Why is it that one salesman can often accomplish three or four times as much as another? The difference is not always that of ability. It is often a difference in the effort—in the character of the effort. One salesman tries harder. He adds enthusiasm and a splendid zest to his work, which increases the quality as well as the quantity of the result.

Joyous zeal, dead-in-earnestness, will sell more goods than all the technical training in the world, minus enthusiasm.

How often have I heard salesmen say in the morning that they fairly dreaded the day’s work, that the hours dragged and that they were glad when the ordeal was over. They felt no enthusiasm for their employment.

Can any one hope to succeed in life who considers a day’s work an ordeal, who goes to it as a slave lashed to his task?

An employer measures his employees largely by the spirit in which they do their work. The salesman who goes to his task with energy, determination, and enthusiasm, by his very bearing gives assurance that the thing he undertakes will not only be done, but will be done as well as it can be done. On the other hand, when a salesman drags himself about as though existence were a burden, when he takes hold of his work with repugnance, as though he dreaded it, it does not take an expert judge of human nature to know that he will never amount to anything.

No matter how strongly and perfectly constructed, or how powerful a locomotive may be, unless the water is heated to two hundred and twelve degrees, the train will not move an inch. Warm water, water at two hundred and eleven degrees will not answer. The water must be at the boiling point.

No matter how fine a brain or how good an education a salesman may have, without the steam of enthusiasm, which propels the human machine, his work will be ineffective. It is the enthusiastic man in every trade or profession, the man with fire and iron in his blood, whose enthusiasm is at the boiling point, who makes things move in this world. The half-hearted, indifferent, aimless worker, who is never aroused to the two-hundred-and-twelve degree of live interest and enthusiasm in his especial task, is headed for failure. He will never be his own manager. He is lucky if he succeeds in holding down even a poor job.

The prizes of life are for the dead-in-earnest and enthusiastic. The world has ever made way for enthusiasm. It compels men to listen. It convinces the most skeptical. As Bulwer-Lytton once said: “Nothing is so contagious as enthusiasm; it is a real allegory of the Lute of Orpheus; it moves stones; it charms brutes. Enthusiasm is the genius of sincerity; and truth accomplishes no victories without it.”

Knowledge and skill have never been a match for enthusiasm. It multiplies a man’s power, raises whatever ability he has to its highest. One talent with enthusiasm back of it has ever accomplished more than ten talents without it. Enthusiasm is the powder that drives the bullet home to its mark.

To produce the best results, enthusiasm must be steady, continuous, not fitful or uncertain.

I know a man who is a valuable solicitor if his employers can only keep him keyed up to the right point, supplied with enthusiasm. When his enthusiasm is at high tide he accomplishes wonders, but the moment it ebbs he is good for nothing. And his enthusiasm often ebbs; it is very uncertain. One day he will impress you as a powerful man, a man with great determination, vigor and push—he makes everything move; then you meet him on one of his off days, when the tide is out, and scarcely know him. His mentality is flabby, his courage is down. He goes about with a blue and discouraged look, and is practically good for nothing. But when he rallies and his courage and enthusiasm come back, he is a regular giant.

If this man would learn to control his moods and get complete possession of himself; if he would strengthen his will so that he should always be ruler in his mental kingdom, instead of abdicating every now and then and allowing his pessimism, his blue moods to take control and rule him, he would be invaluable—a king in his line.

Enthusiasm must be guided by level-headedness or it may defeat its object. Some people allow their enthusiasm to run away with them and thus greatly weaken their power and possibilities. While it is an indispensable factor in salesmanship, too much enthusiasm develops weakness, destroys one’s good sense and good judgment and one’s ability to convince people. And the power of carrying conviction to the mind of a prospective buyer is the very marrow of salesmanship.

I have known over-enthusiastic young salesmen to be so completely carried away with the possibilities of what they were selling, to exhibit so little judgment and so much fervor in their canvass, that they aroused suspicion in the minds of their prospects as to their good judgment.

In cases of this sort a level-headed man will say to himself: “This young fellow is too wrought up over this article; he is hypnotized by it and has an exaggerated idea of its merits. No man in this state of mind is reliable; his judgment is warped. He is honest enough, but I cannot afford to rely on what he says. He is too enthused to be trustworthy.”

You can be as enthusiastic as you please without overstepping the bounds of reason. The A1 salesman knows how to steer his course between the enthusiasm that excites suspicion, arouses distrust, and the enthusiasm that persuades and convinces. There is now and then one who with abounding enthusiasm, guided by good judgment and horse-sense, pours his very life into his sale, just as a great advocate flings his life into his pleading. He is the sort of man who will win out in any proposition he attempts to put through.

On the other hand, there are lukewarm salesmen who put so little of themselves into their sale, so little enthusiasm and zest, so little magnetism, so little diplomacy and tact, and so little of the art of persuasion, that they remain third or fourth rate all their lives. They barely get a living in a field where the energetic, enthusiastic man makes a fortune.

The salesman or other worker who gives only his second best instead of his best, who gives indifference instead of enthusiasm, who doesn’t think it worth while to fling his soul into his work, never amounts to much. In an age when increasing stress is everywhere placed on efficiency, and yet more efficiency, there is no future for the indifferent. Give to the world the best you have and the best will come back to you.