Salesmen are told many things they should do; perhaps they ought to hear a few things they should not do. If there is one thing above all others that a salesman should observe, it is this:
Don't grouch!
The surly salesman who goes around carrying with him a big chunk of London fog does himself harm. If the sun does not wish to shine upon him—if he is having a little run of hard luck—he should turn on himself, even with the greatest effort, a little limelight. He should carry a small sunshine generator in his pocket always. The salesman who approaches his customer with a frown or a blank look upon his face, is doomed right at the start to do no business. His countenance should be as bright as a new tin pan.
The feeling of good cheer that the salesman has will make his customer cheerful; and unless a customer is feeling good, he will do little, if any, business with you.
I do not mean by this that the salesman should have on hand a full stock of cheap jokes—and pray, my good friend, never a single smutty one; nothing cheapens a man so much as to tell one of these—but he should carry a line of good cheerful wholesome talk. "How are you feeling?" a customer may ask. "Had a bad cold last night, but feel chipper as a robin this morning." "How's business?" a customer may inquire. "The, world is kind to me," should be the reply. The merchant who makes a big success is the cheerful man; the salesman who—whether on the road or behind the counter—succeeds, carries with him a long stock of sunshine.
An old-time clothing man who traveled in Colorado once told me this incident:
"I used to have a customer, several years ago, over in Leadville," said he, "that I had to warm up every time I called around. His family cost him a great deal of money. The old man gave it to them cheerfully, but he himself would take only a roll and a cup of coffee for breakfast, and, when he got down to the store he felt so poor that he would take a chew of tobacco and make it last him for the rest of the day. Actually, that man didn't eat enough. And his clothes—well, he would dress his daughters in silks but he would wear a hand-me-down until the warp on the under side of his sleeves would wear clear down to the woof. He would wear the bottoms off his trousers until the tailor tucked them under clear to his shoe tops. Smile? I never saw the old man smile in my life when I first met him on my trips. It would always take me nearly a whole day to get him thawed out, and the least thing would make him freeze up again.
"I remember one time I went to see him—you recall him, old man Samuels—and, after a great deal of coaxing, got him to come into my sample room in the afternoon. This was a hard thing to do because if he was busy in the store he would not leave and if he wasn't busy, he would say to me, 'Vat's de use of buying, Maircus? You see, I doan sell nodding.'
"But this time I got the old man over to luncheon with me—we were old friends, you know—and I jollied him up until he was in a good humor. Then I took him into the sample room, and little by little, he laid out a line of goods. Just about the time he had finished it, it grew a little cloudy.
"Now, you know how the sun shines in Colorado? From one side of the state to the other it seldom gets behind a cloud. In short, it shines there 360 days in the year. It had been bright and clear all morning and all the time, in fact, until the old man had laid out his line of goods. Then he happened to look out of the window, and what do you suppose he said to me?
"'Vell, Maircus, I like you and I like your goots, but, ach Himmel! der clooty vetter!' And, do you know, I couldn't get the old man to do any business with me because he thought the sun was never going to shine again? I cannot understand just how he argued it with himself, but he was deaf to all of my coaxing. Finally I said to him:
"'Sam, you are kicking about the cloudy weather but I will make you a present of a box of cigars if the sun does not shine before we write down this order.'
"The old man was something of a gambler,—in fact the one pleasure of his life was to play penochle for two bits a corner after he closed up. So he said to me, 'Vell, Maircus, you can wride down der orter, and eef dot sun shines before we get t'rough, you can sheep der goots.'
"This was the first time that I ever played a game against the Powers That Be. I started in and the sky grew darker and darker. I monkeyed along for an hour and a half, and, just to kill time, tried to switch the old man from patterns he had selected to others that I 'thought would be a little better.' But the Powers were against me, and when I finished writing down the order it was cloudier than ever—and nearly night, too.
"Then an idea struck me. 'Now, Sam,' said I, 'I've had a cinch on you all the time. You told me you were going to take this bill if the sun was shining when we got through writing down this order. Don't you know, Sam,' said I, laughing at him, 'the sun does shine and must shine every day. Sometimes a little cloud comes between it and the earth but that, you know, will soon pass away, and, cloud or no cloud, the sun shines just the same.'
"'Vell, Maircus,' said the old man, 'I cannod see any sunshine out der vindow, but dere's so much off id in your face dot you can sheep dot bill.' 'Well, Sam,' said I, 'if that's the case, I guess I will buy you that box of cigars.'"
Another thing:Don't beef!
There is a slight difference between the "grouch" and the "beef." The man may be grouchy without assuming to give a reason therefor, but when he "beefs" he usually thinks there is cause for it. I knew a man who once lost a good customer just because he beefed when a man to whom he had sold a bill of goods countermanded the order. The merchant was stretching his capital in his business to the limit. Things grew a little dull with him and he figured it out, after he had placed all of his orders, that he had bought too many goods. He used the hatchet a little all the way around. I had some of my own order cut off, but instead of kicking about it, I wrote him that he could even cut off more if he felt it was to his advantage; that I did not wish to load him up with more than he could use; that when the time came that I knew his business better than he did it would then be time for me to buy him out. But a friend of mine did not take this same turn. Instead, he wrote to the man—and the merchant thought a good deal of him, personally, too—that he had bought the goods in good faith, that expense had been made in selling the bill and that he ought to keep them.
"Well, now, that was the very worst thing he could have done because it went against the customer's grain. He let his countermand stand and since that time he has never bought any more goods from his old friend. He simply marked him off his list because it was very plain to him that the friendship of the past had been for what there was in it."
Don't fail to make a friend of your fellow salesman!
This can never do you any harm and you will find that it will often do you good. The heart of the man on the road should be as broad as the prairie and as free from narrowness as the Egyptian sky is free of clouds. One of my friends once told a group of us, as we traveled together, how an acquaintance he made helped him.
