3 “He Who Can Do This Has the Whole World with Him. He Who Cannot Walks a Lonely Way”

I often went fishing up in Maine during the summer. Personally I am very fond of strawberries and cream, but I have found that for some strange reason, fish prefer worms. So when I went fishing, I didn’t think about what I wanted. I thought about what they wanted. I didn’t bait the hook with strawberries and cream. Rather, I dangled a worm or a grasshopper in front of the fish and said: “Wouldn’t you like to have that?”

Why not use the same common sense when fishing for people?

That is what Lloyd George, Great Britain’s prime minister during World War I, did. When someone asked him how he managed to stay in power after other wartime leaders—U.S. President Woodrow Wilson, Italian Prime Minister Vittorio Orlando, French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau—had been forgotten, he replied that if his staying on top might be attributed to one thing, it would be his having learned to bait the hook to suit the fish.

Why talk about what we want? That is childish. Absurd. Of course you are interested in what you want, eternally interested. But no one else is. The rest of us are just like you: We are interested in what we want.

So the only way on earth to influence other people is to talk about what they want and show them how to get it.

Remember that tomorrow, when you are trying to get somebody to do something. If, for example, you don’t want your children to smoke, don’t preach at them. Don’t talk about what you want. Instead, show them that cigarettes may keep them from making the basketball team or winning the hundred-yard dash.

This is a good thing to remember regardless of whether you are dealing with children or calves or chimpanzees. For example: One day Ralph Waldo Emerson and his son tried to get a calf into the barn. But they made the common mistake of thinking only of what they wanted: Emerson pushed and his son pulled. But the calf was doing just what they were doing: thinking only of what he wanted. So he stiffened his legs and stubbornly refused to leave the pasture. The housemaid, who had been raised on a farm, happened to glance toward the barn and saw their predicament. She couldn’t write essays and books, but she had more horse sense, or calf sense, than Emerson. She thought of what the calf wanted; so she put her finger in the calf’s mouth and let the calf suck her finger as she gently led him into the barn.

Every act you have ever performed since the day you were born was performed because you wanted something. How about the time you gave a large contribution to the Red Cross? Yes, that is no exception to the rule. You gave the Red Cross the donation because you wanted to lend a helping hand; you wanted to do a beautiful, unselfish, divine act. “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.”

If you hadn’t wanted that feeling more than you wanted your money, you would not have made the contribution. Of course, you might have made the contribution because you were ashamed to refuse or because a customer asked you to do it. But one thing is certain. You made the contribution because you wanted something.

In his illuminating book Influencing Human Behavior, Harry A. Overstreet wrote: “Action springs out of what we fundamentally desire… and the best piece of advice which can be given to would-be persuaders, whether in business, in the home, in the school, in politics, is: First, arouse in the other person an eager want. He who can do this has the whole world with him. He who cannot walks a lonely way.”

Andrew Carnegie, the poverty-stricken Scotsman who, as a lad, started to work at two cents an hour and finally gave away $365 million, learned early in life that the only way to influence people is to talk in terms of the other person’s wants. Carnegie attended school for only four years, yet he learned how to deal effectively with people. To illustrate: His sister-in-law was worried sick over her two boys. They were at Yale, and they were so busy with their own affairs that they neglected to write home and paid no attention whatever to their mother’s frantic letters.

Then Carnegie offered to wager a hundred dollars that he could get an answer by return mail, without even asking for it. Someone called his bet; so he wrote his nephews a chatty letter, mentioning casually in a postscript that he was sending each one a five-dollar bill.

He did not, however, enclose the money.

Back came replies by return mail thanking “Dear Uncle Andrew” for his kind note and… you can finish the sentence yourself.

Another example of persuading comes from Stan Novak of Cleveland, Ohio, a participant in my course. Stan came home from work one evening to find his youngest son, Tim, kicking and screaming on the living room floor. He was to start kindergarten the next day and was protesting that he would not go. Stan’s normal reaction would have been to banish the child to his room and tell him he’d just better make up his mind to go. He had no choice. But tonight, recognizing that this would not really help Tim start kindergarten in the best frame of mind, Stan sat down and thought, “If I were Tim, why would I be excited about going to kindergarten?” He and his wife made a list of all the fun things Tim would do such as finger painting, singing songs, making new friends. Then they put it into action. “We all started finger painting on the kitchen table—my wife, Lil, my other son, Bob, and myself, all having fun. Soon Tim was peeping around the corner. Next he was begging to participate. ‘Oh, no! You have to go to kindergarten first to learn how to finger paint.’ With all the enthusiasm I could muster I went through the list talking in terms he could understand—telling him all the fun he would have in kindergarten. The next morning, I thought I was the first one up. I went downstairs and found Tim sitting sound asleep in the living room chair. ‘What are you doing here?’ I asked. ‘I’m waiting to go to kindergarten. I don’t want to be late.’ The enthusiasm of our entire family had aroused in Tim an eager want that no amount of discussion or threat could have possibly accomplished.”

