men are guilty here--they wheedle the
customer into buying more than he can afford, beginning on the premise
that since their stocks are good (and the men who sell fraudulent ones
use the same methods) a man should if he has a hundred dollars buy a
hundred dollars' worth, if he has a million he should buy a million
dollars' worth, if he has a home he must mortgage it, if he has an
automobile he must sell it. No good salesman works like this. People are
very gullible and it takes little argument to persuade them to invest
nearly all they have in something that will make them rich in a hurry,
but the fact that they are foolish is not quite sufficient justification
for fooling them. Even if the stocks and bonds are all the salesman
believes and represents them to be, no man has a right to risk his home
or his happiness for them. A worth while salesman leaves his customer
satisfied and comes back a year later and finds him still satisfied. And
this sort of customer is the best advertisement and the best friend any
business can have.

Bad salesmen create violent prejudices against the firms they represent.
For the average customer, like the average man, judges the whole of a
thing by the part that he sees. To most of us the word Chinaman calls up
the picture of the laundryman around the corner in spite of the fact
that there are some three hundred million Chinamen in the world engaged
in other occupations. Salesmen who are consumed with their own
importance do their firms more harm than good. They usually are men in
positions too big for them (they may not be very big at that) and are
for the most part of not much more real consequence than the gnat which
sat on the tip of the bull's horn and cried, "See what a dust I raise!"
Glum and sullen salesmen--there are not many of them--are of little
genuine value to their firms. It is not true that when you weep you weep
alone. Gloomy moods are as contagious as pleasant ones, and a happy man
radiates happiness.

It is not easy to look pleasant when one's nerves are bruised from
miscellaneous contacts with all sorts of people, but it is an actual
fact that assuming the gestures of a mood will often induce the mood
itself. The man who forces himself to _look_ cheerful (we are not
talking about the one who takes on an idiotic grin) may find himself
after a while beginning to _feel_ cheerful. After he has greeted the
elevator boy with a smile (it may be a very crooked one) and the hot