"I got into Dayton, Washington, one summer morning about 4:30," said he. "Another one of the boys—a big, strong, good-natured comrade— until then a stranger to me—and myself were the only ones left at the little depot when the jerk-water train pulled away. It was the first trip to this town for both of us. There was no 'bus at the depot and we did not know just how to get up to the hotel. The morning was fine —such a one as makes a fellow feel good clear down to the ground. The air was sweet with the smell of the dewy grass. The clouds in the east—kind of smeared across the sky—began to redden; they were the color of coral as we picked our way along the narrow plank walk. As we left behind us the bridge, which crossed a beautiful little stream lined with cotton woods and willows, they had turned a bright vermillion. There was not a mortal to be seen besides ourselves. The only sound that interrupted our conversation was the crowing of the roosters. The leaves were still. It was just the right time for the beginning of a friendship between two strangers.
"'Isn't this glorious!' exclaimed my friend.
"'Enchanting!' I answered. I believe I would have made friends with a crippled grizzly bear that morning. But this fellow was a whole-souled prince. We forgot all about business, and the heavy grips that we lugged up to the hotel seemed light. All I remember further was that my friend—for he had now become that to me—and myself went out to hunt up a cup of coffee after we had set down our grips in the hotel office.
"The next time I met that man was at the Pennsylvania Station at Philadelphia, ten years afterward, at midnight. We knew each other on sight.
"'God bless you, old man,' said he. 'Do you know me?'
"'You bet your life I do,' said I. 'We walked together one morning, ten years ago, from the depot at Dayton, Washington, to the hotel.' 'Do you remember that sunrise?' 'Well,doI?' 'What are you doing down here?' 'Oh, just down on business. The truth is, I am going down to New York. My house failed recently and I'm on the look-out for a job.'
"And do you know, boys, that very fellow fixed me up before ten o'clock next morning, with the people that I am with today, and you know whether or not I am getting on."
Don't fall to be friendly with any one who comes in your way.
Another of the boys in the little group that had just listened to this story, after hearing it, said: 'You bet your life it never hurts a fellow to be friendly with anybody. Once, when I was going down from a little Texas town to Galveston, the coach was rather crowded. The only vacant seats in the whole car were where two Assyrian peddler women sat in a double seat with their packs of wares opposite them. But as I came in they very kindly put some of their bundles into the space underneath where the backs of two seats were turned together, thus making room for me. I sat down with them. A gentleman behind me remarked, 'Those people aren't so bad after all.' 'Yes,' I said, 'you will find good in every one if you only know how to get it out.'
"I had a long and interesting talk with that gentleman. He gave me his card and when I saw his name I recognized that he was a noted lecturer."
"Well, what good did that do you?" said one of the boys who was not far-seeing.
"Good? Why that man asked me to come to his home. There I met one of his sons who was an advertising man for a very large firm in Galveston. He, in turn, introduced me to the buyer in his store and put in a good word with him for me. I had never been able to really get the buyer's attention before this time but this led me into a good account. You know, I don't care anything for introductions where I can get at a man without them. I'd rather approach a man myself straight out than to have any one introduce me to him, but there are cases where you really cannot get at a man without some outside influence. This was a case where it did me good."
But, with all this,don't depend upon your old friends!
A salesman's friends feel that when he approaches them he does so because they are his friends, and not because he has goods to sell that have value. They will not take the same interest in his merchandise that they will in that of a stranger. They will give him, it is true, complimentary orders, charity-bird bills, but these are not the kind that count. Every old man on the road will tell you that he has lost many customers by making personal friends of them. No man, no matter how warm a friend his customer may be, should fail, when he does business with him, to give him to understand that the goods he is getting are worth the money that he pays for them. This will make a business friendship built upon confidence, and the business friend may afterward become the personal friend. A personal friendship will often follow a business friendship but business friendship will not always follow personal regard. Every man on the road has on his order book the names of a few who are exceptions to this rule. He values these friends, because the general rule of the road is: "Make a personal friend—lose a customer!"Don't switch lines!
The man who has a good house should never leave it unless he goes with one that he knows to be much better and with one that will assure him of a good salary for a long time.
Even then, a man often makes a mistake to his sorrow. He will find that many whom he has thought his personal friends are merely his business friends; that they have bought goods from him because they have liked the goods he sold. It is better for a man to try to improve the line he carries—even though it may not suit him perfectly—than to try his luck with another one. Merchants are conservative. They never put in a line of goods unless it strikes them as being better than the one that they are carrying, and when they have once established a line of goods that suits them, and when they have built a credit with a certain wholesale house, they do not like to fly around because the minute that they switch from one brand of goods that they are carrying to another, the old goods have become to them mere job lots, while if they continued to fill in upon a certain brand, the old stock would remain just as valuable as the new.
One of my old friends had a strong personality but was a noted changer. He is one of the best salesmen on the road but he has always changed himself out. He was a shoe man. I met him one day as he was leaving Lincoln, Nebraska. "Well, Andy," said I, "I guess you got a good bill from your old friend here."
"Ah, friend?" said he. "I thought that fellow was my friend, but he quit me cold this time. Didn't give me a sou. And do you know that this time I have a line just as good as any I ever carried in my life. I got him to go over to look, but what did he say? That he'd bought. And the worst of it is that he bought from the house I have just left and from the man that I hate from the ground up. Now, he's not any friend of mine any more. The man's your friend who buys goods from you." I didn't have very much to say, for this man had been loyal to me, but when I went to Lincoln again I chanced to be talking to the merchant, and he said to me:
"Do you know, I like Andy mighty well. I tried to be a friend to him. When I first started with him I bought from him the "Solid Comfort." He talked to me and said that Solid Comforts were the thing, that they had a big reputation and that I would profit by the advertising that they had. Well, I took him at his word. I used to know him when I was a clerk, you know, and bought from him on his say-so, the Solid Comfort. I handled these a couple of years and got a good trade built up on them, and then he came around and said, 'Well, I've had to drop the old line. I think I'm going to do lots better with the house I'm with now. The "Easy Fitter" is their brand. Now, you see there isn't very much difference between the Easy Fitters and the Solid Comforts, and you won't have any trouble in changing your people over.'