Tomorrow you may want to persuade somebody to do something. Before you speak, pause and ask yourself: “How can I make this person want to do it?”

That question will stop us from rushing into a situation heedlessly, with futile chatter about our desires.

At one time I rented the grand ballroom of a certain New York hotel for twenty nights in each season in order to hold a series of lectures.

At the beginning of one season, I was informed at the last minute that I had to pay almost three times as much rent as formerly. This news reached me after the tickets had been printed and distributed and all announcements had been made.

Naturally, I did not want to pay the increase, but what was the use of talking to the hotel about what I wanted? They were interested only in what they wanted. So a couple of days later I went to see the manager.

“I was a bit shocked when I got your letter,” I said, “but I don’t blame you at all. If I had been in your position, I would probably have written a similar letter myself. Your duty as the manager of the hotel is to make all the profit possible. If you don’t do that, you will be fired and you ought to be fired. Now, let’s take a piece of paper and write down the advantages and the disadvantages that will accrue to you if you insist on this increase in rent.”

Then I took a sheet of paper, ran a line through the center, and headed one column “Advantages” and the other “Disadvantages.”

I wrote down under the heading “Advantages” these words: “Ballroom free.” Then I went on to say: “You will have the advantage of having the ballroom free to rent for dances and conventions. That is a big advantage, for affairs like that will pay you much more than you can get for a series of lectures. If I tie your ballroom up for twenty nights during the course of the season, it is sure to mean a loss of some very profitable business to you.

“Now, let’s consider the disadvantages. First, instead of increasing your income from me, you are going to decrease it. In fact, you are going to wipe it out because I cannot pay the rent you are asking. I shall be forced to hold these lectures at some other place.

“There’s another disadvantage to you also. These lectures attract crowds of educated and cultured people to your hotel. That is good advertising for you, isn’t it? In fact, if you spent five thousand dollars advertising in the newspapers, you couldn’t bring as many people to look at your hotel as I can bring by these lectures. That is worth a lot to a hotel, isn’t it?”

As I talked, I wrote these two “disadvantages” under the proper heading, and handed the sheet of paper to the manager, saying: “I wish you would carefully consider both the advantages and disadvantages that are going to accrue to you and then give me your final decision.”

I received a letter the next day, informing me that my rent would be increased only 50 percent instead of tripled.

Mind you, I got this reduction without saying a word about what I wanted. I talked all the time about what the other person wanted and how he could get it.

Suppose I had done the human, natural thing; suppose I had stormed into his office and said, “What do you mean by tripling my rent when you know the tickets have been printed and the announcements made? Triple! Ridiculous! Absurd! I won’t pay it!”

What would have happened then? An argument would have begun to sputter—and you know how arguments end. Even if I had convinced him that he was wrong, his pride would have made it difficult for him to back down and give in.

Here is one of the best bits of advice ever given about the fine art of human relationships. “If there is any one secret of success,” said Henry Ford, “it lies in the ability to get the other person’s point of view and see things from that person’s angle as well as from your own.”

That is so good, I want to repeat it: “If there is any one secret of success, it lies in the ability to get the other person’s point of view and see things from that person’s angle as well as from your own.”

It is so simple and obvious, anyone ought to see the truth of it at a glance. Yet 90 percent of the people on this earth ignore it 90 percent of the time.

An example? Look at the messages that come across your desk tomorrow morning, and you will find that most of them violate this important canon of common sense. Take this one, a letter written by the head of the radio department of an advertising agency with offices scattered across the continent. This letter was sent to the managers of local radio stations throughout the country. (I have set down, in brackets, my reactions to each paragraph.)

Mr. John Blank

Blankville, Indiana

Dear Mr. Blank:

The ——— Company desires to retain its position in advertising agency leadership in the radio field.

