Dale Carnegie - How To Win Friends And Influence People

Keep moving!"

Then one day Mr Amsel tried a new technique, a technique that split the account wide open, made a friend, and brought many fine orders. Amsel's firm was negotiating for the purchase of a new branch store in Queens Village on Long Island. It was a neighbourhood the plumber knew well, and one where he did a great deal of business. So this time, when Mr Amsel called, he said: "Mr C-, I'm not here to sell you anything today. I've got to ask you to do me a favour, if you will. Can you spare me just a minute of your time?"

"H'm-well," said the plumber, shifting his cigar. "What's on your mind? Shoot."

"My firm is thinking of. opening up a branch store over in Queens Village," Mr Amsel said. "Now, you know that locality as well as anyone living. So I've come to you to ask what you think about it. Is it a wise move-or not?"

Here was a new situation! For years this plumber had been getting his feeling of importance out of snarling at salesmen and ordering them to keep moving. But here was a salesman begging him for advice; yes, a salesman from a big concern wanting his opinion as to what they should do.

"Sit down," he said, pulling forward a chair. And for the next hour, he expatiated on the peculiar advantages and virtues of the plumbing market in Queens Village. He not only approved the location of the store, but he focused his intellect on outlining a complete course of action for the purchase of the property, the stocking of supplies, and the opening of trade. He got a feeling of importance by telling a wholesale plumbing concern how to run its business. From there, he expanded into personal grounds. He became friendly, and told Mr Amsel of his intimate domestic difficulties and household wars.

"By the time I left that evening," Mr Amsel says, "I not only had in my pocket a large initial order for equipment, but I had laid the foundations of a solid business friendship. I am playing golf now with this chap who formerly barked and snarled at me. This change in his attitude was brought about by my asking him to do me a little favour that made him feel important."

Let's examine another of Ken Dyke's letters, and again note how skilfully he applies this "do-me-a-favour" psychology.

A few years ago, Mr Dyke was distressed at his inability to get business men, contractors, and architects to answer his letters asking for information.

In those days, he seldom got more than 1 per cent return from his letters to architects and engineers. He would have regarded 2 per cent as very good, and 3 per cent as excellent. And 10 per cent?

Why, 10 per cent would have been hailed as a miracle. But the letter that follows pulled almost 50 per cent… Five times as good as a miracle. And what replies! Letters of two and three pages! Letters glowing with friendly advice and co-operation.

Here is the letter. You will observe that in the psychology used- even in the phraseology in some places-the letter is almost identical with that quoted on pages 188-89. As you peruse this letter, read between the lines, try to analyze the feeling of the man who got it.

Find out why it produced results five times as good as a miracle.

Johns-Manville 22 EAST 40th STREET

NEW YORK CITY

Mr John Doe, 617 Doe Street,

Doeville, N.J.

Dear Mr Doe:

I wonder if you'll help me out of a little difficulty?

About a year ago I persuaded our company that one of the things architects most needed was a catalogue which would give them the whole story of all J-M building materials and their part in repairing and remodelling homes.

The attached catalogue resulted-the first of its kind. But now our stock is getting low, and when I mentioned it to our president he said (as presidents will) that he would have no objection to another edition provided / furnished satisfactory evidence that the catalogue had done the job for which it was designed.

Naturally, I must come to you for help, and 7 am therefore taking the liberty of asking you and forty-nine other architects in various parts of the country to be the jury.

To make it quite easy for you, I have written a few simple questions on the back of this letter. And I'll certainly regard it as a personal favour if you'll check the answers, add any comments that you may wish to make, and then slip this letter into the enclosed stamped envelope.

Needless to say, this won't obligate you in any way, and I now leave it to you to say whether the catalogue shall be discontinued or reprinted with improvements based on your experience and advice.

In any event, rest assured that I shall appreciate your co-operation very much. Thank you!

Sincerely yours, KEN R. DYKE, Sales Promotion Manager.

Another word of warning. I know from experience that some men, reading this letter, will try to use the same psychology mechanically.

They will try to boost the other man's ego, not through genuine, real appreciation, but through flattery and insincerity. And their technique won't work.

Remember, we all crave appreciation and recognition, and will do almost anything to get it. But nobody wants insincerity. Nobody wants flattery.

Let me repeat: the principles taught in this book will work only when they come from the heart. I am not advocating a bag of tricks. I am talking about a new way of life.

Seventy-Five years ago, Napoleon III of France, nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte, fell in love with Marie Eugenic Ignace Augustine de Montijo, Countess of Teba, the most beautiful woman in the world- and married her. His advisors pointed out that she was only the daughter of an insignificant Spanish count. But Napoleon retorted:

"What of it?" Her grace, her youth, her charm, her beauty filled him with divine felicity. In a speech hurled from the throne, he defied an entire nation: "I have preferred a woman I love and respect," he proclaimed, "to a woman unknown to me."

Napoleon and his bride had health, wealth, power, fame, beauty, love, adoration-all the requirements for a perfect romance. Never did the sacred fire of marriage glow with a brighter incandescence.

But, alas, the holy flame soon flickered and the incandescence cooled-and turned to embers. Napoleon could make Eugenic an empress; but nothing in all la belle France, neither the power of his love nor the might of his throne, could keep her from nagging.

Bedeviled by jealousy, devoured by suspicion, she flouted his orders, she denied him even a show of privacy. She broke into his office while he was engaged in affairs of state. She interrupted his most important discussions. She refused to leave him alone, always fearing that he might be consorting with another woman.

Often she ran to her sister, complaining of her husband, complaining, weeping, nagging, and threatening. Forcing her way into his study, she stormed at him and abused him. Napoleon, master of a dozen sumptuous palaces, Emperor of France, could not find a cupboard in which he could call his soul his own.

And what did Eugenic accomplish by all this? Here is the answer. I am quoting now from E.A. Rheinhardt's engrossing book, Napoleon and Eugenic: The Tragicomedy of an Empire: "So it came about that Napoleon frequently would steal out by a little side door at night, with a soft hat pulled over his eyes, and, accompanied by one of his intimates, really betake himself to some fair lady who was expecting him, or else stroll about the great city as of old, passing through streets of the kind which an Emperor hardly sees outside a fairy tale, and breathing the atmosphere of might-have-beens."

That is what nagging accomplished for Eugenic. True, she sat on the throne of France. True, she was the most beautiful woman in the world. But neither royalty nor beauty can keep love alive amidst the poisonous fumes of nagging. Eugenic could have raised her voice like Job of old and have wailed: "The thing which I greatly feared is come upon me." Come upon her? She brought it upon herself, poor woman, by her jealousy and her nagging. Of all the sure-fire, infernal devices ever invented by all the devils in hell for destroying love, nagging is the deadliest. It never fails. Like the bite of the king cobra, it always destroys, always kills.