LITMIR.BIZ

      Directions to Agents

      CLASSES TO BE ADDRESSED. The mayor. Clergymen, lawyers, doctors. Superintendent of schools, principal of the high-school (having interested him, you get permission to address the pupils, most easily on a Saturday. The same applies to all other classes of teachers). Teachers of private schools, young ladies’ academies, business colleges, law schools, divinity schools, etc. Leave circulars in the bookstores and apothecaries, after making friends with the booksellers and the apothecaries. Get hold of the young men directly wherever you can. In the country, you can interest one young man, and take him about in a buggy to pick up others whom he knows on promise of $1 to him for everyone you get.

      GENERAL METHOD OF TALKING. You must never lose yourself in your talk. Keep wide awake to the situation. Know exactly what effect you are aiming to produce, and watch to see when it is produced. Hammer away until you produce it, and then at once go on to the next point. Though you will have great need of arguments, you must not, of course, suppose that these are to produce their effect by their action on the understanding alone. The levers upon which you have to rely are first, cupidity, second, shame, and third, fatigue. You can offer a clergyman or a teacher a commission. You will put it in this way: that Mr. Peirce insists upon paying it in every case, whether it is asked for or not, but with the distinct understanding that no portion is to be refunded to the pupil, and to that end nothing is paid on the first pupil an agent (resident) obtains. You will understand that if you offer such commissions, you will have to pay them yourself out of your own. Whenever you are talking to a young man, who may become himself a pupil, you will represent the certainty of success in life which this instruction brings with it. Say it is unfortunate that pupils almost always insist on their names being kept secret; otherwise your interlocutor would be surprised to learn how many successful Wall Street men there are among the number, and the sons of Bankers form a large proportion of those who are now taking the course. In Wall Street, the value of sound reasoning is understood, etc. 2^nd, whenever you see an opportunity to do so, you should manoeuvre to put the person to whom you are talking into a position in which he is ashamed to send you away empty-handed. Americans are particularly subject to the passion of shame. As soon as you see that a man begins to be strongly interested, pretend that you are going, say you have much more interesting things to tell him, but you will not allow yourself to trespass on his indulgence longer. When he says you need not mind, say that to tell the truth you have an appointment to see a gentleman who has agreed to take one ticket, but is doubtful about another for another member of his family, and owing to his high position you dare not offend him, but you will stay a few minutes, and then stay a good long while, so as to be able to hint that you have fooled away a lot of valuable time, satisfying your present man’s curiosity, and so make him ashamed not to take one ticket at least. Remember this: that if the person whom you address is very rude at the outset, it gives you an immense advantage. Such men are generally unskillful in talk, and are more easily handled than others. You will behave with perfect good temper, dignity, and politeness. Make him feel that he has a gentleman to deal with, for whose good opinion he cannot but have some regard. You say: I have not come to sell you anything. I do not expect you to enter as a pupil. I have simply come because I have understood that you were one of the most prominent and respected citizens of the town, who would be likely to take an interest in anything tending to ameliorate the condition of the people and calculated to conduce to the well-being of the community. Without a pause, you then proceed to explain what you mean by “ameliorating the condition of the people and conducing to the well-being of the community” and

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