"Well, I changed, and do you know I was in trouble just as soon as I began to run out of sizes of Solid Comforts. People had worn them and they had given satisfaction and they wanted more of them. Still, I didn't buy any at all and talked my lungs out selling the Easy Fitters.
"Well, it wasn't but a couple of years later when Andy came around with another line. This time he had about the same old story to tell. I said to him, 'Now, look here, Andy, I've had a good deal of trouble selling this second line you sold me instead of the first. People still come in and ask for them. I have got them, however, changed over fairly well to the Easy Fitters, and I don't want to go through with this old trouble again.'
"'Aw, come on,' said he, 'a shoe's a shoe. What's the difference?' And, out of pure friendship, I went with him again and bought the "Correct Shape." I had the same old trouble over again, only it was worse. The shoes were all right but I had lots of difficulty making people think so. So when Andy made this trip and had another line, I had to come right out and say, 'Andy, I can't do business with you. I have followed you three times from the Solid Comfort to the Easy Fitter, and from the Easy Fitter to the Correct Shape, but now I have already bought those and I can't give you a thing. I am going to be frank with you and say that I would rather buy goods from you, Andy, than from any other man I know of, but still Number One must come first. If you were with your old people, I would be only too glad to buy from you, but you've mixed me up so on my shoe stock that it wouldn't be worth fifty cents on the dollar if I were to change lines again. I will give you money out of my pocket, Andy,' said I, 'but I'm not going to put another new line on my shelves."
Don't fall on prices!
The man who does this will not gain the confidence of the man to whom he shows his goods. Without this he cannot sell a merchant successfully. A hat man once told me of an experience.
"When I first started on the road," said he, "I learned one thing—not to break on prices when a merchant asked me to come down. I was in Dubuque. It was about my fourth trip to the town. I had been selling one man there but his business hadn't been as much as it should, and I kept on the lookout for another customer. Besides, the town was big enough to stand two, anyway. I had been working hard on one of the largest clothing merchants, who carried my line, in the town. Finally I got him over to my sample room. I showed him my line but he said tome, 'Your styles are all right but your prices are too high. Vy, here is a hat you ask me twelf tollars for. Vy, I buy 'em from my olt house for eleven feefty. You cannot expect me to buy goods from you ven you ask me more than odders.'
"I had just received a letter from the house about cutting, and they had given it to me so hard that I thought I would ask the prices they wanted for their goods, and if I couldn't sell them that way, I wouldn't sell them at all. I hadn't learned to be honest then for its own sake; honesty is a matter of education, anyway. So I told my customer, 'No; the first price I made you was the bottom price. I'll not vary it for you. I'd be a nice fellow to ask you one price and then come down to another. If I did anything like that I couldn't walk into your store with a clear conscience and shake you by the hand. I've simply made you my lowest price in the beginning and I hope you can use the goods at these figures, but if you can't, I cannot take an order from you.' Well, he bought the goods at my prices, paying me $12 for what he said he could get for $11.50.
"A few days after that I met a fellow salesman who was selling clothing. He said to me, 'By Jove, my boy, you're going to get a good account over there in Dubuque, do you know that? The man you sold there told me he liked the way you did business. He said he tried his hardest to beat you down on prices but that you wouldn't stand for it, and that he had confidence in you.'
"And, sure enough, I sold that man lots of goods for many years, and I thus learned early in my career not to fall on prices. If a man is going to do any cutting, the time to do it is at the beginning of his trip when he marks his samples. He should do this in plain figures and he should in no way vary from his original price. If he does, he should be man enough to send a rebate to those from whom he has obtained higher prices. If a man will follow out this method he will surely succeed."
Don't give away things!
This same hat man told me another experience he met with on that same trip. Said he, "I went in to see a man in eastern Nebraska. He was the one man on that trip who told me when I first mentioned business that he wanted some hats and that he would buy mine if they suited him. This looked to me like a push-over. Purely out of ignorance and good- heartedness, when he came to my sample room (I was a new man on the road), because he had been the first man who said he wanted some goods, I offered him a fine hat and do you know, he not only would not take the hat from me but he did not buy a bill. I learned from another one of the boys that he turned me down because I offered to make him a present. This is a rule which is not strictly adhered to, but if I were running a wholesale house I should let nothing be given to a customer. He will think a great deal more of the salesman if that salesman makes him pay for what he gets."
A salesman may be liberal and free in other ways, but when he gets to doing business he should not let it appear that he is trying to buy it. Of course it is all right and the proper thing to be a good fellow when the opportunity comes about in a natural kind of way. If you are in your customer's store, say, at late closing time on Saturday night, it is but natural for you to say to him: "Morris, I had a poor supper. I wonder if we can't go around here somewhere and dig up something to eat." You can also say to the clerks, "Come along, boys, you are all in on this. My house is rich. You've worked hard to-day and need a little recreation." But such courtesies as these, unless they fit in gracefully and naturally, would better never be offered.
Don't think any one too big or too hard for you to tackle.
If the salesman cannot depend upon his friends, then he must find his customers among strangers. I remember a man selling children's shoes, out in Oregon, who had not been able to get a looker even in the town. He was talking to a little bunch of us, enumerating those on whom he had called. The last one he spoke of was the big shoeman of the town. He said, "But I can't do anything with that fellow; why, his brother, who is his partner, sells shoes on the road."
"I'm all through with my business," spoke up a drygoods man, "but I'll bet the cigars that I can make Hoover (the shoeman) come and look at your stuff. That is, I'll make out to him that I'm selling shoes and I bet you that I'll bring him to my sample room."
"Well, I'll just take that bet," said the shoeman.
About this time I left for the depot. The next time I saw the drygoods man I asked him how he came out on that bet.
