If you've listened to other selling books, you're probably tired of the false promises that never quite work out. You're probably tired of being told you can do it if you just believe you can.

You're probably tired of hearing about tricks that made a particular sale - tricks that may have been appropriate to a particular situation, but not yours - and even if they were appropriate, how would you have thought of them at the right time?

If you've listened to books on selling before or listened to "sales experts," you're probably tired of being pumped with hot air - told how you must "come alive," be full of enthusiasm, dominate the world around - all the things that don't happen to be a part of your basic nature.

Well, this book isn't anything like that. In fact, this book was written to refute many cliches of selling that have been accepted without question for years.

This book will prove to you, I hope, that the stereotyped image of the "born salesman" is a mistake. You don't have to remake your personality and become super-enthusiastic, super-aggressive, domineering. Not only are those traits not necessary, but they are actually a hindrance to making sales.

And you won't have to develop that uncanny ability to come up with the right answer at the right time - that super-human knack of having the brilliant flash of insight that is so prevalent in books on selling. Sure, given several days to think about it, the writer of a sales book can always come up with a solution to a sales problem. But how does that help you when confronted face-to-face with a question that must be answered now? This book will show you that you don't need such skills.

This book can truly revolutionize your selling career - but only because it will show you that you no longer need to waste your time developing skills that are of no value to a salesman. For example, here are some of the points that will be made in the course of this book:

• Contrary to the accepted mythology, enthusiasm is not a virtue; it destroys more sales than it creates.
• "Positive thinking" is an unrealistic fallacy. The salesman who thinks negatively has a far greater chance for success than the so-called "positive thinker."
• Sales success does not come from convincing people to buy things they don't want.
• The salesman who always has an answer for every objection is also probably plugging along with a very low income.
• Extroverts don't make the best salesmen; they are invariably outsold by introverts.
• To be a good salesman, you don't have to be a "smooth talker".
• Another all-time sales fallacy is the statement "When the going gets tough, the tough get going". When the going gets tough, I usually take a vacation.
• The desire to be able to motivate others is unrealistic and foolish. A really-great salesman will never try to motivate anyone.

Perhaps all of this sounds so far removed from what you've heard about selling through the years that you wonder how it could possibly be true. I intend to demonstrate the validity of these statements in two ways.

First, my own experience verifies their worth. Almost invariably, in any selling experience where I've found myself, I have outsold everyone else around me - usually while working far fewer hours.

In addition, I've seen these principles work for a few others, too - a very few, for they are unknown to most people.

But there is nothing mysterious about them - and that brings us to second way in which I will demonstrate their validity. I will prove them to you. We will deal with life logically and carefully in this book.