Some months ago a famous Scientologist wrote me and asked me to appoint a committee to 'Work out the perfect dissemination program using all the tremendous technical information we had in Scientology as a basis'. Although I did not appoint the committee the matter stayed in mind and here a few weeks later I pulled it out of the 'bull pen' and attached an answer to it.
The conditions of a perfect dissemination program would be, of course, maximum dissemination with minimum effort. This adds up to an instantaneous postulate which soars around the world without even using space. Now I may be fairish at postulating but at the moment, due to state of case no doubt, I am not quite up to doing this. Therefore as far as we are concerned at the moment we have to have some MEST in the line.
The perfect dissemination program would do the following:
One: It would use existing comm lines within the society as these are already grooved in and our time would not then be spent trying to make channels but would be spent in simply using them.
Two: It would not be costly as in advertising but would in fact itself make money and finance its own way.
Three:It would carry an easily assimilable message.
Four: It would direct attention to immediately useable facilities.
Five: It would not challenge any existing powerful group, but would further the ends of the most grooved comm lines in the society so as to forward them as well as ours.
Six: It would run itself and keep going after being given a push, and its impetus would not depend on thoroughly new creation at every moment but could become a pattern to be continuously created. Thereby we would not all be getting out of pace for it has been observed that we progress as far as we standardize.
These and other conditions would give us a nearly perfect dissemination system. Naturally it would have to be able to work in any kind of an area for any kind of an activity and not depend upon specialized areas found seldom in the society.
Well, you evidently still need me around because I up and thunk up a 'perfect dissemination program' that matches all the above conditions. It will get franchise holders out of any dissemination difficulties they're in if they just hold on and do it. It will perk up even Central Orgs if they need it, and for it can be written a series of pamphlets and books which have a chance of remaining constant for a long time to come — thus they can be printed in quantity and distributed widely and easily.
Naturally I'm the first victim of it because I will now have to get to work and write up a whole new series of things from beginning to end and dream up and test a lot of technology and pass it on. But we're not stalled until the picture is perfect, and anybody can tear into this even without literature and fly by the seat of his or her pants until we can get the manuals and complete know-how worked out.
Well, that's enough sales talk. What, you're grinding your teeth to know, is the perfect dissemination program. Ah — I've got a surprise for you. You'll agree at once that it is.
One: The most grooved comm line in western society is selling. To this is devoted the time and talent of some of the most accomplished men in the society. Signposts, sandwich men, broadsides, billboards, newspapers, radio advertising, TV advertising, skywriting and now implantation are all devoted to selling. But the final landing of orders is done by the salesman.
Two: Salesmen are always faced with the problems of reaching the other fellow's mind in order to make him buy something and are fascinated by any idea or know-how that accomplishes this for them. Salesmen have paid out billions to get trained, informed, genned and groomed about selling. And while we were teaching them they would be paying us and would be buying a good package.
Three:We can train the salesman to communicate to the buyer in such a way as to make the buyer want something and buy it. But we can give the salesman our message to use not as idle chatter but really as something helpful to him with the client, and that is the fact that hope exists for people with difficulties and that hope is spelled Scientology. And the slightly more complex message would be that communication solves anything.
Four: This program would direct first the salesman's attention and then his client's attention to PE courses as a reasonable means of handling life better.
Five: The groups in the western world that hold most of the strings even in a socialistic society are the producers of goods, and these want these goods distributed. Anything that forwards this action is on the side of the most powerful groups and Scientology is then not opposed to them. In a supersocialism the problem drops a degree: Their problem is getting people to produce and in this activity they employ a great many people and it would be these people we would have to be working with in a totally socialistic state but that's not yet.
Six: As any and all technology useable in selling is 'way back when' in Scientology there isn't much need to go out on a big research program to get the gen. We've got the gen for this project.
Well, that's the rationale of the main points, Of course there are many other points in its favor. You can think of dozens. One of these is that the salesman, selling all the time, is a good target for any sales-talk — see Overt Act-Motivator Sequence. Therefore our sales-talk can be outrageously strong and will appeal. Another point is that the most recent patron saint of salesmen is recently dead — the late Dale Carnegie had almost his total appeal to salesmen and was quite successful, but since his demise his organization has been going downhill rapidly. With all due respect to a large figure in the 20th century, his technology was an appeal to the 1.1 and failed on the cornerstone of reality. Salesmen bought it but found it was far from a good answer to selling. Therefore they will be ready broadly for a new school of thought.
A salesman sees more people in a day than other people see in a month. Therefore he is himself an excellent comm particle. And he always needs something to talk about. And we have already a wonderful record in selling gains where salesmen are concerned. We have some examples of men who after studying Scientology, continuing in their saleswork, made ten to fifty times the number of sales as a result. Where a business firm is conservative and will buy only something to increase production, its salesmen are free agents in getting training and should be appealed to as such.
Probably the most rapid gain financially that any individual could make from getting trained or processed would be the salesman, as he works on commission and his ability to reach would be instantly reflected in his income. Therefore he is as an individual a good investment.
The basic liability of this program is the critical attitude of salesmen toward a poor presentation and anything not dressed up as a course would find them snorty. But we have an answer to that. When they criticize presentation of a PE course we would use that criticism to enlist their assistance. 'But that's why we need your help' should be the innocent rejoinder.
First and foremost the step which should be taken by you now is to discover what publication carries the most ads for salesmen and what publications, newspapers or magazines in your area are read by salesmen or are printed for salesmen. Into such should be inserted an advert more or less as follows:
That done you'll have time to get grooved in for the responses (as per the programming bulletin).
The course should be revised for all, not just salesmen, along the following lines: A free combination of PE and Comm Course wherein there is lecture and there are drills. A paid Comm Course using the Basic TRs of the Comm Course. A repeat of the Comm Course again with a little Upper Indoc or just plain Comm Course again. A Co-audit using "From where could you communicate to a…? (body part)" as per dropping meter on assessment. Before the student has a chance to get bored with the Co-audit, another Comm Course. More Co-audit until bodies are down to the clear reading stably. And then and only then an HAS Certificate. All fees paid by the week. All fees high enough to command respect.
The total mission would be to teach the salesman to confront and communicate to bodies. The total lecture gen to be centred around the ARC triangle. The texts to be Problems of Work and Science of Survival. Examination on texts to be given.
In later bulletins I'll give you a lot more gen on this. The point is here, if you agree with this, jump in — perhaps not to the extent of committing all working channels to this one channel, but to the point of testing it out and sending me the results.
If this becomes in fact the perfect dissemination program then we've got it made and made again. For with this basic communication network working in the society we will have something to build upon toward higher goals and a better world.