me how to solve

some of my problems.

As I said, we were at a dinner party. There must have been a dozen

other guests, but I violated all the canons of courtesy, ignored

everyone else, and talked for hours to the botanist.

Midnight came, I said good night to everyone and departed. The

botanist then turned to our host and paid me several flattering

compliments. I was "most stimulating." I was this and I was that,

and he ended by saying I was a "most interesting conversationalist."

An interesting conversationalist? Why, I had said hardly anything at

all. I couldn't have said anything if I had wanted to without changing

the subject, for I didn't know any more about botany than I knew

about the anatomy of a penguin. But I had done this: I had listened

intently. I had listened because I was genuinely interested. And he

felt it. Naturally that pleased him. That kind of listening is one of the

highest compliments we can pay anyone. "Few human beings,"

wrote Jack Woodford in Strangers in Love, "few human beings are

proof against the implied flattery of rapt attention." I went even

further than giving him rapt attention. I was "hearty in my

approbation and lavish in my praise."

I told him that I had been immensely entertained and instructed -

and I had. I told him I wished I had his knoledge - and I did. I told

him that I should love to wander the fields with him - and I have. I

told him I must see him again - and I did.

And so I had him thinking of me as a good conversationalist when, in

reality, I had been merely a good listener and had encouraged him

to talk.

What is the secret, the mystery, of a successful business interview?

Well, according to former Harvard president Charles W. Eliot, "There

is no mystery about successful business intercourse. ... Exclusive

attention to the person who is speaking to you is very important.

Nothing else is so flattering as that."

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Eliot himself was a past master of the art of listening, Henry James,

one of America's first great novelists, recalled: "Dr. Eliot's listening

was not mere silence, but a form of activity. Sitting very erect on the

end of his spine with hands joined in his lap, making no movement

except that he revolved his thumbs around each other faster or

slower, he faced his interlocutor and seemed to be hearing with his

eyes as well as his ears. He listened with his mind and attentively

considered what you had to say while you said it. ... At the end of an

interview the person who had talked to him felt that he had had his

say."

Self-evident, isn't it? You don't have to study for four years in

Harvard to discover that. Yet I know and you know department store

owners who will rent expensive space, buy their goods economically,

dress their windows appealingly, spend thousands of dollars in

advertising and then hire clerks who haven't the sense to be good

listeners - clerks who interrupt customers, contradict them, irritate

them, and all but drive them from the store.

A department store in Chicago almost lost a regular customer who

spent several thousand dollars each year in that store because a

sales clerk wouldn't listen. Mrs. Henrietta Douglas, who took our

course in Chicago, had purchased a coat at a special sale. After she

had brought it home she noticed that there was a tear in the lining.

She came back the next day and asked the sales clerk to exchange

it. The clerk refused even to listen to her complaint. "You bought this

at a special sale," she said. She pointed to a sign on the wall. "Read

that," she exclaimed. " 'All sales are final.' Once you bought it, you

have to keep it. Sew up the lining yourself."

"But this was damaged merchandise," Mrs. Douglas complained.

"Makes no difference," the clerk interrupted. "Final's final "

Mrs. Douglas was about to walk out indignantly, swearing never to

return to that store ever, when she was greeted by the department

manager, who knew her from her many years of patronage. Mrs.

Douglas told her what had happened.

The manager listened attentively to the whole story, examined the

coat and then said: "Special sales are 'final' so we can dispose of

merchandise at the end of the season. But this 'no return' policy

does not apply to damaged goods. We will certainly repair or replace

the lining, or if you prefer, give you your money back."

What a difference in treatment! If that manager had not come along

and listened to the Customer, a long-term patron of that store could

have been lost forever.

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Listening is just as important in one's home life as in the world of

business. Millie Esposito of Croton-on-Hudson, New York, made it her

business to listen carefully when one of her children wanted to speak

with her. One evening she was sitting in the kitchen with her son,

Robert, and after a brief discussion of something that was on his

mind, Robert said: "Mom, I know that you love me very much."

Mrs. Esposito was touched and said: "Of course I love you very

much. Did you doubt it?"

Robert responded: "No, but I really know you love me because

whenever I want to talk to you about something you stop whatever

you are doing and listen to me."

