id it becomes, the more it crowds
all other thoughts and feelings from the mind, the more powerful and
irresistible becomes the desire. It is the task of the persuader,
therefore, to stimulate the imagination to the painting of such mental
pictures. This we well know, but what we wish to know further is what are
the most powerful desires in the particular human mind with which we are
dealing. Obviously, the automobile salesman who vividly pictures to the
timid person the thrills of speeding around curves would be as far wrong
as if he were picturing the sedate, quiet luxury of his car to a speed
maniac. What he wants to know and what we all want to know in substance is
how to tell, at a glance, which is the timid, sedate person and which the
speed maniac.

DECISION AND ACTION

Perhaps the most delicate and most difficult process among all the four
steps of persuasion is inducing decision and action. When one reflects
upon the multitudinous important decisions made and actions taken every
hour, it hardly seems possible that it can be so difficult to induce our
fellow-men to make the short step from hesitant desire to definite
decision. The truth is, of course, that in the making of almost any
important decision there is a stern conflict between conflicting desires.
Take, for example, a man buying an automobile. Under the skilful
persuasive power of the salesman, he has vividly pictured to himself
enjoying possession. But this is not his only mental picture. Perhaps he
has a picture of his old age, in which he might enjoy the income from the
money which would go into an automobile. There are also in his mind mental
pictures of half a dozen to a dozen or more other makes of automobiles. In
addition to these, there may be a mental picture of a motor boat, a little
cottage by the sea, a new set of furniture for his house, new fittings for
his store, an increased advertising appropriation, a new insurance policy,
a trip to California and return, and goodness only knows how many other
objects of desire. It is no wonder he hesitates and that he must be very
skilfully and deftly brought to the point of decision.

WAYS OF INDUCING DECISION AND ACTION

For this reason, experience has shown that many people, perhaps the
majority of people, can be induced to decide whether they will have red
rubber or gray rubber tires on an automobile they contemplate purchasing
far more easily than they can be induced to decide definitely tha