employed to his satisfaction.

[Sidenote: Inside the Door]

Then you will be safely _inside the door_ of his interest. Without
realizing it, your prospect would like to bring about the condition he
has imagined. He is beginning to want you in his employ; though as yet
he has no deep-seated desire for your services. Objections to you may
spring up in his mind, but you certainly have been successful throughout
the processes of getting his response to your knock, and of securing for
your ideas his invitation to come into his thoughts for a better
acquaintance with your purpose.

[Sidenote: Unwelcome Guests]

After admitting your ideas to his mind, he may wish he had not welcomed
them. He may find objectionable things in you or in your proposal.
Sometimes a man responds to a knock on his door, and becomes
sufficiently interested in the caller to invite him to enter the house;
but regrets afterward that he extended the welcome. This change of heart
and mind is usually due to something done by the visitor after his
admittance. However, we are not considering just now any step of the
selling process beyond winning a welcome. In later chapters we will
study how to make the most effective use of hospitality and the things
to avoid that might impress the host as abuses of the privileges of a
guest.

[Sidenote: Furniture of The Mind]

Ideas have been called "the furniture of the mind." We have already seen
that they are the developments of _repeated sense impressions_. A
particular mind center is partly or wholly furnished with ideas in
proportion to the man's use of his sense avenues to bring in ideas from
outside himself. The doors of the mind swing inward most readily when
the new mental furniture brought along a sense avenue matches the ideas
already in the mind center. Doubtless the young man who lost the
interest of a great financier by wearing a soft collar would have been
able to hold it if he had dressed according to his prospect's ideas.

[Sidenote: One Likable Thing Helps]

_If there is one thing about you that another man dislikes, it
disproportionately tinges his entire attitude of mind toward you. On the
other hand, if you have one especially likable feature, it tends to
lessen the disagreeable impression of things about you that the other
man does not like._

So, when you come to a prospect as a salesman of your best self and have
gained his attention, avoid making disagreeable suggestions to his mind,