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Most people are like automobiles. They can be pushed or pulled along, or they can be moved to action by starting their own motive power from within. In either case, you must provide the fuel. And the only fuel that will start the sort of action you want from within is desire. Arousing that desire in your reader is known as the gentle art of exercising persuasion.

What is persuasion? Nothing but finding the motive that will impel your reader to do as you wish, then stirring it to the point where it is stronger than his inertia, or his economical tendencies.

To do that, you must show how he is going to benefit, and you can not do it unless you have the faculty of putting yourself in his place. Would you be richer, healthier, happier for having done the thing you ask? Would it help your standing with others? Would it enable you to do anything, write anything, say anything better than you could before? Is it something everyone should have? Would it gratify any passion? Would it enable you to help those you love? Would it prevent loss of money or the respect of others?

Only the new letter-writer selects the arguments that are nearest to hand—the viewpoints that appeal to his own selfish interests. The experienced writer asks himself such questions as those above, then picks the motive that is strongest and presents it from the viewpoint of the reader alone. He shows what it will do for the reader, what it will add to his prestige, to his power, to his comfort, to the wellbeing of those he loves.

Description of your product is necessary. But description, no matter how interestingly done, will never sell your product by the thousands. It is what it will do for the one who buys it that counts!

There are six prime motives of human action: love, gain, duty, pride, self— indulgence and self—preservation. And frequently they are so mixed together that it is hard to tell which to work on more strongly. A man may want a new car, for instance, solely from a feeling of pride in its fine appearance, but unless money is a matter of no moment to him, pride alone will seldom make him buy.

To make that pride motive so strong as to sweep caution to the winds, you must reinforce it with a touch of self-indulgence, a measure of love and duty for wife and family, and a large dash of gain. Show how the old car hurts his standing, how repair bills and higher gas and oil consumption eat into the difference in price, how he can effect some saving now that will not be possible a month or a year later.

The more motives you can appeal to, of course, the more successful you will be, but it is important that you differentiate between the motive that makes him desire a thing and the one that impels him to take the action you desire, for the whole purpose of your letter is to make your reader act as you wish him to. He may not want to pay a bill, for instance. He may need the money badly for himself, and all his inclinations may be towards keeping it in his pocket. But if you can "sell" him the idea that his credit means more to him than the possession of that money or anything it can buy him, you have touched the right motive.

What has he to gain by doing as you wish? What to lose by refusing? "If someone were to make your boy a thief," read a National Cash Register Company letter. "Feeling as you do about your own boy, is it right to put temptation in the way of other men's boys?

Love and pride and duty are all intermingled there, with the added inducement of gain implied—of saving the losses from petty thefts and the like. But love is the dominant motive.

Love is always the strongest motive. You have but to read the papers to see how men are every day giving everything they have for it—riches and honor, life itself. Yet love is one of the most difficult motives to effectively work into a letter. Because it is so universal, it has been harped upon to such an extent that the letter writer has to be more adroit in its use than with any other motive.

Gain, now; that is easy. True, it has been worked to death, too, but we are a gullible race, and we are much readier to believe that someone is unselfishly interested in helping us to make or save money, than that he will go out of his way to further the well-being of those near and dear to us.

Tell a man, for instance, that you have only two cars left in stock, or ten suits in his size, or a hundred sets of books, and when the new stock comes in the price will be advanced 25 percent, but since he is an old customer you are holding one of these for him at the old price, and he will believe you. But try to tell the same man that your only reason for trying to sell the "Book of Knowledge" or the "Junior Classics" is your ardent love for and interest in the well-being of children, and he will laugh at you. He may buy these books if the good they will do his children is adroitly presented to him, but he resents having his love for them used as a leverage to dig money out of him for you.

Here is a skillful appeal to pride that was used with great success in the days before the automobile had crowded the horse and buggy off the road, and that can still be adapted to many another product just as successfully:

Mr. John Jones,

Jonesboro, N. C.

DEAR SIR:

Mr. Smith, our factory manager, just came in with your inquiry of Jan. 1st. He read it to me and said:

"You remember Mr. Jones, don’t you? He stands pretty high over there in Jonesboro where he lives—lots of folks know him. If Mr. Jones could drive one of our buggies around and tell his friends and neighbors who made it and how well satisfied he is with it, we could sell a lot more buggies in that neighborhood this coming year."

