However, should the “No” be spoken in two or more tones, with increased stress at the end, your prospect certainly means his rejection to be final.  His mind is fully made up for the time being.  It would be poor salesmanship to butt your head against his fixed idea, just as it would be foolish to tackle a strong opponent when he stands most formidably braced to resist attack.  But the two or three toned negative does not mean that the idea behind it is fixed in the prospect’s mind forever.  Any one is prone to change his mind, unless he is kept so busy supporting a position taken that he has no chance to alter his opinion.

[Sidenote:  Preventing Stubborness]

Therefore leave alone at first the rock you encounter.  Get behind the boulder by taking a roundabout path.  Then quietly dig the support from under the negative idea.  If you make no fuss while you are undermining the obstacle, it will be likely to topple over and roll from your path without your prospect’s noticing that it has disappeared.  If his interest is diverted from it, there is no reason why he should turn his mind back to a stubborn insistence on his objection.  Should he be conscious that the rock of his earlier opposition has rolled away, he will probably think it lost its balance.  He will not realize that you subtly undermined it and got rid of it by your skillful salesmanship.

A salesman of an encyclopedia met a prospect who refused to give favorable attention to him and his proposition.

“No sir-e-e!” declared this objector, shaking his head emphatically.  “No more book agents can work me.  The last slick one that tried to swindle me is in ja-a-il now, and I put him the-ere!”

He gloated in two or three tones.

[Sidenote:  Turning Back A Turn-down]

“Good for you!” praised the undaunted salesman, who had come prepared for adamantine obstacles in his path.  “If more book buyers would see that such rascals get what’s coming to them, the rest of us salesmen, who represent square publishers squarely, would not have to prove so often that we are not crooks like some fellows who have happened to precede us in a territory.  Please tell me the name of the man who swindled you.  He might hit my publishers for a job after he gets out of jail, and I want to warn the boss against him.  Sometimes those slick rascals pull the wool over our eyes, too.  We are always on the lookout to avoid getting tangled up with them.”

The salesman pulled out his note book and pencil.  When the name was given, he wrote it down painstakingly.  He asked the prospect to spell it for him; so that he would be sure to get it right.  Then he thanked the man who had said he would have nothing more to do with book agents.  Having “got around” the objector, the salesman proceeded with his selling talk on the encyclopedia, as if he had not been turned down flatly to begin with.  In less than half an hour he had secured the signature of the prospect to a contract for the finest edition.