The chronic kicker, even the most violent critic, will frequently soften

and be subdued in the presence of a patient, sympathetic listener - a

listener who will he silent while the irate fault-finder dilates like a

king cobra and spews the poison out of his system. To illustrate: The

New York Telephone Company discovered a few years ago that it

had to deal with one of the most vicious customers who ever cursed

a customer service representative. And he did curse. He raved. He

threatened to tear the phone out by its roots. He refused to pay

certain charges that he declared were false. He wrote letters to the

newspapers. He filed innumerable complaints with the Public Service

Commission, and he started several suits against the telephone

company.

At last, one of the company's most skillful "trouble-shooters" was

sent to interview this stormy petrel. This "troubleshooter" listened

and let the cantankerous customer enjoy himself pouring out his

tirade. The telephone representative listened and said "yes" and

sympathized with his grievance.

"He raved on and I listened for nearlv three hours," the

"troubleshooter" said as he related his experiences before one of the

author's classes. "Then I went back and listened some more. I

interviewed him four times, and before the fourth visit was over I

had become a charter member of an organization he was starting.

He called it the 'Telephone Subscribers' Protective Association.' I am

still a member of this organization, and, so far as I know, I'm the

only member in the world today besides Mr. ----.

"I listened and sympathized with him on every point that he made

during these interviews. He had never had a telephone

representative talk with him that way before, and he became almost

friendly. The point on which I went to see him was not even

mentioned on the first visit, nor was it mentioned on the second or

third, but upon the fourth interview, I closed the case completely, he

paid all his bills in full, and for the first time in the history of his

difficulties with the telephone company he voluntarily withdrew his

complaints from the Public Service Commission."

Doubtless Mr. ----- had considered himself a holy crusader,

defending the public rights against callous exploitation. But in reality,

what he had really wanted was a feeling of importance. He got this

feeling of importance at first by kicking and complaining. But as soon

as he got his feeling of importance from a representative of the

company, his imagined grievances vanished into thin air.

One morning years ago, an angry customer stormed into the office

of Julian F. Detmer, founder of the Detmer Woolen Company, which

later became the world's largest distributor of woolens to the

tailoring trade.

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"This man owed us a small sum of money," Mr. Detmer explained to

me. "The customer denied it, but we knew he was wrong. So our

credit department had insisted that he pay. After getting a number of

letters from our credit department, he packed his grip, made a trip to

Chicago, and hurried into my office to inform me not only that he

was not going to pay that bill, but that he was never going to buy

another dollar's worth of goods from the Detmer Woolen Company.

"I listened patiently to all he had to say. I was tempted to interrupt,

but I realized that would be bad policy, So I let him talk himself out.

When he finally simmered down and got in a receptive mood, I said

quietly: 'I want to thank vou for coming to Chicago to tell me about

this. You have done me a great favor, for if our credit department

has annoyed you, it may annoy other good customers, and that

would be just too bad. Believe me, I am far more eager to hear this

than you are to tell it.'

"That was the last thing in the world he expected me to say. I think

he was a trifle disappointed, because he had come to Chicago to tell

me a thing or two, but here I was thanking him instead of scrapping

with him. I assured him we would wipe the charge off the books and

forget it, because he was a very careful man with only one account

to look after, while our clerks had to look after thousands. Therefore,

he was less likely to be wrong than we were.

"I told him that I understood exactly how he felt and that, if I were

in his shoes, I should undoubtedly feel precisely as he did. Since he

wasn't going to buy from us anymore, I recommended some other

woolen houses.

"In the past, we had usually lunched together when he came to

Chicago, so I invited him to have lunch with me this day. He

accepted reluctantly, but when we came back to the office he placed

a larger order than ever before. He returned home in a softened

mood and, wanting to be just as fair with us as we had been with

him, looked over his bills, found one that had been mislaid, and sent

us a check with his apologies.

"Later, when his wife presented him with a baby boy, he gave his

son the middle name of Detmer, and he remained a friend and

customer of the house until his death twenty-two years afterwards."

Years ago, a poor Dutch immigrant boy washed the windows of a

bakery shop after school to help support his family. His people were

so poor that in addition he used to go out in the street with a basket

every day and collect stray bits of coal that had fallen in the gutter

where the coal wagons had delivered fuel. That boy, Edward Bok,

never got more than six years of schooling in his life; yet eventually

he made himself one of the most successful magazine editors in the

history of American journalism. How did he do it? That is a long

story, but how he got his start can be told briefly. He got his start by

using the principles advocated in this chapter.