Then he suggested an idea which I know will please you immensely, Mr. Jones. Here it is:

I am having made to order for my own personal use just about the finest buggy that money can buy. Here’s a blueprint of it. See the extra strength I’ve built into the wheels. Note the triple ply springs that make riding easier. Mr. Smith just said: "Mr. Jones would surely be delighted with a buggy like yours. Why don’t you offer him this one? You can make another for yourself."

He thinks that if I send you my built-to-order buggy, you as a man who knows buggies, who knows what materials and finish ought to go into good buggies, will surely be pleased with it and certainly be envied by friends and acquaintances of yours who will see and admire my buggy when you drive it. I know Smith is right. So I’ve decided to act on his suggestion and let you have the buggy I’ve taken such great personal pride in designing.

Now, Mr. Jones, if an extra-fine buggy—one built specially to order for the President of the Columbus Buggy Co. would interest you—if such a buggy, with its longer wear and smarter appearance, would be worth a few dollars more to you—if you’d like to drive a buggy you’ll be proud of all your life, just fill out the attached form, send it back by return mail, and I’ll ship you a buggy like mine at once, or if you say so, I’ll send you the buggy now being made for me, and make another one for myself.

* * * * *

Of course, clothes don’t make the man. But you know yourself how helpful they are in getting him a hearing.

It is likely that Tom Edison or Charlie Schwab could wear any kind of clothes and not suffer particular loss of prestige if the suit happened to be shabby or a misfit.

But most of us have to be a bit mom careful. Aside from what our friends might think of us, we don’t feel right ourselves unless we have the consciousness of being well-groomed.

* * * * *

Through a fortunate purchase of fine wool, we are able to offer this MacCarden Motor Robe at a special low price of $9.85—about $5 or $6 less than you would expect to pay for a good robe in a retail store. We have been notified, however, that future wool will cost us much more; and we cannot hope to continue the $9.85 price when our present supply is gone.

Just glance over the enclosed folder and think for one moment of the absorbing, fascinating story that goes with it—education in the highest sense, entertainment in the most educational sense. People who have read this new, finally revised edition of the Outline are saying that it has done more for them than a College education. A College education costs you probably $5,000 and four years of your life. Wells’ wonderful work is sent to you on approval, and you will read the four books as absorbedly, as quickly as so many novels.

* * * * *

One of the oldest firms in the rubber business—a factory which makes tires that are as good as any in the world—wants to see if car owners will buy their tires ’direct’ if he will sell to them at just about the price dealers now pay.

This tire manufacturer knows that such a saving can be made if a lot of unnecessary selling expense and middlemen’s profits are wiped out. So he’s going to test out the motoring public by offering the very best tires he makes direct to car owners through our selling organization which operates by mail all over the country.

And to quickly find out if men really want to save 25% on the best tires that can be made, he is having us rush out this August letter to a few selected car owners.

* * * * *

We have just 790 of these double-texture, all wool Great coats to sell at this low price. When they are gone, your chance to save on your Winter Ulster will go with them. But while these 790 last, you can get as perfect-fitting, as good-looking, as fine-quality a Winter Overcoat as ever you would want to wear, at an almost unheard-of bargain.

As Resident Buyers for a number of out-of-town stores, we are making the rounds of the manufacturers every day, and whenever they bring out some "special," whenever they close out some small lot, whenever they finish copying some designer's model-gown, we get it!

You know yourself what bargains you can pick up even in the stores just by shopping around. Imagine, then, what we can do when we are daily shopping among the manufacturer's themselves. A fourth off, a third off, even a half off the regular wholesale price is nothing unusual, for manufacturer's have no time to bother with these small lots, and they give them to us at practically our own price.

The result is that we can offer you some of the season's loveliest and most distinctive models, in all sizes, in the most fashionable colors and materials, at actually less than their regular wholesale prices!

* * * * *

Nearly every man can look back—and not so far back with most of us—and recall cases where some little slip lost him opportunity or prestige, cost him the favor of someone whose good opinion he valued, turned what might have been a valuable friendship into enmity or indifference.

But there is no need to lose more such opportunities. For just as a physician may read medicine, just as a lawyer may read law, just so may you now read the science of culture—that science of good breeding which includes etiquette but yet is above and beyond all etiquette.

