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Every prospect, in his particular business, affords an ample opportunity for observation and study, and the imag- ination can take advantage of these different surroundings. The imagination may see an opportunity that will actually prove helpful and beneficial to the business of the prospect. It may observe a new slant, a new angle, or a new need, and be able to offer a suggestion to improve the service that the prospect is now rendering. In doing this, the imagination opens new sales opportunities for you. Once you begin to exercise the imagination, it will furnish you with much ammunition and valuable information with which to think. Ideas will come to broaden your outlook, enlarge your perspective, enrich your understanding, sharpen your wits, and actually make you aware of new ideas you never thought of before. To illustrate, I am going to relate an actual experience that took place in my own selling activities. In 1921, I sold a young business man a $5,000 life insurance policy. At that time this was all he could carry. However, he was engaged in a very favorable business with unusual possibilities for development. I sensed this, and I also sensed that he was not fully aware of the unlimited possibilities and opportuni- ties that his business had in store for him. After visualizing the possibilities of his business, I decided my client needed an injection of ideas in order to arouse his slumbering imag- ination. I did not tell him this, but little by little I began to feed him with ideas of a constructive and creative nature. 146 IMAGINATION YOUR JUNIOR SALESMAN It was like putting yeast into dough. I could almost see his imagination working. It seemed to fill his whole conscious- ness with a new zest, a new attitude, a new outlook, and a new enthusiasm. The business began to grow with leaps and bounds. Of course, he was well pleased and, during the next ten years, I sold him a total of $500,000 worth of life in- surance, or an average of $50,000 per year. It only proves that the minute you exercise your imagination to help some- one else, you automatically help yourself. |
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