How To Remember What You Read

Let us say you are a businessman, and one day you have a really brilliant idea about improving the sales end of your business. At the next conference you outline your idea, and it goes over with a bang. Everybody gets busy on it, and for a month the executives of your company hold meetings to work out the details.

You spend hours coining the exact phrases your salesmen are going to use. You call in an expert and pay him a resound­ing fee to work out a scientific formula, right down to the very gestures and the tone of voice with which these sure-fire phrases are going to be delivered. You call sales meetings of all your representatives and give them the results of all this planning and preparation. You compose pamphlets and letters to out­lying agents who can’t attend in person, and lay this new tech­nique at their feet, confident that it is going to double their business, as well as your own. Everything starts off with a bang—and then fizzles out because they could not remember what they’ve learnt; and it’s always the case when you fail to remember what you read.

All your hours of conference, all your painful thinking, and all of your enthusiasm, together with the money you spent promoting the idea, are simply thrown away.

Why? Merely because the individual salesman who has to be relied upon to put this new plan into actual practice, fails to do so. Why does he fail? Because he is indifferent? Non­sense. No man is indifferent to a plan calculated to earn him more money. No, the real truth is that he cant remember his new routine at the crucial moment of contact with the customer!

Probably, you have seen dozens of authentically good ideas fall through in just this manner, not because you couldn’t work, but be­cause you did not work them and unable to remember what you read. And practically every man in busi­ness has had a similar experience.

For example, I went to lunch not long ago with two execu­tives of one of the biggest gas and oil companies in America. They were discussing the company’s new “All-Round Service,” which was aimed at giving each customer just a little more than his money’s worth in mere lubricants. The company had gone to extreme pains and considerable expense to work out a routine of ten services that each station attendant could per­form quickly and efficiently while waiting on the customer. These ten services were called the “All-Round Service” be­cause they were so planned that the attendant could complete them all in one circling of the car.

It had seemed a splendid idea—and it was. It had been widely advertised, and showed every promise of pleasing cus­tomers, creating good will, and, naturally, increasing sales.

But the results in actual practice were disappointing. It was the same old story—the service men had been provided with a chart, showing them what to do, but they had failed to learn it. And a chart tacked to the inside wall of the station was of little use to them while they were outside filling up the tank.

I said: “Well, what are these ten services your men can’t remember?” And just as I suspected, these two executives looked at each other inquiringly, and then began to laugh. They couldn’t remember them either!

I’ve told this story here only because it is so typical of what is happening every day in American business, even among the biggest and most efficient corporations.

As one businessman to another, let me ask you: does it make sense for a firm to spend time and money and effort in working out ways and means of improving its service, unless it also goes the whole way to see that these improvements are carried out? And how can they possibly be carried out unless each individual knows exactly what he is supposed to do? And how can he know what he is supposed to do, if he can’t remember?

We remember only what we know—we know only what we remember. You, of course, having mastered ten key words of this Mental Filing System, would be able to learn all the steps of the “All-Round Service” in no more than ten minutes. Would you like to prove it? Here they are:

“ALL-ROUND SERVICE”

As the station attendant steps to the car to receive the driver’s order, he is supposed to:

1. Polish left half of windshield.
2. Ask, “Fill up with Ethyl?”
3. Screw cap tightly on gasoline tank, to avoid spilling.
4. Clean rear window.
5. Check tires as circle of car is made.
6. Polish right half of windshield.
7. Clean headlight lenses.
8. Service the radiator.
9. Ask, “Check your oil, sir?”
10. Ask, “Does your battery need water?”

Now, you already know that these ten services are going to be performed as you circle the car. The driver sits on the left, so as you step up to him you will naturally reach out to polish the left windshield. Therefore, we can simplify Service 1 by remembering just windshield. As you form the associa­tions, imagine yourself circling the car. It will give you extra help.

1. (alarm clock). See bunches of shining, polished alarm clocks hung all over the windshield. They’re so bright they dazzle your eyes. Reach out and polish left half of wind’ shield with alarm clock.
2. (trousers). Ethel’s trousers (your cousin Ethel, or your Aunt Ethel—everybody knows an Ethel) have been dipped in Ethyl gasoline. Ethel is soaked, and her trousers pockets are filled with Ethyl gasoline. Ask, “Fill up with Ethyl?”
3. (chair). See a gasoline can teetering back and forth on a rocking chair. You rush over to screw down the cap to stop the gasoline from slopping over on the chair. Screw cap on gasoline tank, to avoid spilling.
4. (table). You carry a table around to the back of the car; then you climb up on the table to reach the rear window. Clean rear window.
5. (newspaper). Newspapers are plastered all over the tires, and you can’t pull them off. The newspaper headline reads: TIRE BURSTS—FIVE KILLED. All cars should have five tires, including the spare. Check tires.
6. (automobile).  The license number 666,666 has been written all over the windshield with chalk. You scrub it off with a rag wrapped around a toy automobile (feel it), one six at a time. You can see the reflection of an automobile in the polished windshield. Polish right half of windshield.
7. (policeman). See the glare of the headlights flooding millions of policemen, who signal you to stop. A policeman is scrubbing the headlight lenses. Clean headlight lenses.
8. (revolving door). The revolving doors are stuffed with radiators hissing and boiling over, and steam shoots out of the revolving door. Service the radiator.
9. (mailbox). The mailbox is coated with oil, and oil is drip­ping out of it as you slide a check in the slot. The check gets soaked with greasy oil from the mailbox. Ask, “Check your oil, sir?”
10. (general-delivery window). A battery stands in the general-delivery window, with wires attached to the bars of the window. Sparks shoot out of the general-delivery window, and you douse it and the battery with water. Ask, “Does your battery need water?”
11. In order to remember what you read; now without glancing back, write the ten steps of the “All-Round Service” below. This is not a skip-about test, since the essence of the “All-Round Service” is its sequence.

2……………………..	7……………………..
3……………………..	8……………………..
4……………………..	9……………………..
5……………………..	10……………………..

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