Goods Not the Goods Themselves Are Sold]

If you have not _called_ yourself a salesman, perhaps you doubt the
value to you of skill in selling. All you have to market is the best
that is in yourself. Your ambition may be to succeed as a doctor, or
lawyer, or preacher, or clerk, or mechanic, or farmer, or banker. You do
not see how salesmanship could assure _your_ success, however much it
might help some one with commercial ambitions.

If you think it would not be worth while for you to master the selling
process, since you do not expect to engage in the _profession_ of
selling, you misconceive the functions and work of the salesman. You
have thought he sells "_goods_;" and that as you do not deal in
commodities, you would have no practical use for the selling process he
employs to assure his success. But even the shoe salesman, or grocery
salesman, or real estate salesman, or insurance salesman does not really
sell _goods_. He sells _ideas about_ goods. Similarly you sell ideas
about yourself in order to succeed.

[Sidenote: When the Goods and the Ideas Are Different]

A sale is often completed in business without any inspection of the
actual "goods" by the purchaser; as when a quantity of standard sheet
copper is specified, or when the salesman describes a piece of machinery
or shows a picture of it with a catalogue number. The "goods" are to be
delivered later. However, the _selling process is finished;_ though only
the mind's eye of the buyer has seen what he anticipates getting on his
order. The salesman has presented nothing except _certain ideas_ to the
mental vision of the prospect. But these ideas have been sold so
realistically to the imagination of the purchaser that he gives his
order for what he _expects_.

Suppose the goods delivered later do not correspond with the particular
ideas about them that have been sold. For example, the sheet copper
furnished is not as specified in the contract, or the machine shipped is
not the same as the salesman pictured when he got