[Who cares what your company desires? I am worried about my own problems. The bank is foreclosing the mortgage on my house, the bugs are destroying the hollyhocks, the stock market tumbled yesterday. I missed the eight-fifteen train this morning, I wasn’t invited to the Jones’s dance last night, the doctor tells me I have high blood pressure and neuritis and dandruff. And then what happens? I come down to the office this morning worried, open my mail, and here is some little whippersnapper off in New York yapping about what his company wants. Outrageous! If he only realized what sort of impression his letter makes, he would get out of the advertising business and start manufacturing sheep dip.]

This agency’s national advertising accounts were the bulwark of the network. Our subsequent clearances of station time have kept us at the top of agencies year after year.

[You are big and rich and right at the top, are you? So what? I don’t give two whoops in Hades if you are as big as General Motors and General Electric and the General Staff of the U.S. Army all combined. If you had as much sense as a half-witted hummingbird, you would realize that I am interested in how big I am—not how big you are. All this talk about your enormous success makes me feel small and unimportant.]

We desire to service our accounts with the last word on radio station information.

[You desire! You desire. You unmitigated ass. I’m not interested in what you desire or what the President of the United States desires. Let me tell you once and for all that I am interested in what I desire—and you haven’t said a word about that yet in this absurd letter of yours.]

Will you, therefore, put the ——— Company on your preferred list for weekly station information—every single detail that will be useful to an agency in intelligently booking time.

[“Preferred list.” You have your nerve! You make me feel insignificant by your big talk about your company—and then you ask me to put you on a “preferred” list, and you don’t even say “please” when you ask it.]

A prompt acknowledgment of this letter, giving us your latest “doings,” will be mutually helpful.

[You fool! You mail me a cheap form letter—a letter scattered far and wide like the autumn leaves—and you have the gall to ask me, when I am worried about the mortgage and the hollyhocks and my blood pressure, to sit down and dictate a personal note acknowledging your form letter—and you ask me to do it “promptly.” What do you mean, “promptly”? Don’t you know I am just as busy as you are—or, at least, I like to think I am. And while we’re on the subject, who gave you the lordly right to order me around?… You say it will be “mutually helpful.” At last, at last, you have begun to see my viewpoint. But you are vague about how it will be to my advantage.]

Very truly yours,

John Doe

Manager, Radio Department

P.S. The enclosed reprint from the Blankville Journal will be of interest to you, and you may want to broadcast it over your station.

[Finally, down here in the postscript, you mention something that may help me solve one of my problems. Why didn’t you begin your letter with… but what’s the use? Anyone in advertising who is guilty of perpetrating such drivel as you have sent me has something wrong with his medulla oblongata. You don’t need a letter giving our latest doings. What you need is a quart of iodine in your thyroid gland.]

Now, if people who devote their lives to advertising and who pose as experts in the art of influencing people to buy: If they write a letter like that, what can we expect from the butcher or baker or the auto mechanic?

Here is another letter, written by the superintendent of a large freight terminal to a student of my course, Edward Vermylen. What effect did this letter have on the man to whom it was addressed? Read it and then I’ll tell you.

A. Zerega’s Sons, Inc.

28 Front St.

Brooklyn, N.Y. 11201

Attention: Mr. Edward Vermylen

Gentlemen:

The operations at our outbound-rail-receiving station are handicapped because a material percentage of the total business is delivered us in the late afternoon. This condition results in congestion, overtime on the part of our forces, delays to trucks, and in some cases delays to freight. On November 10, we received from your company a lot of 510 pieces, which reached here at 4:20 p.m.

We solicit your cooperation toward overcoming the undesirable effects arising from late receipt of freight. May we ask that, on days on which you ship the volume which was received on the above date, effort be made either to get the truck here earlier or to deliver us part of the freight during the morning?

The advantage that would accrue to you under such an arrangement would be that of more expeditious discharge of your trucks and the assurance that your business would go forward on the date of its receipt.

Very truly yours,

J—— B——, Supt.

After reading this letter, Mr. Vermylen, sales manager for A. Zerega’s Sons, Inc., sent it to me with the following comment:

“This letter had the reverse effect from that which was intended. The letter begins by describing the Terminal’s difficulties, in which we are not interested, generally speaking. Our cooperation is then requested without any thought as to whether it would inconvenience us, and then, finally, in the last paragraph, the fact is mentioned that if we do cooperate it will mean more expeditious discharge of our trucks with the assurance that our freight will go forward on the date of its receipt.

“In other words, that in which we are most interested is mentioned last, and the whole effect is one of raising a spirit of antagonism rather than of cooperation.”

Let’s see if we can’t rewrite and improve this letter. Let’s not waste any time talking about our problems. As Henry Ford admonishes, let’s “get the other person’s point of view and see things from that person’s angle, as well as from your own.”

