f failure. Your prospect is unlikely to say "No" _if you really
expect to hear "Yes."_ Even if he speaks the negative, still _believe in
your own faith_. I know a man who, a minute after his application was
flatly rejected, won the position he wanted. Unrebuffed, he came back
with, "Eventually, why not now?" His evident conviction that he was
_needed_ gained the victory when his chance seemed lost.

[Sidenote: Don't Be Afraid to Pop The Question]

We all laugh at the young swain who courts a girl devotedly for months
and uses every art he knows to sell her the idea that he would make her
happy as his wife; but who turns pale, then red, and chokes whenever he
has a chance to pop the question. Often the girl must go half way with
prompting. When, thus encouraged, he finally stammers out his appeal for
her decision, she accepts him so quickly that he feels foolish. Women
are reputed to be better "closers" of such sales than men.

You smile at the comparison of courting with salesmanship. Yet the
selling process is as effective in making good impressions of the sort
of husband one might be as in impressing an employer with the idea that
one's services in business would prove desirable.

[Sidenote: Selling a Future Husband]

The young man bent on marriage needs to prospect for the right girl, to
secure an audience, to compel her attention, to regain it when diverted
to other admirers, and to develop her curiosity about him into interest.
He must size up her likes and dislikes; then adapt his salesmanship to
her tastes, tactfully subordinating his own preferences to hers. If she
is athletic, he will play tennis or go on tramps with her, however tired
he feels after his work. If she is sentimental, he will take her
canoeing and read poetry to her, though he may prefer detective yarns.
Throughout his courtship he will do his utmost to stimulate in her a
desire to have him as a life partner. Whatever objections she makes to
him, he will get rid of or overcome.

Suppose he has taken all these preliminary selling steps successfully,
and at last the time comes for pinning the girl down to a definite
answer to the all-important question, is there any likelihood that it
will be a refusal? Of course not! If his earlier salesmanship has been
masterly, the reasons why she will be inclined to accept him in the end
are of much greater weight and number than any causes for rejection that
she may have thought of previously.

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