"Oh, I'd forgotten all about that," said he. "Well, I'll tell you. Just after you left I went right down to the shoeman's store. I found him back in his office writing some letters. I walked right up to him —you know I didn't have anything to lose except the cigars and their having the laugh on me—and I said, 'You are Mr. Hoover, I am sure. Now, sir, you are busy and what little I have to say I shall make very short to you, sir. My house gives its entire energy to the manufacture of foot covers for little folks. My line is complete and my prices are right. If you have money and are able to buy for cash on delivery, I should be glad to show you my line.'
"'I have bought everything for this season,' said Hoover.
"'Perhaps you think you have, Mr. Hoover, but do you wish to hold a blind bridle over your eyes and not see what's going on in your business? Do I not talk as if my firm were first class? I have come straight to you without any beating around the bush. I don't intend to offer any suggestions as to how you should run your business, but ask yourself if you can afford to pass up looking at a representative line. You've heard of my firm, have you not? And I made up some firm name for him.
"'No, I have not. I'm not interested in any new houses.'
"'Not interested in any new houses!' said I. 'The very fact that you don't even know the name of my firm is all the greater reason why you should come and see what sort of stuff they turn out.'
"'Yes, but I've bought; what's the use?' said he.
"'At least to post yourself,' I replied.
"'Well, I might as well come out and tell you,' said the shoeman, 'that my brother owns an interest in this business and that we handle his line exclusively.'
"'Then you mean to tell me that for your store here you are picking from one line of goods and are trying to compete with other merchants in this town who have the chance of buying from scores of lines. Now, your brother is certainly a very poor salesman if he can't sell enough shoes to make a living on aside from those that he sells to his own store. Should he not let his wholesale business and his retail business be separate from one another? You yourself are interested in this concern and ought you not to have something to say? To be sure, when it comes to an even break you should by all means give your brother and his firm the preference; but do you believe that either you or he should have goods come into this house from his firm when you are able to get them better from some other place?'
"'No, I don't believe that is exactly business and we don't aim to.'
"'Well, if such is the case,' said I, 'come up and see what I have.'
"'Well, I'll just go you one,' said the shoeman.
"Do you know, I had him walk with me up to the hotel—he was a good jolly fellow—and when I marched into the office with him, I called the children's shoe man over and introduced him.
"He said, 'Well, this is one on me,' and then explained the bet toHoover and bought the cigars for three instead of two."
Don't put prices on another man's goods!
I once had a merchant pass me out an article he had bought from another man. "How much is that worth?" he asked. "That I shall not tell you," I answered. "Suppose it is worth $24 a dozen. If I say it is worth $30, then you will say to me: 'There's no use doing business with you, this other man's goods are cheaper, you've confessed it.' If I say that it is worth $24 a dozen, then you will say to me that I'm not offering you any advantage. If I say it is worth $18 a dozen, you will believe that I am telling you a lie. Therefore, I shall say nothing."
Don't run down your competitor.
In talking of this point a furnishing goods man once said to me: "When I first went to travel in Missouri and Illinois I was green. I had a whole lot to learn, but still I had been posted by one of my friends who told me that I should always treat my competitor with especial courtesy. When I was on my first trip I met one of my competitors one day at a hotel in Springfield. I was introduced to him by one of the boys. I chatted with him as pleasantly as I could for a few minutes and then went up street to look for a customer.
"After dinner I was standing by the cigar case talking to the hotel clerk. Up came my competitor very pompously and bought a half dollar's worth of cigars. As he lighted one and stuck all the others into his pocket case he said to me in a 'What-are-you?' fashion, 'Oh, how are you?' and away he walked. Heavens, how he froze me! But from that day to this, while I have outwardly always treated him civilly, his customers have been the ones that I have gone after the hardest—and you bet your life that I've put many of his fish on my string."
Don't run down the other fellow's goods!
When a salesman tells merchants that he can sell them goods that are better, for the same price or cheaper than he is buying them, he at once offers an insult to the merchant's judgment. One of my merchant friends once told me of a breezy young chap who came into his store and asked him how much he paid for a certain suit of clothes that was on the table. "This young fellow was pretty smart," said my merchant friend. "He asked me how much I paid for a cheviot. I told him $9. He said, 'Nine dollars! Well, I can sell you one just like that for $7.' 'All right, I'll take fifty suits,' said I.
"About that time I turned away to wait on a customer and in an hour or so the young fellow came in again and said, 'Well, my line is all opened up now, and if you like we can run over to my sample room.' 'Why, there's no use of doing that,' said I. 'You tell me that you can sell me goods just exactly like what I have for $2 a suit cheaper. No use of my going over to look at them. Just send them along. Here, I can buy lots of goods from you.'
"'Oh, they're not exactly like these, but pretty near it,' said he.
"'Well, if they're not exactly like these I don't care for them at all because these suit me exactly.'
"With this the young fellow took a tumble to himself and let me alone."
Don't carry side lines!
You might just as well mix powder with sawdust. If you scatter yourself from one force to another you weaken the force which you should put into your one line. If this does not pay you, quit it altogether.
Don't take a conditional order!
If your customer cannot make up his mind while you can bring your arguments to bear upon him in his presence, you may depend upon it he will never talk himself into ordering your goods. If you can lead a merchant to the point of saying, "Well, I'll take a memorandum of your stock numbers and maybe I'll send in for some of these things later," and not get him to budge any further, and if you lend him your pencil to write down that conditional order, you will be simply wasting a little black lead and a whole lot of good time.
There are many more "Don'ts" for the salesman but I shall leave you to figure out the rest of them for yourself—but just one more:
DON'Tbe ashamed that you are a salesman!
Salesmanship is just as much a profession as law, medicine, or anything else, and salesmanship also has its reward.
Salesmanship requires special study, and the fact that the schools of salesmanship which are now starting are patronized not only by those who wish to become salesmen but also by those who wish to be more successful in their work, shows that there is an interest awakening in this profession.
There is a science of salesmanship, whether the salesman knows it or not. If he will only get the idea that he can study his profession and profit thereby, this idea in his head will turn out to be worth a great deal to him.
