Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III PEESUASION AND CONVICTION Conviction and Persuasion in Selling.—The art of salesmanship consists in producing in customers a belief in the ideas which salespersons wish them to accept, and in causing action in the purchase of goods. The aim, therefore, in presenting arguments in behalf of goods is not only to induce customers to accept the salespersons' opinions and beliefs, but to induce them to act in accordance with these opinions and beliefs. The Two Fundamental Elements in Presenting Arguments. —The successful presentation of arguments is composed of two fundamental elements. The first is conviction, and depends for its effectiveness upon reason. The second is . persuasion or an emotional appeal to customers. Reason is the guiding and emotion the moving power. The aim of arguments is to convince customers that certain facts about goods are true, and to persuade them to act in accordance with the feelings of the salesperson. Therefore, in order to make a customer act as a salesperson wishes, both of these elements, with rare exceptions, must be present. The arguments for a successful sale must be of a twofold nature: they must contain an appeal to the intellect, and one to the will, or in other words they must contain both conviction and persuasion. Through the force of pure reasoning salespersons may make customers see that statements concerning goods are true, but it does not followthat they have made the customers believe that they should possess the goods and act upon this belief. Seasoning the Basis of Conviction.—Reasoning is the basis of conviction, and is a simple process. To reason is to state important facts in support of goods. Effective reasoning is stating the arguments in support of goods so that customers cannot but believe them. Pres...