Business And Education - 3

This opened their eyes to their own weaknesses and converted them to Mr. Crane's proved method of using a selling talk. As a result, sales began to increase with surprising rapidity, and in a few years The National Cash Register Company was known as the greatest selling organization in the world.

As the fame of The National Cash Register Company's selling methods spread throughout the business world, many business organizations began to make inquiries, and gradually educational and sales-training programs of a kind were initiated by some of the leading companies throughout the country.

Progress in the scientific training of salesmen has, however, been slow. Though some companies and industries have reached a fair degree of efficiency, the quality of sales-training today is still, in general, elementary and haphazard.

Present-day competition, and the expected tough struggle for business survival in the years that lie ahead are, however, awakening some of our most intelligent and progressive business leaders to a frank recognition of the fact that "business is selling," and that business survival will be determined by the quality and training of a company's sales force.

This appraisal is borne out by an editorial in the August 1960 edition of The American Salesman, in which Editor David R. Lindsey says: "If I got anything out of my recent visits to National Sales Executives' Graduate School of Sales Management and Marketing and the national conference of the American Marketing Association, it was ... there is a demand for trained salesmen, and the demand is pushing more and more universities into teaching selling. The whole field of sales is growing more scientific all the time because companies believe in survival."

But it is not only in the education and training of its salesmen that business as a whole is lagging. There appears to be an amazing lack of appreciation of the tremendous profit value in the education and training of all employees. It is still quite generally true, as Walter Dill Scott, former President of Northwestern University, and one of America's foremost teachers of business, said some years ago: "Man is the one neglected factor in business and the most important... the individual remains to be studied, trained, and developed, to be brought up to the standard of maximum results already reached by material processes."

Seneca was profoundly right when, so many centuries ago, he said: "A good mind possesses a kingdom." A well-developed mind is an asset of inestimable value.

Knowledge is power! This is an old cliché, but it is eternally true. The world respects, and promotes, and honors the person who is truly educated - the one who not only knows his own business, but understands people, and is well-informed about the world in which we live, and its inhabitants.

In the study of the lives of great men and women, we invariably find that they had an intense thirst for knowledge. They wanted to know about people and things, and they never stopped learning.

Be, therefore, forever a seeker of knowledge in that bigger, broader sense. Learning is a living thing - it is never finished. A constant inflow of both specific and general knowledge will fill you with the living water of life. It will accelerate and perpetuate your personal progress, and enhance your prestige and influence among your fellowmen.

Full development and utilization of your mental resources are, therefore, truly essential if you are to attain your full potential as a person, and achieve your rightful share of success and happiness on earth.

• The Brain
• The Power Of The Mind
• The Importance Of Formal Education
• Five Reasons For A College Education
  
  
  1. A College Education Brings A Fuller Life...
  2. A College Education Opens The Door To Distinction
  3. A College Education Brings Job Security....
  4. A College Education Enhances Earning Power
  
  
• An Educated Citizenry Is A Vital Requisite For Our Survival As A Free People
• Learning - A Continuous Process
• Never Too Old To Learn
• Business And Education - 1
• Business And Education - 2