A bunch of us sat in the Silver Grill of the Hotel Spokane where we could see the gold fish and the baby turtles swimming in the pool of the ferned grotto in the center of the room. This is one place toward which the heart of every traveling man who wanders in the far Northwest turns when he has a few days of rest between trips. Perhaps more good tales of the road are told in this room than in any other in the West. There is an air about the place that puts one at ease—the brick floor, the hewn logs that support the ceiling and frame in the pictures of English country life around the walls, the big, comfortable, black-oak chairs, and the open fireplace, before which spins a roasting goose or turkey.
"Yes, you bet we strike some queer merchants on the road, boys," said the children's clothing man. "I ran into one man out west of here and it did me a whole lot of good to get even with him. He was one of those suspicious fellows that trusted to his own judgment about buying goods rather than place faith in getting square treatment from the traveling man. You all know how much pleasure it gives us to trump the sure trick of one of this kind. I don't believe that merchants, anyway, know quite how independent the traveling man feels who represents a first class house and has a well established trade. Not many of the boys, though, wear the stiff neck even though their lines are strong and they have a good cinch on their business. There isn't much chance, as a general thing, for any of us to grow a big bump of conceit. A man who is stuck on himself doesn't last long, it matters not how good the stuff is that he sells. Yet, once in a while he lifts up his bristles.
"Well, sir, a few seasons ago I sold a man—you all know who I mean— about half of his spring bill, amounting to $600. He gave the other half to one of the rottenest lines that comes out of this country. When I learned where my good friend had bought the other half of his bill, I felt sure that the following season I would land him for his whole order; but when I struck him that next season, he said, 'No, I've bought. You can't expect to do business with me on the sort of stuff that you are selling,' and he said it in such a mean way that it made me mad as blazes. Yet I threw a blanket around myself and cooled off. It always harms a man, anyway, to fly off the handle. I wasn't sure of another bill in the town as it was getting a little late in the season.
"After he had told me what he did, he started to wait on a customer and I went to the hotel to open up. Just as I was coming through the office I met another merchant in the town who handled as many goods as my old customer, and I boned him right there to give me a look. 'All right,' said he, 'I will, after luncheon.' Come down about half past one when all the boys are back to the store and I'll run over with you.' You know it sometimes comes easy like this.
"I sold him his entire line, and he was pleased with what he bought because the old line he had been handling, he told me frankly, had not been giving satisfaction.
"Just for curiosity's sake I dropped in on my old man. I wanted to find out exactly what he was kicking about, anyway.
"'Now, what's the matter with this stuff I've sold you?' said I to him.
"'Well, come and see for yourself,' said he. 'Here, look at this stuff,' and he threw out three or four numbers of boys' goods. 'That's the punkest plunder,' said he, 'that I ever had in my house.'
"I at once saw that the goods he showed me were the other fellow's, but I kept quiet for a while. 'Look at your bill,' said I. 'There must be some mistake about this.' He turned to the bill from my house and he couldn't find the stock numbers. 'Well, that's funny,' said he. 'Not at all,' I replied. 'Look at the other man's bill and see if you don't find them.' "Well, sir, when he saw that the goods he was kicking about had come from my competitor's house, he swore like a trooper and said to me, 'Well, I will simply countermand this order I have given and I'll go right up with you and buy yours.'
"'No, I guess not,' said I. 'When I came in this morning you condemned me without giving me a full hearing and you weren't very nice about it, either, so I've just placed my line with your neighbor. I will show you the order I have just taken from him,' said I, handing over my order book."
"Well, that must have made you feel good," spoke up the shoeman. "I had pretty much the same sort of an experience this very season down south here. I had been calling on a fair-sized merchant in the town for a couple of years. The first time I went to his town I sold him a handful. The next time I sold him another handful. The third time I called on him he didn't give me any more business. I had just about marked him down for a piker. You know how we all love those pikers, anyway. These fellows who buy a little from you and a little from the other fellow—in fact, a little from every good line that comes around—just to keep the other merchants in the town from getting the line and not giving enough to any one man to justify him in taking care of the account or caring anything about it. He was one of those fellows who would cut off his nose and his ears and burn his eyes out just to spite his face.
"This trip, as usual, I sold him his little jag. I didn't say anything to him, but thought it was high time I was going out and looking up another customer. I finally found another man who gave me a decent bill—between seven and eight hundred dollars—and he promised me that he would handle my line right along if the stuff turned out all O.K. He said he wasn't the biggest man in the town at that time but that his business was growing steadily and that he had just sold a farm and was going to put more money into the business and enlarge the store. He struck me as being the man in the town for me.
"My piker friend had seen me walking over to the sample room with this other man. When I dropped around, after packing up, to say good-bye, he said to me, 'I saw you going over to your sample room with this man down street here. I suppose, of course, you didn't sell him anything?'
"'To be sure I did,' said I. 'Why, why shouldn't I? You haven't been giving me enough to pay my expenses in coming to the town, much less to leave any profit for me.' "'Well, if you can't sell me exclusively, you can't sell me at all,' said he, rearing back.
"'All right,' said I. 'I won't sell you at all if that's the case. Here's your order. Do with it what you please. In fact, I won't even grant you that privilege. I myself shall call it off. Here goes.' And with this I tore up his order."
"Served him right," said the men's clothing man. "Did you ever knowGrain out on the Great Northern?"
"Sure," said the shoe man. "Who doesn't know that pompous know-it- all?"
"Well, sir, do you know that fellow isn't satisfied with any one he deals with, and he thinks that this whole country belongs to him. He wrote me several seasons ago to come out to see him. He had heard one of the boys speak well of my line of goods. I went to his town and first thing I did was to open up. Then I went into his store and told him I was all ready.
"'Well, I've decided,' said he, 'that I won't buy anything in your line this season.'
"'You will at least come over and give me a look, in that I have come over at your special request, will you not?"
"'NO, no! No is no with me, sir.'
"I couldn't get him over there. He went into his office and closed the door behind him. I had hard lines in the town that season. I went up to see another man and told him the circumstances but he said, 'No, I don't play any second fiddle,' and do you know, I didn't blame him a bit.