One of the best opportunities for the use of persuasion is in collection letters. As a matter of fact, it is our opinion that there are only two ways to collect old accounts. The first is persuasion. The second is the threat of court action or loss of credit standing.

Our own idea is that the most effective collection series is one that alternates these two. When you send out a strong threat you frighten a certain number of delinquents into paying, but you make the others so mad they swear they will never pay. Send another threat on top of that and you just make them madder. But use persuasion and you smooth down their fur, get a number of payments, and have things all set for another effective threat.

Here are a few samples of persuasive collection letters:

You remember how Abraham Lincoln walked many weary miles from the grocery store where he earned a mere pittance, in order to bring to a poor old woman the few cents change she had forgotten and left on the counter.

And how Mark Twain, because his name happened to be associated with that of an unsuccessful company, took all its heavy debts upon himself, and, though an old man, paid every one.

It is this "I-will-owe-no-man-a-penny" spirit that builds up and strengthens selfrespect and personal integrity—and makes a credit reputation that bulwarks a man in time of need. It is because we find just such good old-fashioned honesty as this in 99% of the folks with whom we do business, that we feel sure of the payment of your account, even though it has been neglected recently.

* * * * *

Unless you have conducted a similar business, you can hardly conceive of the mass of detail involved in handling many thousands of these $1 and $2 accounts. The difference between profit and loss on such a business depends upon the promptness of collections more than on any other one thing. I know you will not consciously be instrumental in working a hardship on any concern with which you do business, and I am quite sure that when you see your failure to remit promptly is doing just that, you will send me a check by return mail.

Back in the Stone Age, records were carved on a stone slab. When the debt was due, Mr. Creditor presented the account in a very polite fashion—holding the slab in one hand while in the other he carried his stone mallet. The debtor had no alternative.

Then civilization moved on until the debtor’s prison was the deciding factor as to whether a debtor would pay or not. But now it is a different proposition— credit. Every kind of business, large or small, must build its foundation on its credit standing. Concerns liquidating their obligations at maturity build their credit standing to the highest point attainable, while those who allow their obligations to run along month after month without payment, decrease their credit standing until it is nearly obliterated.

Again, as perhaps in your case, there is the business man who is too busy with matters of more importance, and the work of looking after his financial and accounting details is delegated to some other person who lets these important factors ride without considering the detrimental effect they have on your credit standing.

* * * * *

Your name in red ink on our records is something we want to avoid. You do, too, I am sure. Here is the way the account now stands:

John Johnson—Bills Receivable—$25.00

But unless we receive a check by the 17th, here is the way our book-keeping department will have to enter it.

(Red Ink) John Johnson—Account Overdue $25.00

The bad feature about this entry is the effect it has on our credit man, and the credit men of all the other stores that belong to our Association. But then your check before the 17th prevents all this.

* * * * *

The records in the case show that your account has been PAST DUE for 90 days, and that you have failed to return the goods or make payment, or to advise the Blank Company of cause for delay. The records also show that though written repeatedly, you have shown no inclination to liquidate your indebtedness. You have COMPELLED them to turn the account over to the Legal Department to take such action as may protect the interests of the company.

That you may be fully cognizant of the law, I wish to advise you that obtaining goods with an intent to defraud constitutes a criminal act and if such fraud is proved, the person committing it is liable to imprisonment.

Your case is now on the records of the Legal Department, and will come up for attention in one week unless you make remittance to the Blank Company.

It is to be hoped you will, for your own protection, make payment if you desire to avoid the annoyance, publicity and cost of a lawsuit. You remember a famous English Jurist is reported to have said that if a man claimed the coat on his back, and threatened to sue him for it, he'd give him the coat rather than risk losing his waistcoat, too, in defending the lawsuit.

If that is true when you are in the right, how much more true it must be when the facts are so strongly against you as in the present case!

Summed up, arousing the right motive comes down to making the reader want what you have to offer, whether that be merchandise or money or credit or merely a clean bill of health—not merely for what it is, but for what it will do for him! When you can get him thinking along those lines, when you can bring home to him the advantages that will accrue to him from doing as you wish, in so effective a way that he wants these more than anything or any trouble they may cost him, then you can feel that you have demonstrated the gentle art of exercising persuasion.