The principles and methods of successful salesmanship summarized in these companion books, though they will be new to most readers, are not mere personal theories. They all have been demonstrated and tested in actual practice during my twelve years experience as Commercial and General Sales Manager of the Ford Motor Company. Under my direction in the course of that period Ford sales were multiplied one hundred thirty-two times—from 6,181 to 815,912 cars a year. The fundamental principles and methods that I have tested and proved to be most successful in selling automobiles and good will should work equally well in any profession, or business, or trade; and for any normal, intelligent man or woman who uses them continually.

Since the first publication of "The Selling Process" thousands of enthusiastic readers of the book have voluntarily borne witness to its practical, dollars-and-cents value to them in their daily work. Preachers, doctors, lawyers, bank officials, clerks, book-keepers, mechanics, laborers; as well as business executives and sales managers and salesmen—men and women in scores of widely different vocations—unite in testifying to their increased earning power and fuller satisfaction in living and working. They credit these results to their study and continued use of "The Selling Process." The value of that book will be at least doubled by the supplemental reading of "Certain Success." Therefore the two are now published as a set of working tools for any ambitious man or woman who is resolved to earn success.

NORVAL A. HAWKINS

Majestic Building,
Detroit, Michigan.

CHAPTER I
The Universal Need For Sales Knowledge

The Secret of Certain Success has four principal elements. It comprises:

(1) Knowing how to sell

(2) The true idea

(3) Of one's best capabilities

(4) In the right market or field of service.

Your success will be in direct proportion to your thorough knowledge and continual use of all four parts of the whole secret. No matter how great your effort, an entire lack of one or more of these principal elements of Certain Success will cause partial or utter failure in your life ambition. You will be like a man who tries to open a safe with a four-combination lock, though he knows only two or three of the numbers.

No one, however well fitted for success elsewhere, can succeed in the wrong field, or in rendering services for which he is not qualified. Nor is complete success attainable by a man unless he develops the best that is in him. Even if he brings to the right market his utmost ability, he may fail miserably by making a false impression that he is unfitted for the opportunity he wants. Or he may be overlooked because he does not make the true impression of his fitness.

Evidently, in order to gain a chance to succeed, anyone must first sell to the fullest advantage the idea that he is the man for the opportunity already waiting or for the new opening he makes for himself. Of course he cannot do this surely unless he knows how. Therefore sales knowledge is universally needed to complement the three other principal elements of the complete secret of certain success.

When we try to explain the failure of any man who seems worthy to have succeeded, we nearly always say, in substance, one of three things about his case:

"He is a square peg in a round hole;" by which we usually mean he is a right man in the wrong place.

Or, "He is capable of filling a better position;" a more polite way of saying that a man has outgrown his present job but has not developed ability to get a bigger one.

Oftenest, probably, we declare, "He isn't appreciated."

Very rarely is a worthy man's failure in life ascribed to the commonest cause—his personal inefficiency in selling to the world comprehension of his especial qualifications for success.

If a man is a square peg in a round hole, he should realize that his particular qualities must be fitted into the right field for them before he can succeed. A natural "organizer" cannot achieve his ambitions if he works alone at a routine task.

No sensible man would aspire to fill a better position than he holds, unless he had developed a capacity beyond the limitations of his present work. The shipping clerk who craves the higher salary of a correspondent knows he cannot hope for the desired promotion if he has not learned to write good business letters.

However deserving of advancement a man may be, he realizes he has but a slim chance to succeed if his worth is unrecognized. So he wants appreciation from his chief. He knows that unless his worth is perceived and truly valued, some one else, who may be less qualified, is apt to be selected for the "Manager's" job he desires. Such "injustices" have poisoned countless disappointed hopes with bitterest resentment.

The deserving man who fails because he is a misfit in his particular position, the worthy man who is limited to a small career because the work he does lacks scope for the use of all his ability; the third good man who has been kept down for the reason that his chief is blind to his qualifications for promotion—all three of these failures understand pretty clearly the reasons for their non-success.

It is very different in the case of the capable man who fails because he has been inefficient in selling true impressions of his qualifications for success. A private secretary, for illustration, might be thoroughly competent for managerial duties; but by his self-effacement in his present job he might make the false impression that he was wanting in executive capacity. He would be given a chance as manager if he were effective in creating a true impression of his administrative ability. Such a capable man, if he has little or no scientific knowledge of the selling process is apt also to lack comprehension of the value to him of knowing how to sell ideas. He does not happen to call himself a salesman. Therefore he has never studied with personal interest the fine art of selling. He does not realize that ignorance of salesmanship, and consequent non-use of the selling process, almost always are responsible for the merely partial success or the downright failure in life of the man who deserves to win, but who loses out.

One may feel able to "deliver the goods," were he given the chance. He may know where his best capability is greatly needed and would be highly appreciated if recognized. Yet the door of opportunity may not open to his deserving hand, however hard he tries to win his way in. His failure seems to him altogether unfair, the rankest injustice from Fortune.

If a man knows he is completely fitted to fill a higher position, he feels considerable self-confidence when he first applies for it. But his real ability may not be recognized by his chief. The ambitious man may be denied the coveted chance to take the step upward to the bigger opportunities for which he rightly believes himself qualified. If his deserts and his utmost efforts do not win the promotion he desires, he grows discouraged. He loses the taste of zest for his work. His earlier optimism oozes away. After awhile his ambition slumps. Then he resigns himself sullenly to the conviction that he is a failure but is not to