PREPARATION OF THE SALESMAN

selects the goods or the kind of insurance that he sells he bears the same relation to the business that the buyer in the department store bears to that business. I dare say that most of us would agree that it is necessary for the buyer in a department store, any large institution of that kind, to have foresight and understand what the people will want, look ahead, because if he gets the things there that the people are going to want and are going to be satisfied with after they get them, perhaps he can get fellows to sell the goods, but if he gets things that people will not want he will probably lose his clerks and they will go over to the store that does have things that people do want. Therefore the agent or the man who selects the company he works for shows his business ability when he does that thing.

Then the next necessary requisite is to have a thoroughly good understanding of that article. Now life insurance to my mind is a very simple thing. I expect, however, when I first began to investigate it that it was not so simple and we ought not to for-get that a very large part of the people don't know anything about it. It is just about as clear to them as mud. I think I re-member when that was abort the case with myself, but of course I have been studying it for fifteen years. I had good tutors and I tried to absorb a good deal of knowledge, but we must not for-get that the other people do not know as much about it as we do.

Therefore, if we get a salesman who is interested—I always like to get hold of one who will write me a letter every day for a week or a month, whenever he gets up against something, because if he will ask about it I am sure he will get all the help possible.

Then the next requisite after having a thoroughly good article and a thoroughly good understanding of that article is to have what some people might call the sixth sense, have sense enough to know who ought to have that article and present it to the right fellow at the right time and tell the truth about it. When you do it in that way you have sold it.

Faith an Essential. By O. E. Carter.

Without faith it is impossible to please your prospect or obtain success—faith in your prospect, faith in the contract, faith in your company, and faith in yourself.

I have seen a little bronze statute. It is that of an olden knight clad in a coat of mail. The knight stands with his head erect, his 25