He left school when he was thirteen and became an office boy for

Western Union, but he didn't for one moment give up the idea of an

education. Instead, he started to educate himself, He saved his

carfares and went without lunch until he had enough money to buy

an encyclopedia of American biography - and then he did an

unheard-of thing. He read the lives of famous people and wrote

them asking for additional information about their childhoods. He

was a good listener. He asked famous people to tell him more about

themselves. He wrote General James A. Garfield, who was then

running for President, and asked if it was true that he was once a

tow boy on a canal; and Garfield replied. He wrote General Grant

asking about a certain battle, and Grant drew a map for him and

invited this fourteen-year old boy to dinner and spent the evening

talking to him.

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Soon our Western Union messenger boy was corresponding with

many of the most famous people in the nation: Ralph Waldo

Emerson, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Longfellow, Mrs. Abraham Lincoln,

Louisa May Alcott, General Sherman and Jefferson Davis. Not only

did he correspond with these distinguished people, but as soon as he

got a vacation, he visited many of them as a welcome guest in their

homes. This experience imbued him with a confidence that was

invaluable. These men and women fired him with a vision and

ambition that shaped his life. And all this, let me repeat, was made

possible solely by the application of the principles we are discussing

here.

Isaac F. Marcosson, a journalist who interviewed hundreds of

celebrities, declared that many people fail to make a favorable

impression because they don't listen attentively. "They have been so

much concerned with what they are going to say next that they do

not keep their ears open. ... Very important people have told me that

they prefer good listeners to good talkers, but the ability to listen

seems rarer than almost any other good trait ."

And not only important personages crave a good listener, but

ordinary folk do too. As the Reader's Digest once said: "Many

persons call a doctor when all they want is an audience,"

During the darkest hours of the Civil War, Lincoln wrote to an old

friend in Springfield, Illinois, asking him to come to Washington.

Lincoln said he had some problems he wanted to discuss with him.

The old neighbor called at the White House, and Lincoln talked to

him for hours about the advisability of issuing a proclamation freeing

the slaves. Lincoln went over all the arguments for and against such

a move, and then read letters and newspaper articles, some

denouncing him for not freeing the slaves and others denouncing

him for fear he was going to free them. After talking for hours,

Lincoln shook hands with his old neighbor, said good night, and sent

him back to Illinois without even asking for his opinion. Lincoln had

done all the talking himself. That seemed to clarify his mind. "He

seemed to feel easier after that talk," the old friend said. Lincoln

hadn't wanted advice, He had wanted merely a friendly, sympathetic

listener to whom he could unburden himself. That's what we all want

when we are in trouble. That is frequently all the irritated customer

wants, and the dissatisfied employee or the hurt friend.

One of the great listeners of modern times was Sigmund Freud. A

man who met Freud described his manner of listening: "It struck me

so forcibly that I shall never forget him. He had qualities which I had

never seen in any other man. Never had I seen such concentrated

attention. There was none of that piercing 'soul penetrating gaze'

business. His eyes were mild and genial. His voice was low and kind.

His gestures were few. But the attention he gave me, his

appreciation of what I said, even when I said it badly, was

extraordinary, You've no idea what it meant to be listened to like

that."

If you want to know how to make people shun you and laugh at you

behind your back and even despise you, here is the recipe: Never

listen to anyone for long. Talk incessantly about yourself. If you have

an idea while the other person is talking, don't wait for him or her to

finish: bust right in and interrupt in the middle of a sentence.

Do you know people like that? I do, unfortunately; and the

astonishing part of it is that some of them are prominent.

Bores, that is all they are - bores intoxicated with their own egos,

drunk with a sense of their own importance.

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People who talk only of themselves think only of themselves. And

"those people who think only of themselves," Dr. Nicholas Murray

Butler, longtime president of Columbia University, said, "are

hopelessly uneducated. They are not educated," said Dr. Butler, "no

matter how instructed they may be."

So if you aspire to be a good conversationalist, be an attentive

listener. To be interesting, be interested. Ask questions that other

persons will enjoy answering. Encourage them to talk about

themselves and their accomplishments.

Remember that the people you are talking to are a hundred times

more interested in themselves and their wants and problems than

they are in you and your problems. A person's toothache means

more to that person than a famine in China which kills a million

people. A boil on one's neck interests one more than forty

earthquakes in Africa. Think of that the next time you start a

conversation.

• Principle 4 - Be a good listener. Encourage others to talk about

themselves.

