[Sidenote:  Suggestion Avoids Contradiction]

Second, suggestion is effective in persuasion and in arousing desire because suggested ideas which include no comparisons or criticisms very seldom arouse contradictory attitudes of mind.  The suggested idea enters the mind of the other man quietly, unaccompanied by a blare of the trumpet “I Tell You.”  Opposing ideas are not aware of its presence until it has supplanted them. Suggest to a chosen employer that he means to be up-to-date, and he agrees.  If you say his methods are behind the times, he will be apt to defend them instead of following your lead along the line of suggested improvements.

[Sidenote:  Suggested Ideas Tend to Action]

Third, every suggested idea of action tends to result in the action itself; whereas a direct attempt to secure action is almost sure to result in opposition.  Human nature works that way.  Your prospect, being unconscious that a particular idea of action is suggested to him, does not have his will stimulated to prevent that action.  If you come to your prospective employer and ask for the job you want, he will be on the defensive.  But if you suggest to him that he wants you—­that he lacks and needs such services as you present—­he will be impelled to the affirmative action of offering you the job.

[Sidenote:  Selling Henry Ford]

When I was originally engaged by Henry Ford, it was in the capacity of a public accountant, for an audit of the business of the Ford Motor Company, and later for the installation of an accounting system that would tell accurately every month “where they were at.”  Back in 1904-1905 the Ford Motor Company was not showing any more profits than many other motor car manufacturers organized on similar lines.  After I completed my work as an accountant, Mr. Ford talked with me about taking a permanent position with the Company in the capacity of “Commercial Manager.”  That title covered responsibility for the distribution of products, advertising, collections, selection of branch managers and their corps of assistants, operation of branch houses, appointment and direction of agents, employment and control of the entire sales force, etc., etc.  The position was much broader than that of Sales Manager, as it included also the accounting and organizing of nearly every department of the business.

For several years prior to that time I had sold my services as a public accountant and organizer to many large concerns throughout the country, including twenty-eight different automobile companies.  I believed in my ability, not only to organize a selling and distributing force for successfully marketing a standard product, but also to extend that force over a world field and to control it in all the details of its operations, from opening the mail to the declaration and payment of dividends, more efficiently than the average sales or commercial manager.  So I had no hesitancy in undertaking the Ford job, which, even at that early date, I visualized as culminating in a big one.