A SMALL CARD WITH BIG INSTRUCTIONS

My Daddy, Cecil Warren Kilgore worked for the Alabama Forestry Commission for many years as Forest Ranger of Winston Co., Alabama.  Since his death,  April 12, 2012, we have been going through drawers, closets, clothes, and old papers discovering all kinds of kept items.  One such item is a card found among some calling cards on file entitled SALESMANSHIP FOR FORESTERS.  The instructions are appropriate for all of us and so I share them now in tribute to the way Daddy treated people and the kind of person he was.

THE ELEVEN KEYS TO DEALING WITH PEOPLE
by Eliot W. Zimmerman

1. Accept people just as they are.
2. Help people to be right.
3. Use a professional approach.
4. Be confident.
5. Put people at ease.
6. Retain your poise.
7. Be brief in conversation.
8. Be consistent, sincere, courteous, and friendly.
9. Help people to feel important.
10. Know your subject well enough to sell it.
11. Use the indirect approach.

On the back of the instructional card was a worn-off heading. All I can make out is RELATIONS POINTS TO MEMBERS with a sub-title of OVER-ALL RULES:

1. DO IT FIRST.    2. DO IT RIGHT.  3. REMEMBER THE KEYS.

A. Ask questions to win cooperation. Ask for favors, opinions.

B. Be brief to clear up trouble.  Use your ears.

C. Confidence in yourself to control others.

D. Directness to reach people.  The shortest distance between two points is still a straight line.

E. Earnestness to arouse enthusiasm.  Be sincere.

F. Friendliness to overcome opposition.

G. Good-Finding to uncover ability.  Ability withers under faultfinding and blossoms under good-         finding.

H. Harness Criticism to win cooperation, not resentment.

I. Increase self-esteem in others.  Make people feel important and they love you; unimportant, they hate you.

J. Jingle Praise to get best effort.  Give a pat on the back.

K. KNOW PEOPLE. People are interested in you only when you are interested in them.


Aren't the instructions on that small card to the point and simply stated? They remind me of the Proverbs found in the Old Testament. It would be a better world if we all would adhere to the wisdom found within each simple statement. I would sum it all up by saying we should follow the Golden Rule: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."  Go out and practice the KEYS.

SING-cerely,
Johnny Kilgore