Part Two – Ways To Make People Like You | 2

2 – A Simple Way To Make A Good First Impression
At a dinner party in New York, one of the guests, a woman who had
inherited money, was eager to make a pleasing impression on
everyone. She had squandered a modest fortune on sables,
diamonds and pearls. But she hadn’t done anything whatever about
her face. It radiated sourness and selfishness. She didn’t realize what
everyone knows: namely, that the expression one wears on one’s
face is far more important than the clothes one wears on one’s back.
Charles Schwab told me his smile had been worth a million dollars.
And he was probably understating the truth. For Schwab’s
personality, his charm, his ability to make people like him, were
almost wholly responsible for his extraordinary success; and one of
the most delightful factors in his personality was his captivating
smile.
Actions speak louder than words, and a smile says, “I like you, You
make me happy. I am glad to see you.” That is why dogs make such
a hit. They are so glad to see us that they almost jump out of their
skins. So, naturally, we are glad to see them.
A baby’s smile has the same effect.
Have you ever been in a doctor’s waiting room and looked around at
all the glum faces waiting impatiently to be seen? Dr, Stephen K.
Sproul, a veterinarian in Raytown, Missouri, told of a typical spring
day when his waiting room was full of clients waiting to have their
pets inoculated. No one was talking to anyone else, and all were
probably thinking of a dozen other things they would rather be doing
than “wasting time” sitting in that office. He told one of our classes:
“There were six or seven clients waiting when a young woman came
in with a nine-month-old baby and a kitten. As luck would have it,
she sat down next to a gentleman who was more than a little
distraught about the long wait for service. The next thing he knew,
the baby just looked up at him with that great big smile that is so
characteristic of babies. What did that gentleman do? Just what you
and I would do, of course; he-smiled back at the baby. Soon he
struck up a conversation with the woman about her baby and his
grandchildren, and soon the entire reception room joined in, and the
boredom and tension were converted into a pleasant and enjoyable
experience.”
An insincere grin? No. That doesn’t fool anybody. We know it is
mechanical and we resent it. I am talking about a real smile, a
heartwarming smile, a smile that comes from within, the kind of
smile that will bring a good price in the marketplace.
Professor James V. McConnell, a psychologist at the University of
Michigan, expressed his feelings about a smile. “People who smile,”
he said, “tend to manage teach and sell more effectively, and to
raise happier children. There’s far more information in a smile than a
frown. That’s why encouragement is a much more effective teaching
device than punishment.”
The employment manager of a large New York department store told
me she would rather hire a sales clerk who hadn’t finished grade
school, if he or she has a pleasant smile, than to hire a doctor of
philosophy with a somber face.
The effect of a smile is powerful – even when it is unseen. Telephone
companies throughout the United States have a program called
“phone power” which is offered to employees who use the telephone
for selling their services or products. In this program they suggest
that you smile when talking on the phone. Your “smile” comes
through in your voice.
Robert Cryer, manager of a computer department for a Cincinnati,
Ohio, company, told how he had successfully found the right
applicant for a hard-to-fill position:
“I was desperately trying to recruit a Ph.D. in computer science for
my department. I finally located a young man with ideal
qualifications who was about to be graduated from Purdue
University. After several phone conversations I learned that he had
several offers from other companies, many of them larger and better
known than mine. I was delighted when he accepted my offer. After
he started on the job, I asked him why he had chosen us over the
others. He paused for a moment and then he said: ‘I think it was
because managers in the other companies spoke on the phone in a
cold, business-like manner, which made me feel like just another
business transaction, Your voice sounded as if you were glad to hear
from me … that you really wanted me to be part of your
organization. ‘ You can be assured, I am still answering my phone
with a smile.”
The chairman of the board of directors of one of the largest rubber
companies ‘in the United States told me that, according to his
observations, people rarely succeed at anything unless they have fun
doing it. This industrial leader doesn’t put much faith in the old
adage that hard work alone is the magic key that will unlock the door
to our desires, “I have known people,” he said, “who succeeded
because they had a rip-roaring good time conducting their business.