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5 - How To Interest People

Everyone who was ever a guest of Theodore Roosevelt was

astonished at the range and diversity of his knowledge. Whether his

visitor was a cowboy or a Rough Rider, a New York politician or a

diplomat, Roosevelt knew what to say. And how was it done? The

answer was simple. Whenever Roosevelt expected a visitor, he sat

up late the night before, reading up on the subject in which he knew

his guest was particularly interested.

For Roosevelt knew, as all leaders know, that the royal road to a

person's heart is to talk about the things he or she treasures most.

The genial William Lyon Phelps, essayist and professor of literature

at Yale, learned this lesson early in life.

"When I was eight years old and was spending a weekend visiting

my Aunt Libby Linsley at her home in Stratford on the Housatonic,"

he wrote in his essay on Human Nature, "a middle-aged man called

one evening, and after a polite skirmish with my aunt, he devoted his

attention to me. At that time, I happened to be excited about boats,

and the visitor discussed the subject in a way that seemed to me

particularly interesting. After he left, I spoke of him with enthusiasm.

What a man! My aunt informed me he was a New York lawyer, that

he cared nothing whatever about boats - that he took not the

slightest interest in the subject. 'But why then did he talk all the time

about boats?'

" 'Because he is a gentleman. He saw you were interested in boats,

and he talked about the things he knew would interest and please

you. He made himself agreeable.' "

And William Lyon Phelps added: "I never forgot my aunt's remark."

As I write this chapter, I have before me a letter from Edward L.

Chalif, who was active in Boy Scout work.

"One day I found I needed a favor," wrote Mr. Chalif. "A big Scout

jamboree was coming off in Europe, and I wanted the president of

one of the largest corporations in America to pay the expenses of

one of my boys for the trip.

"Fortunately, just before I went to see this man, I heard that he had

drawn a check for a million dollars, and that after it was canceled, he

had had it framed.

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"So the first thing I did when I entered his office was to ask to see

the check. A check for a million dollars! I told him I never knew that

anybody had ever written such a check, and that I wanted to tell my

boys that I had actually seen a check for a million dollars. He gladly

showed it to me; I admired it and asked him to tell me all about how

it happened to be drawn."

You notice, don't you, that Mr. Chalif didn't begin by talking about

the Boy Scouts, or the jamboree in Europe, or what it was he

wanted? He talked in terms of what interested the other man. Here's

the result:

"Presently, the man I was interviewing said: 'Oh, by the way, what

was it you wanted to see me about?' So I told him.

"To my vast surprise," Mr. Chalif continues, "he not only granted

immediately what I asked for, but much more. I had asked him to

send only one boy to Europe, but he sent five boys and myself, gave

me a letter of credit for a thousand dollars and told us to stay in

Europe for seven weeks. He also gave me letters of introduction to

his branch presidents, putting them at our service, and he himself

met us in Paris and showed us the town.

Since then, he has given jobs to some of the boys whose parents

were in want, and he is still active in our group.

"Yet I know if I hadn't found out what he was interested in, and got

him warmed up first, I wouldn't have found him one-tenth as easy to

approach."

Is this a valuable technique to use in business? Is it? Let's see, Take

Henry G. Duvernoy of Duvemoy and Sons, a wholesale baking firm in

New York.

Mr. Duvernoy had been trying to sell bread to a certain New York

hotel. He had called on the manager every week for four years. He

went to the same social affairs the manager attended. He even took

rooms in the hotel and lived there in order to get the business. But

he failed.

"Then," said Mr. Duvernoy, "after studying human relations, I

resolved to change my tactics. I decided to find out what interested

this man - what caught his enthusiasm.

"I discovered he belonged to a society of hotel executives called the

Hotel Greeters of America. He not only belonged, but his bubbling

enthusiasm had made him president of the organization, and

president of the International Greeters. No matter where its

conventions were held, he would be there.

"So when I saw him the next day, I began talking about the

Greeters. What a response I got. What a response! He talked to me

for half an hour about the Greeters, his tones vibrant with

enthusiasm. I could plainly see that this society was not only his

hobby, it was the passion of his life. Before I left his office, he had

'sold' me a membership in his organization.

"In the meantime, I had said nothing about bread. But a few days

later, the steward of his hotel phoned me to come over with samples

and prices.

" 'I don't know what you did to the old boy,' the steward greeted me,

'but he sure is sold on you!'

"Think of it! I had been drumming at that man for four years - trying

to get his business - and I'd still be drumming at him if I hadn't

finally taken the trouble to find out what he was interested in, and

what he enjoyed talking about."