You know now the certain way to get your chance to succeed in the vocation of your choice.  You are convinced that a good salesman can create and control his opportunities in any field, can bring himself to good luck in the right market for his services.  You are resolved to master the art of selling, and so to insure your future against any possibility of failure.  You feel confident of success; because you are willing to earn it by the diligent study and practice of salesmanship.  There is no doubt in your mind that when you become a skillful salesman of your best capabilities, you can get a chance to succeed. Now what are you going to do with success after you gain it?

Suppose you had sold yourself into the very opportunity you want, suppose you had won the coveted job or promotion, how would you celebrate?  It has been said that a man shows his real self either in the moment of his failure or in the moment of his success.  Let us assume that you have reached your present objective.  You stand at the goal, a winner.  Does your victory intoxicate, or does it sober you with the realization that you have but opened the way to limitless fields of bigger service ahead?  Has success gone to your hands and made them tingle with eagerness to grasp more chances to succeed, or has it gone to your head?

[Sidenote:  The Stepping-Stone to More Sales]

The celebration stage of the selling process should be the first stepping-stone leading to another successful sale. Often it proves to be a stumbling block that marks the beginning of a downfall to failure.  Rare is the man who is not spoiled a little by achievement. Success is the severest test of salesmanship.

[Sidenote:  Spoiled by Success]

I recall a chief clerk who worked more than a year for promotion to the position of assistant manager.  He earned the better job, and was assigned to the desk toward which he had been looking longingly for sixteen months.  Then he “celebrated” by starting to take life easy.  He developed a manner of superiority.  He acted as if the little foothill he had climbed was a big mountain.  He sunned himself on the top, basking in complacency because he had risen above his former clerkship.

One day he was called into the manager’s office.  He came out chop-fallen and took his personal belongings from the assistant’s desk.  Another man was promoted to the place he had failed to fill.  He went back to his clerk’s stool and is roosting there today.

[Sidenote:  Egotism’s Downfall]

I know a salesman who closed so many orders the first time he covered his territory that he came back to headquarters with an inflated idea of his importance.  He strutted into the president’s room and boasted of what he had done.  The delighted head of the business gave him a cigar and invited him to tell the story.  The salesman betrayed such egotism that his employer was disgusted.  The president was plain-spoken.  He warned the successful salesman against getting a “swelled head.”