Later, I saw those people change as the fun became work. The
business had grown dull, They lost all joy in it, and they failed.”
You must have a good time meeting people if you expect them to
have a good time meeting you.
I have asked thousands of business people to smile at someone
every hour of the day for a week and then come to class and talk
about the results. How did it work? Let’s see … Here is a letter from
William B. Steinhardt, a New York stockbroker. His case isn’t isolated.
In fact, it is typical of hundreds of cases.
“1 have been married for over eighteen years,” wrote Mr. Steinhardt,
“and in all that time I seldom smiled at my wife or spoke two dozen
words to her from the time I got up until I was ready to leave for
business. I was one of the worst grouches who ever walked down
Broadway.
“When you asked me to make a talk about my experience with
smiles, I thought I would try it for a week. So the next morning,
while combing my hair, I looked at my glum mug in the mirror and
said to myself, ‘Bill, you are going to wipe the scowl off that sour
puss of yours today. You are going to smile. And you are going to
begin right now.’ As I sat down to breakfast, I greeted my wife with
a ‘Good morning, my dear,’ and smiled as I said it.
“You warned me that she might be surprised. Well, you
underestimated her reaction. She was bewildered. She was shocked.
I told her that in the future she could expect this as a regular
occurrence, and I kept it up every morning.
“This changed attitude of mine brought more happiness into our
home in the two months since I started than there was during the
last year.
“As I leave for my office, I greet the elevator operator in the
apartment house with a ‘Good morning’ and a smile, I greet the
doorman with a smile. I smile at the cashier in the subway booth
when I ask for change. As I stand on the floor of the Stock
Exchange, I smile at people who until recently never saw me smile.
“I soon found that everybody was smiling back at me, I treat those
who come to me with complaints or grievances in a cheerful manner,
I smile as I listen to them and I find that adjustments are
accomplished much easier. I find that smiles are bringing me dollars,
many dollars every day.
“I share my office with another broker. One of his clerks is a likable
young chap, and I was so elated about the results I was getting that
I told him recently about my new philosophy of human relations. He
then confessed that when I first came to share my office with his
firm he thought me a terrible grouch – and only recently changed his
mind. He said I was really human when I smiled.
“I have also eliminated criticism from my system. I give appreciation
and praise now instead of condemnation. I have stopped talking
about what I want. I am now trying to see the other person’s
viewpoint. And these things have literally revolutionized my life. I am
a totally different man, a happier man, a richer man, richer in
friendships and happiness – the only things that matter much after
all.”
You don’t feel like smiling? Then what? Two things. First, force
yourself to smile. If you are alone, force yourself to whistle or hum a
tune or sing. Act as if you were already happy, and that will tend to
make you happy. Here is the way the psychologist and philosopher
William James put it:
“Action seems to follow feeling, but really action and feeling go
together; and by regulating the action, which is under the more
direct control of the will, we can indirectly regulate the feeling, which
is not.
“Thus the sovereign voluntary path to cheerfulness, if our
cheerfulness be lost, is to sit up cheerfully and to act and speak as if
cheerfulness were already there. …”
Every body in the world is seeking happiness – and there is one sure
way to find it. That is by controlling your thoughts. Happiness
doesn’t depend on outward conditions. It depends on inner
conditions.
It isn’t what you have or who you are or where you are or what you
are doing that makes you happy or unhappy. It is what you think
about it. For example, two people may be in the same place, doing
the same thing; both may have about an equal amount of money
and prestige – and yet one may be miserable and the other happy.
Why? Because of a different mental attitude. I have seen just as
many happy faces among the poor peasants toiling with their
primitive tools in the devastating heat of the tropics as I have seen in
air-conditioned offices in New York, Chicago or Los Angeles.
“There is nothing either good or bad,” said Shakespeare, “but
thinking makes it so.”
