Positive Thinking Builds Better Salespeople
The Southwestern Company has generally not kept transcripts of sales school, but various members of the company and family members of people who have participated in the program have kept letters and these show that there are a lot of traditions that have been passed on for a long time. One of these lessons has been that there is a silver lining on every dark and stormy cloud. There are letters from a student in 1936 who had been selling books around LaFollette, Tennessee who had been having a hard time. The country side was in the middle of the worst drought in over fifty years and it had become so bad that some people were counting down to the minute the last time it had rained. All the crops were dying, which meant that no one had any money.
The locals did not like sales people , mostly because they had seen every kind out there and had been burned by a lot of them. If there was a fake cure with a traveling salesman, it had been out that way, if there was exercise equipment, or plants, insurance, magazines and just about everything else. They would see the sample case and shut down so tight that you couldn’t crack them open with the most charismatic person in the world.
Selling was a mental attitude though, and young Mr. Easley had it. He was reported to have believed that if it would only rain there then he could make a fortune. People would be so happy to get the rain that he would be able to make some sales. After all, what he brought with him were books and bibles, something they would love if only they could buy it. He was even known to have assured his bosses at the southwestern company that there was no way he was going to quit just because of what was happening in his area at that moment. He was going to continue doing his job, and he would later find that this payed off. His good attitude was what made him a good salesperson.