"I had made up my mind to mark this town off my list, but you know, business often comes to us from places where we least expect it. This is one of the things which make road life interesting. How often it happens that you fully believe before you start out that you are going to do business in certain places and how often your best laid plans 'gang aglee!'
"Another man in this town wrote in to the house (this was last season) for me to come to see him. In his letter he said that he was then clerking for Grain and he was going to quit there and start up on his own hook. Somehow or other the old man got on to the fact that his clerk was going to start up and that he had written in for my line. He was just that mean that he wanted to put as many stones in the path of his old clerk as he possibly could, and I don't know whether it was by accident or design that Grain came in here to Spokane the same day that his old clerk did, or not. At any rate, they were here together.
"Just about the time I had finished selling my bill to Grain's clerk, the old man 'phoned up to my room that he would like to see me. This time he was sweet as sugar. I asked him over the 'phone what he wished. He said, 'I'd like to buy some goods from you. 'Don't care to sell you,' I answered over the wire. His old clerk was right there in the room then and he was good, too. He had got together two or three well-to-do farmers in the neighborhood and had organized a big stock company with the capital stock fully paid up. The whole country had become tired of Grain and his methods, and a new man stood a mighty good chance for success—and you know, boys, what a bully good business he has built up.
"'Why, what's the mater?' 'phoned back the old man.
"'Just simply this: that I have sold another man in your town, and I don't care to place my line with more than one,' I answered. 'Who Is it?' said he. I told him.
"'Well, now, look here,' he came back at me. 'That fellow's just a tidbit. He thinks he's going to cut some ice out there, but he won't last long, and, do you know, if you'll just simply chop his bill off, I'll promise to buy right now twice as much as he has bought from you.'
"If there's a man on the road who is contemptible in the eyes of his fellow traveling men, it is the one who will solicit a countermand; and the merchant who will do this sort of a trick is even worse, you know, boys, in our eyes.
"'What do you take me for?' I 'phoned back.
"I'm very glad to have a chance, sir, to give you a dose of your own medicine. You can't run any such a sandy as this on me,' and I hung up the 'phone on him without giving him the satisfaction of talking it out any further. To be sure, I would not go down stairs to look him up.
"Well, that must have pleased the old man's clerk," said one of the boys.
"Sure it did. He touched the button and made me have a two-bit straight cigar on him."
"You got even with him all right," said one of my hat friends who was in the party; but let me tell you how a merchant down in Arkansas once fixed me and my house."
"Old Benzine?" said the shoeman.
"Sure; that's the fellow. How did you hear about it?"
"Well, my house got it the same way yours did."
"Ah, that fellow was a smooth one," continued the hat man. "He had burned out so often that he had been nicknamed Benzine, but still he had plenty of money and though my house knew he was tricky, they let him work them. I didn't know anything about the old man's reputation when I called on him. He had recently come down into Arkansas—this was when I traveled down there—and opened up a new store in one of my old towns. I didn't have a good customer in the town and in shopping about fell in on Benzine.
"He kicked hard about looking at my goods when I asked him to do so. He knew how to play his game all right. He knew that I would bring all sorts of persuasions to bear upon him to get him started over to my sample room, and just about the time he thought I was going to quit he said, 'Vell, I look but I vont gif you an orter.' Of course that was all I wished for. When a man on the road can get a merchant to say he will look at his goods, he knows that the merchant wishes to buy from somebody in his line and he feels that he has ninety-nine chances in a hundred of selling him.
"That afternoon Old Benzine came over and he was mean. He tore up the stuff and said it was too high priced, and everything of that kind. He haggled over terms and started to walk out several times. He made his bluff good with me and I thought he was 'giltedge.' Finally, though, I sold him about a thousand dollars. The old man had worked me all right. Now he began to put the hooks into the house.
"The same day that my order reached the house came a letter from Benzine stating that he had looked over his copy and he wished they would cut off half of several items on the bill. Ah, he was shrewd, that old guy. He was working for credit. He knew that if he wrote to have part of his order cut off, the credit man would think he was good. My house couldn't ship the bill to him quickly enough, and they wrote asking him to let the whole bill stand. He was shrewd enough to tell them no, that he didn't wish to get any more goods than he could pay for. That sent his stock with the house a sailing. But the old chap wasn't done with them yet.
"About six weeks before the time for discounting he wrote in and said that as his trade had been very good indeed they could ship additional dozens on all the items that he had cut down to half-dozens, and in this way he ran his bill to over $1,300."
"Well, you got a good one out of him that season, all right."
"Yes—where the chicken got the ax. As soon as Old Benzine had run in all the goods he could, he did the shipping act. He left a lot of empty boxes on his shelves but shipped nearly all of his stock to some of his relatives, and then in came the coal-oil can once more."
"Didn't you get any money out of him at all?" one of the boys asked.
"Money?" said the shoeman. "Did you ever hear of anybody getting money out of Old Benzine unless they got it before the goods were shipped? If ever there was a steal-omaniac, he was it, sure!"
With this, one of the boys tossed a few crumbs to the gold fish. The turtles, thinking he had made a threatening motion toward them, quietly ducked to the bottom of the pool. The white-capped cook took the turkey from before the fire. The water kept on trickling over the ferns but its sound I soon forgot, as another hat man took up the conversation.
"Most merchants," said he, "are easy to get along with. They have so many troubles thrown upon them that, as a rule, they make as few for us as they can. Once in awhile we strike a merchant who gets smart—"
"But he doesn't win anything by that," observed the clothing man.
"No; you bet not! I used to sell a man down in the valley who tried a trick on me. I had sold him for two seasons and his account was satisfactory. Another man I knew started up in the town and he was willing to buy my goods from me without the brands in them. I remained loyal to my first customer in not selling the new man my branded goods. In fact, about the only difference between a great many lines of goods is the name, as you know, and a different name in a hat makes it a different hat. In all lines of business, just as soon as one firm gets out a popular style, every other one in the country hops right on to it, so it is all nonsense for a salesman not to sell more than one man in a town when the names in the goods are different, and the merchant, when such is the case, has no kick coming on the man who sells one of his competitors.
