b'THE MARATHON SALESPERSON|23I will apply six main key principles to the field of sales, especially marathon sales. Each chapter will be dedicated to the discussion of one of these six principles. The concepts I will present may occasionallyseemcounterintuitive.Running amarathonrequiresdifferenttraining,energy conservation, maintenance, and even a different state of mind than running a 5K race. Likewise, the development and maintenance of long-term business relationships is a different type of sell-ing. It requires us to think and behave in ways that sometimes appear counterproductive, that even seem to go against the grain of what a sales-person is supposed to do: to generate profit from every sale. Yet consider for a moment how the throwingofseedsonaplowedfield,aseem-ingly unprofitable act in the short term, which occurred to an ancient hunter-gatherer ancestor of ours, resulted in an immensely profitable har-vest a few months later and a sustainable way of producing food. The understanding of this natu-ral law and the subsequent formulation of prin-ciples based on this law gave rise to agriculture and civilization. In a similar way, the marathon salesperson must act according to principles that guarantee long-term success, not just short-term profit.'