Hard Selling Against British Snobbery

“I still can't get over the antipathy I find in Britain to the art and skill of salesmanship. Napoleon used to call the English a nation of shop-keepers, but that must have altered a long time ago. Although nowadays there are some firms which are noticeable exceptions, the general run of British businessmen still instinctively look down on hard selling. The almost universal attitude is 'I make good stuff and the public don't need to be told.' Every firm has something to sell, even if it is only their reputation, and if it doesn't sell hard what it has got to offer, it is still living at the turn of the century, and it certainly can't count on survival far less success just because its chairman is a member of the right club and its sales director, so called, wears the right tie. No modern business can stay with success unless it goes on working to its full potential and that demands a strong sales force.”

“Even today, when I'd much rather stay at home, I am always ready to make a journey, sometimes abroad, to attend the centenary celebration of a newspaper, or the opening of a hotel, or a travel agents' convention in Majorca, to go on television, and to be very careful of that, to rehearse thoroughly what I am going to say, so that I can put over to the public what we stand for and what we are going to do. In this, I am doing the best I can for the shareholders of my organisation, and saying that isn't being hypocritical. Of course if the shares keep buoyant as the result of my speech or appearance, my family trusts benefit. But the price of those shares matters perhaps even more to the widow with two thousand of them.”