nsure your future against any
possibility of failure. You feel confident of success; because you are
willing to earn it by the diligent study and practice of salesmanship.
There is no doubt in your mind that when you become a skillful salesman
of your best capabilities, you can get a chance to succeed. _Now what
are you going to do with success after you gain it?_

Suppose you had sold yourself into the very opportunity you want,
suppose you had won the coveted job or promotion, _how would you
celebrate_? It has been said that a man shows his real self either in
the moment of his failure or in the moment of his success. Let us assume
that you have reached your present objective. You stand at the goal, a
winner. Does your victory _intoxicate_, or does it _sober_ you with the
realization that you have but opened the way to limitless fields of
bigger service ahead? Has success gone to your _hands_ and made them
tingle with eagerness to grasp more chances to succeed, or has it gone
to your _head_?

[Sidenote: The Stepping-Stone to More Sales]

_The celebration stage of the selling process should be the first
stepping-stone leading to another successful sale._ Often it proves to
be a stumbling block that marks the beginning of a downfall to failure.
Rare is the man who is not spoiled a little by achievement. _Success is
the severest test of salesmanship._

[Sidenote: Spoiled by Success]

I recall a chief clerk who worked more than a year for promotion to the
position of assistant manager. He earned the better job, and was
assigned to the desk toward which he had been looking longingly for
sixteen months. Then he "celebrated" by starting to take life easy. He
developed a manner of superiority. He acted as if the little foothill he
had climbed was a big mountain. He sunned himself on the top, basking in
complacency because he had risen above his former clerkship.

One day he was called into the manager's office. He came out chop-fallen
and took his personal belongings from the assistant's desk. Another man
was promoted to the place he had failed to fill. He went back to his
clerk's stool and is roosting there today.

[Sidenote: Egotism's Downfall]

I know a salesman who closed so many orders the first time he covered
his territory that he came back to headquarters with an inflated idea of
his importance. He strutted into the president's room and boasted of
what he had done. The delighted head of the business gave him