Here is one way of revising the letter. It may not be the best way, but isn’t it an improvement?

Mr. Edward Vermylen

c/o A. Zerega’s Sons, Inc.

28 Front St.

Brooklyn, N.Y. 11201

Dear Mr. Vermylen:

Your company has been one of our good customers for fourteen years. Naturally, we are very grateful for your patronage and are eager to give you the speedy, efficient service you deserve. However, we regret to say that it isn’t possible for us to do that when your trucks bring us a large shipment late in the afternoon, as they did on November 10. Why? Because many other customers make late afternoon deliveries also. Naturally, that causes congestion. That means your trucks are held up unavoidably at the pier and sometimes even your freight is delayed.

That’s bad, but it can be avoided. If you make your deliveries at the pier in the morning, when possible, your trucks will be able to keep moving, your freight will get immediate attention, and our workers will get home early at night to enjoy a dinner of the delicious macaroni and other noodles that you manufacture.

Regardless of when your shipments arrive, we shall always cheerfully do all in our power to serve you promptly.

You are busy. Please don’t trouble to answer this note.

Yours truly,

J—— B——, Supt.

Barbara Anderson, who worked at a bank in New York, desired to move to Phoenix, Arizona, for the health of her son. Using the principles she had learned in my course, she wrote the following letter to twelve banks in Phoenix:

Dear Sir:

My ten years of bank experience should be of interest to a rapidly growing bank like yours.

In various capacities in bank operations with the Bankers Trust Company in New York, leading to my present assignment as Branch Manager, I have acquired skills in all phases of banking including depositor relations, credits, loans, and administration.

I will be relocating to Phoenix in May and I am sure I can contribute to your growth and profit. I will be in Phoenix the week of April 3 and would appreciate the opportunity to show you how I can help your bank meet its goals.

Sincerely,

Barbara L. Anderson

Do you think Mrs. Anderson received any response from that letter? Eleven of the twelve banks invited her to be interviewed, and she had a choice of which bank’s offer to accept. Why? Mrs. Anderson did not state what she wanted, but wrote in the letter how she could help them, and focused on their wants, not her own.

Thousands of salespeople are pounding the pavements today, tired, discouraged, and underpaid. Why? Because they are always thinking only of what they want. They don’t realize that neither you nor I want to buy anything. If we did, we would go out and buy it. But both of us are eternally interested in solving our problems. And if salespeople can show us how their services or merchandise will help us solve our problems, they won’t need to sell us. We will buy. And customers like to feel that they are buying—not being sold.

Yet many salespeople spend a lifetime in selling without seeing things from the customer’s angle. For example, for many years I lived in a house in Forest Hills, a community in Queens, New York. One day as I was rushing to the train station, I chanced to meet a real-estate operator who had bought and sold property in that area for many years. He knew Forest Hills well, so I hurriedly asked him whether or not my stucco house was built with metal lath or hollow tile. He said he did not know and told me what I already knew—that I could find out by calling the Forest Hills Garden Association. The following morning, I received a letter from him. Did he give me the information I wanted? He could have gotten it in sixty seconds by a telephone call. But he did not. He told me again that I could get it by telephoning, and then asked me to let him handle my insurance.

He was not interested in helping me. He was interested only in helping himself.

J. Howard Lucas of Birmingham, Alabama, tells how two salespeople from the same company handled the same type of situation. He reported: “Several years ago I was on the management team of a small company. Headquartered near us was the district office of a large insurance company. Their agents were assigned territories, and our company was assigned to two agents, whom I shall refer to as Carl and John.

“One morning, Carl dropped by our office and casually mentioned that his company had just introduced a new life insurance policy for executives and thought we might be interested later on and he would get back to us when he had more information on it.

“The same day, John saw me and a colleague on the sidewalk while returning from a coffee break, and he shouted: ‘Hey Luke, hold up, I have some great news for you fellows.’ He hurried over and very excitedly told us about an executive life insurance policy his company had introduced that very day. (It was the same policy that Carl had casually mentioned.) He wanted us to have one of the first issued. He gave us a few important facts about the coverage and ended saying, ‘The policy is so new, I’m going to have someone from the home office come out tomorrow and explain it. Now, in the meantime, let’s get the applications signed and on the way so my fellow can have more information to work with.’ His enthusiasm aroused in us an eager want for this policy even though we still did not have details. When they were made available to us, they confirmed John’s initial understanding of the policy, and he not only sold each of us a policy, but later doubled our coverage.