"Well, everything was all right until Fergus, customer No. 2, sent in a mail order to the house. They, by mistake (and an inexcusable one— but what can you expect of underpaid stock boys?) shipped out to him some goods branded the same as those my first customer, Stack, had in his house. Fergus wrote in to me and told me about the mistake. He didn't wish to carry the branded goods any more than the other man wished for him to do so, and asked that some labels be sent him to paste over his boxes.
"I was in the house at the time and sent out several labels to Fergus. At the same time I wrote to Stack, very frankly telling him of the mistake and saying that I regretted it and all I could say about it was that it was a mistake and that it would not occur again. Instead of taking this in good faith, he immediately came out with a flaming ad:
EVERY MANIN THE COUNTYShould appreciate the following:Leopard Hats,$2.00.Sold everywhere for $3.00 and $3.50.
"His goods had really cost him $24 a dozen and he was merely aiming to cut under the other man's throat, but he didn't know how he was sewing himself up. I wrote him:
"'My good friend: I have always believed that you felt kindly toward me, and now I am doubly certain of it. All that I have a right to expect of my best friends is that they will advertise my goods only so long as they keep on carrying them—but you have done me even a greater favor. You are advertising them for the benefit of another customer, although you have quit buying from me. Let me thank you for this especial favor which you do me and should I ever be able to serve you in any way, personally, command me.'
"Well, how did he take that?" I asked.
"Oh, he didn't really see that he was advertising his competitor, and he came back at me with this letter:
"'Your valued favor of the 3Oth to hand. I assure you that you owe me no debt of gratitude as I am always glad to be of service to my friends, and under no circumstances do I wish them to feel under obligations to me. I would be only too glad to sell the Leopards at one dollar each, provided they could be bought at a price lower than that from you. But at present any one can purchase them from me at $2 each, which 'should be appreciated by every man in the county.' With kindest regards, very truly yours.'
"Well, how did you fix him?" said the shoe man.
"Fix him? How did you know I did?"
"Oh, that was too good a chance to overlook."
"You bet it was. When I went into the house a few days afterwards, I picked out some nice clean jobs in Leopards and I socked the knife into the price so that Fergus could sell them at $1.50 apiece and make a good profit. I then sicked him on to Stack and there was merry war. In the beginning, as I fancied he would, Stack got a man in another town to send in to my house and pay regular price for my goods and he continued to sell them at $2 each. After he had loaded up on them pretty well, my other man began to put them down to $1.75, $1.60, $1.50, and forced my good friend to sell all he had on hand at a loss. That deal cost him a little bunch."
"There's altogether too much of this throat-cutting business between merchants. The storekeeper who can hold his own temper can generally hold his own trade.
"Well, sir, do you know a fellow strikes a queer combination on the road once in awhile. I think about the oddest deal I ever got into in my life was in Kearney, Nebraska," said an old-timer.
"When I was a young fellow I went on the road. I had a clerical appearance but it was enforced more or less by necessity. I hustled pretty hard catching night trains and did any sort of a thing in order to save time. I wore a black string necktie because it saved me a whole lot of trouble. Once I sat down and calculated how much my working time would be lengthened by wearing string ties and gaiter shoes, and I'll tell you it amounts to a whole lot, to say nothing of the strain on one's temper and conscience saved by not having to lace up shoes in a berth.
"Well, I struck Kearney late one Saturday night—looking more or less like a young preacher. Going direct to my friend, Ward, he greeted me in a cordial, drawling sort of fashion and with very little trouble (although that was my first time in the town) I made an engagement to show him some straw hats.
"It is rather the custom when one gets west of Omaha to do business on Sunday, and so habituated had I become to this practice that I was rather surprised when my friend, Ward, said to me: 'Now, I'll see you on Monday morning. Yes, on Monday morning. To-morrow, you know, is the Sabbath, and you will find here at the hotel a nice, comfortable place to stay. The cooking is excellent and the rooms are nice and tidy, and I am sure that you will enjoy it. If I can do anything further to add to your pleasure I shall be only too glad to have the opportunity. Perhaps you will come up to our Sunday School to-morrow morning. I am Superintendent and I shall see that good care is taken of you. May we not expect you up?'
"Of course I wanted to get a stand in—I confess it—and, furthermore, I had not forgotten my early training, and you know that boys on the road are not such a bad tribe as we are ofttimes made out to be. So I promised Brother Ward that I would go up the next morning.
"That part of it was all very good but how do you suppose I felt when, after the lessons had been read, I was called upon to address the Sabbath school? I was up against it, but being in I had to make good; and it often happens that, when a fellow is in the midst of people who assume that he is wise, wisdom comes to him.
"The night before I had come in on a freight. I was mighty tired, fell asleep, and was carried past the station about a mile and a half. All at once I woke up in the caboose—I had been stretched out on the cushions—and asked the conductor how far it was to Kearney. 'Kearney?' said the conductor. 'Kearney? We are a mile and a half past.' At the same time he sent out a brakeman who signaled down the train. I was fully two miles from the depot when I got off, lugging a heavy grip. I didn't know it was so far. I had just one thing to do, that was to hoof it down the track. Scared? Bet your life! I thought every telegraph pole was a hobo laying for me, clean down to the station. Luckily there was an electric light tower in the center of the town and this was a sort of guide-post for me and it helped to keep up my courage.
"In the little talk that I had to make to the Sunday School, having this experience of the night before so strong in my mind, I told them of the wandering life I had to live, of how on every hand, as thick as telegraph poles along the railway, stood dangers and temptations; but that I now looked back and that my light tower had always been the little Sunday School of my boyhood days. "When you get right down to it, we all have a little streak of sentiment in us, say what you will, when in boyhood we have had the old-time religion instilled into us. It sticks in spite of everything. It doesn't at any time altogether evaporate.