Abe Lincoln once remarked that “most folks are about as happy as
they make up their minds to be.” He was right. I saw a vivid
illustration of that truth as I was walking up the stairs of the Long
Island Railroad station in New York. Directly in front of me thirty or
forty crippled boys on canes and crutches were struggling up the
stairs. One boy had to be carried up. I was astonished at their
laughter and gaiety. I spoke about it to one of.the men in charge of
the boys. “Oh, yes,” he said, “when a boy realizes that he is going to
be a cripple for life, he is shocked at first; but after he gets over the
shock, he usually resigns himself to his fate and then becomes as
happy as normal boys.”
I felt like taking my hat off to those boys. They taught me a lesson I
hope I shall never forget.
Working all by oneself in a closed-off room in an office not only is
lonely, but it denies one the opportunity of making friends with other
employees in the company. Seсora Maria Gonzalez of Guadalajara,
Mexico, had such a job. She envied the shared comradeship of other
people in the company as she heard their chatter and laughter. As
she passed them in the hall during the first weeks of her
employment, she shyly looked the other way.
After a few weeks, she said to herself, “Maria, you can’t expect those
women to come to you. You have to go out and meet them. ” The
next time she walked to the water cooler, she put on her brightest
smile and said, “Hi, how are you today” to each of the people she
met. The effect was immediate. Smiles and hellos were returned, the
hallway seemed brighter, the job friendlier.
Acquaintanceships developed and some ripened into friendships. Her
job and her life became more pleasant and interesting.
Peruse this bit of sage advice from the essayist and publisher Elbert
Hubbard – but remember, perusing it won’t do you any good unless
you apply it:
Whenever you go out-of-doors, draw the chin in, carry the crown of
the head high, and fill the lungs to the utmost; drink in the sunshine;
greet your friends with a smile, and put soul into every handclasp.
Do not fear being misunderstood and do not waste a minute thinking
about your enemies. Try to fix firmly in your mind what you would
like to do; and then, without veering off direction, you will move
straight to the goal. Keep your mind on the great and splendid things
you would like to do, and then, as the days go gliding away, you will
find yourself unconsciously seizing upon the opportunities that are
required for the fulfillment of your desire, just as the coral insect
takes from the running tide the element it needs. Picture in your
mind the able, earnest, useful person you desire to be, and the
thought you hold is hourly transforming you into that particular
individual.. . . Thought is supreme. Preserve a right mental attitude –
the attitude of courage, frankness, and good cheer. To think rightly
is to create. All things come through desire and every sincere prayer
is answered. We become like that on which our hearts are fixed.
Carry your chin in and the crown of your head high. We are gods in
the chrysalis.
The ancient Chinese were a wise lot – wise in the ways of the world;
and they had a proverb that you and I ought to cut out and paste
inside our hats. It goes like this: “A man without a smiling face must
not open a shop.”
Your smile is a messenger of your good will. Your smile brightens the
lives of all who see it. To someone who has seen a dozen people
frown, scowl or turn their faces away, your smile is like the sun
breaking through the clouds. Especially when that someone is under
pressure from his bosses, his customers, his teachers or parents or
children, a smile can help him realize that all is not hopeless – that
there is joy in the world.
Some years ago, a department store in New York City, in recognition
of the pressures its sales clerks were under during the Christmas
rush, presented the readers of its advertisements with the following
homely philosophy:
The Value Of A Smile At Christmas
It costs nothing, but creates much. It enriches those who receive,
without impoverishing those who give. It happens in a flash and the
memory of it sometimes lasts forever, None are so rich they can get
along without it, and none so poor but are richer for its benefits. It
creates happiness in the home, fosters good will in a business, and is
the countersign of friends. It is rest to the weary, daylight to the
discouraged, sunshine to the sad, and Nature’s best antidote fee
trouble. Yet it cannot be bought, begged, borrowed, or stolen, for it
is something that is no earthly good to anybody till it is given away.
And if in the last-minute rush of Christmas buying some of our
salespeople should be too tired to give you a smile, may we ask you
to leave one of yours? For nobody needs a smile so much as those
who have none left to give!
• Principle 2 – Smile.