“Carl could have had those sales, but he made no effort to arouse in us any desire for the policies.”

The world is full of people who are grabbing and self-seeking, so the rare individual who unselfishly tries to serve others has an enormous advantage. He has little competition. Owen D. Young, a noted lawyer and founder of the Radio Corporation of America (RCA), once said: “People who can put themselves in the place of other people, who can understand the workings of their minds, need never worry about what the future has in store for them.”

If out of reading this book you get just one thing—an increased tendency to think always in terms of other people’s point of view, and see things from their angle—if you get that one thing out of this book, it may easily prove to be one of the building blocks of your career.

Looking at the other person’s point of view and arousing in him or her an eager want for something is not to be construed as manipulating that person to do something that is only for your benefit and their detriment. Each party should gain from the negotiation. In the letters to Mr. Vermylen, both the sender and the receiver of the correspondence gained by implementing what was suggested. Both the bank and Mrs. Anderson won by her letter in that the bank obtained a valuable employee and Mrs. Anderson a suitable job.

The best way to motivate someone to do something for you is to show how it would benefit them, as well.

Michael Whidden could attest to that. Mike, a territory salesperson for the Shell Oil Company in Rhode Island, had a situation that was plaguing him, but by using this principle he came up with an ingenious solution. The problem was one outdated, rundown station. Mike was determined to be the number one salesperson in his area, but this station was in such bad shape that sales were declining significantly and it was holding him back from his goal.

The station was run by an older man who was set in his ways. He had no desire to change, and no amount of cajoling on Mike’s part could get him to fix the place up. Mike first tried reasoning with the man and offered helpful suggestions. No luck. He then tried heart-to-heart talks. Finally he resorted to pleading. None of it had any effect. The man was as stubborn as a Missouri mule!

Then Mike had an idea: If he invited the manager to join him in visiting the newest station in the territory, maybe it would inspire the man to upgrade his own. The manager was interested to see what the competition was up to and readily agreed to the “field trip,” so Mike arranged a tour of the new facility.

What the manager saw there impressed him so much that the next time Mike visited, he didn’t recognize the place. It had been cleaned up and was already recording a sales increase! And that enabled Mike to hit his target of being the top salesperson in the district.

All of Mike’s talking hadn’t accomplished anything, but by arousing an eager want in the manager by helping him envision what his own station could look like, both the manager and Mike had benefited.

Most people go through college and learn to read Shakespeare and master the mysteries of calculus without ever discovering how their own minds function. For instance: I once gave a course in Effective Speaking for the young college graduates who were entering the employ of the Carrier Corporation, the large air-conditioner manufacturer. One of the participants wanted to persuade the others to play basketball in their free time, and this is about what he said: “I want you to come out and play basketball. I like to play basketball, but the last few times I’ve been to the gym there haven’t been enough people to get up a game. There were only two or three of us the other night so all there was to do was throw the ball around—and I got a black eye. I wish all of you would come down tomorrow night. I want to play basketball.”

Did he talk about anything you want? You don’t want to go to a gym that no one else goes to, do you? You don’t care about what he wants. You don’t want to get a black eye.

Could he have shown you how to get the things you want by using the gym? Surely. More pep. Keener edge to the appetite. Clearer brain. Fun. Games. Basketball.

To repeat Professor Overstreet’s wise advice: First, arouse in the other person an eager want. He who can do this has the whole world with him. He who cannot walks a lonely way.

A father, K. T. Dutschmann, a telephone engineer, could not get his three-year-old daughter to eat breakfast food. The usual scolding, pleading, coaxing methods had all ended in futility. So the parents asked themselves: “How can we make her want to do it?”

The little girl loved to imitate her mother, to feel big and grown up, so one morning they put her on a chair and let her make the breakfast food. At just the psychological moment, Father drifted into the kitchen while she was stirring the cereal and she said: “Oh, look, Daddy, I am making the cereal this morning.”

She ate two helpings of the cereal without any coaxing, because she was interested in it. She had achieved a feeling of importance; she had found in making the cereal an avenue of self-expression.

The drama critic William Winter once remarked that “self-expression is the dominant necessity of human nature.” Why can’t we adapt this same psychology to business dealings? When we have a brilliant idea, instead of making others think it is ours, why not let them cook and stir the idea themselves? They will then regard it as their own; they will like it and maybe eat a couple of helpings of it.

Remember: “First, arouse in the other person an eager want. If you can do this, you will have the whole world with you. If you cannot, you will walk a lonely way.”

PRINCIPLE 3

Arouse in the other person an eager want.