[Sidenote:  Discriminate Between Attention And Interest]

Probably you have never worked out in your mind exactly the reasons why you are interested in particular things and in certain people.  Let us make an analysis.  Your attention might be attracted so strongly to a vicious criminal that for the time being you could think of no one else.  Yet his fate might be a matter of such indifference to you that you would have absolutely no interest in the man.  But suppose you should see in his face, or in an expression of his eyes, something that haunted your memory appealingly.  It would induce you to read the newspaper accounts of his trial.  You would feel a little sorry for him, on learning that he had been sentenced to a long term in prison.  Very likely you would say to yourself, “I suppose he is a mighty tough character, but I believe there is something in him that isn’t altogether bad.”  Your intuition would tell you he possessed undefined traits that you like.  In your own liking for these characteristics that you vaguely discerned in him when you saw him, is the key to the interest he induced.

[Sidenote:  What and Whom We Like]

What do we like?  Whom do we like?

Things that are like our own ideas.  People who are like the ideas we have about likable people.  Interest is all a matter of recognizing points of likeness.

In order to draw your prospect beyond the attention stage of the selling process, and to induce his interest in your “goods,” you must impress on him suggestions of the similarity of your ideas to ideas already in his own mind. He will like your ideas in proportion to their resemblance to his own way of thinking on the same subjects.  So you should express yourself as nearly as possible in his terms, and attract his interest by making him feel that your mind and his are much alike.

[Sidenote:  Non-Interest]

One day I was sitting in the private office of a very wealthy philanthropist.  A salesman presented a letter of introduction to the millionaire, who in turn introduced me to his caller.  The newcomer thereupon proceeded to present most attractively a business proposal.  He offered my friend an excellent opportunity to make a good deal of money by joining an underwriting syndicate.  The millionaire at once declared he was not interested.  “I have all the money I want,” he said, and bowed the salesman out.  The ideas that had been presented to him were altogether different from his own financial motives.

[Sidenote:  Interest]

That same afternoon another promoter called upon my friend with a project for investment in a house-building corporation.  This second salesman evidently had prospected the philanthropist and had planned just how to interest him.  He did not stress the profits to be made from investment in the stock of his corporation, but referred to them in a minor key.  He emphasized the need of the city for more homes, and cited instances of distress due to the housing shortage.