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3. Divide your subject into several parts or sections and divide each part into about five divisions or chapters.
4. Buy a very small notebook and at the top of each page write the title of one of the divisions which will be chapters. Then make pencil notes of ideas and thoughts that come to you relating to these subjects. Carry this notebook with you at all times for about six months.
5. Now you are in position to write the book, chapter by chapter, using your notes as you go along.
6. Make a game of completing at least one chapter a week. This isn't hard to do even though you are busy with your regular work. But it's practically impossible, unless you make a game or contest of going through the above
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steps. At least it would be for me. This makes it fun and I try to keep a few weeks ahead so as to allow for illness, absence from the city, or other unforeseen interruptions. By writing ten pages a week, a man can have a book completed in 30 or 40 weeks, once he has the preliminary planning and research done. Then he's ready for corrections and revisions. For example, this book contains seven parts, with each part divided into five chapters, thus making 35 chapters in all.
This system makes it fun to write the book. Otherwise it would likely be "work."
THE GAME OF SELLING
Many a salesman is downhearted, despondent, and unsuccessful for a very simple reason. He is focusing his attention on the business he hopes to get, rather than on doing the things that will produce business.
Sales are made of four things—a useful product or service, prospects who are able to buy, a plan of work that is definite and practical, and a sales story or demonstration that is convincing. When these four ingredients are properly "mixed" by an energetic, smart, and attractive salesman, success is assured.
The trouble arises when a man neglects one or more of these "departments." It's very easy to let a day, two days, a week, or a month slip by with little done in prospecting, improving sales skill, or making contacts. The remedy is to make a game out of doing these things every day without fail.
KEEP SCORE
No game is interesting to anyone if no score was kept. Imagine a crowd going to see a football or basketball game
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just to watch the activity! It would be absurd. Even a golfer playing alone for practice keeps score and tries to beat Par or Bogey.
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