When I finally engaged my services with the Ford Motor Company on a permanent basis, the business was represented by only a few hundred scattered, unorganized, uncontrolled, and non-directed dealers.  My work during the following twelve years was concentrated on developing and enlarging yearly this small hit-or-miss distributing aggregation into a compact force of thousands of well-trained, highly efficient sales and service representatives of the Ford Motor Company.  They were all Ford “boosters,” and by their loyalty and intensive co-operation they “put across the Ford” in the big way that today makes the little car so conspicuous everywhere throughout the world.

[Sidenote:  Statement Avoided Suggestion Used]

Note that while my experience with the Ford Motor Company as a public accountant convinced me that what the business needed then was a commercial manager and sales organizer, and I believed myself fitted for the position, I did not make that statement to Mr. Ford; because it would have been poor salesmanship.  He might have thought me entirely qualified to deal with figures, but not so capable of handling sales agents and dealers.

So I never said to him that I was the man he needed.  But I suggested it by presenting my ideas of how the job should be done.  He accepted my ideas as good, and was influenced by the natural suggestion that resulted from them.  He told me that he wanted me to become Commercial and Sales Manager.  It was the opportunity for success that I most desired.  I got myself wanted without having to overcome any resistance in the mind of the man with whom I had chosen to work.

[Sidenote:  Negative Suggestions]

You recognize how true to human nature are incidents of this sort.  You know how powerful is the force of affirmative suggestion.  But have you appreciated how surely desire is killed by negative suggestions?  If you make displeasing impressions, you will get yourself not wanted.  Therefore you must be careful to avoid certain things your prospect would not like, just as you should be careful in doing things that are likable.

[Sidenote:  Speak the Prospect’s Language]

If your prospecting and sizing up of an employer indicate that he is very painstaking, suggest to him how particular you have been to prepare yourself in knowledge of his needs.  If he is a man who weighs ideas carefully, suggest to him your qualities of judgment and decision.  Perhaps he is characterized by a marked constructive imagination.  Suggest that you, too, have imaginative power.  Bring out conspicuously the particular elements of your qualifications that are most likely to suggest ideas akin to his own.  Speak those phrases of the language of suggestion which he best understands, and that are most likely to impress him with the idea that you and he think alike.

[Sidenote:  Deceptive Suggestions]