"Well, sir, I thought that I was all solid with Brother Ward. So the next morning I figured out that, as I could not go west, where I wished to, I could run up on a branch road and sandwich in another town without losing any time. I went to him early Monday morning and asked if it would be just as convenient for him to see me at three o'clock that afternoon.
"'Oh, yes, indeed; that will suit me all the better,' said Brother Ward. 'That will give me an opportunity to look over my stock of goods and see just what I ought to order.'
"I made the town on the branch road and was back at 2:30. When I went into my sample room, a friend of mine, a competitor, had just packed up. 'Hello,' said I, 'how are things going, Billy?'
"'Oh, fairly good,' said he. 'I have just got a nice bill of straw goods out of Ward, here. Whom do you sell?'
"'Well, that's one on me!' I exclaimed. Then I told my friend of my engagement with Ward, and bought the cigars.
"But anyhow I opened up and went over to see Brother Ward. I got right down to business and said: 'Brother Ward, my samples are open and I am at your service.' 'Well, Brother,' said he, 'I have been looking over my stock' (he had about a dozen and a half of fly-specked straw hats on his show case, left over from the year before and not worth 40 cents), 'and I have about come to the conclusion that I'll work off the old goods I have in preference to putting in any new ones. You see if I buy the new ones they will move first and the old goods will keep getting older.'—An old gag, you know!
"I saw that he was squirming, but I thought I would pin him down hard and fast, so I asked him the pat question: 'Then you have not bought any straw hats for this season's business, Brother Ward?' 'Nope, nope,' said he—telling what I knew to be a point-blank lie.
"'Well, Brother Ward,' said I, 'we are both confronted by a Christian duty. A fellow competitor and traveling man told me just a little while ago that he had sold you an out-and-out order of straw hats. Now I know that he is not telling the truth because you, a most reputable citizen of this town and a most worthy Superintendent of the Sunday School, have told me out-and-out that you have not bought any goods. Now, to-night, when you go home, do you not think that it is your duty, as well as mine, to ask the Lord to have mercy on and to forgive the erring brother who has told such a falsehood? I am sure that had he been trained to walk in the straight and narrow path he would not have done so. Your prayers, I am sure, will avail much.'
"When Brother Ward saw that I had him he colored from the collar up, and when I left him and said 'Peace be with thee!' his face was as red as the setting sun."
"I have a customer," said the furnishing goods man, "who beats the world on complaints. Every time I go to see him he must always tell me his troubles before I can get around to doing business with him. If you put business at him point-blank, it isn't very long before he twists the talk. So now I usually let him tell his troubles before I say anything to him about business. The last time I went in to see him—he is Sam Moritsky, in the clothing business down in Los Angeles —I said, 'Hello, Sam, how are you?' He answered:
"'Der Talmud id say "Happy ees de man who ees contentet," but it says in anodder place, "Few are contentet." I'm a seek man. De trobble in dis world ees, a man vants bread to leeve on ven he hasn't got dot. And ven he gets der bread he es sotisfite only a leetle vile. He soon vants butter on id. Ven he gets der butter in a leetle vile he vants meat, and den he vants vine and a goot cigar, and ven he gets all dese t'ings, he gets seek. I am a seek man.
"'Vonce I vanted a house on Cap'tol 'ell (Capitol Hill)—seex t'ousand tollars it costet. Eef I got id feeften 'undret—could haf borrowed dot much—I vould haf bought id, but I couldn't get dot feeften 'undret, and now I am glat. It vould have costet seexty fife tollars a mont to leeve and den I haf to geeve a party and a sopper and somet'ings and I make a beeg show,—a piano for my dotter, a fine dress for my vife, t'eater and all dot, and first t'ing I know,muhulla(I go broke)!
"'Vell, it's all ride eef I wasn't a seek man. Dey say dese ees a goot country. I say no. My fadder's family vants to come to dese country. I say no. In Russia a man he half a goot time. Vriday night he close de store at seex o'glock. He puts on his Sonday clothes, beeg feast all day Sonday, dance, vine, lots of goot t'ings. Veek days he geds down to beesness at eight o'clock—at ten o'glock he has coffee and den in a leetle vile he goes home and eats lonch. Den he takes a nap. De cheeldon, dey valk on der toes t'rough de room. "Papa's asleep," dey say. Seex o'glock he come home, beeg deener, he smokes hees pipe, goes to bet,—and de same t'ing over again.
"'I vork so hard in dese contry. I am a seek man. Here I vork sefen days in de veek from sefen in de morning to elefen at night, and sometimes twelf. Only vonce last year I go to t'eater in de afternoon. Ven I com home I catch 'ell from my vife. She say, "You safe money, Sam, and we get oud of dese bondage," and I say I must haf a leetle recreations. Sunday all day I keep open. Von Sunday night I say I go home and take my vife and my cheeldon and I go to t'eater. Ven I go to put de key into de door here comes a customer een, and I sell 'eem tventy-fife tollars—feeften tollars brofit. I vould haf lostet dot feeften tollars and vat I vould haf paid to go to t'eater eef I had closed op.
"'Besides, here at dis place all de family helps. Even my leetle goil, she goes oud to buy me a cigar von day, and she ask de man dot sells de cigar to buy somet'ing from papa. He vants some boys' shoes. I haf none. She goes across de streedt and buys a pair und sells dem for a tollar—feefty-five cents brofit. I gif my leetle goil a neeckle and I keep de feefty cents. Dots de vay it goes. I could not do dot eef I leefed on Cap'tol 'ell.
"'But den I am a seek man, but I am better off as de man who leefs on Cap'tol 'ell. He is so beesy. He eats his deener in de store. He has so many trobbles because he vants to make hees fortune beeger. Vat's de use? Here I am contentet. I go op stairs and notting botters me vile I eat deener. Now, I say vat de Talmud say ees right. Happy ees de man who ees contentet. Eet vould be all righdt eef I vas not a seek man.'
"When he got through with this speech I chewed the rag with him about business for half an hour, as I always had to do, finally telling him, as a last inducement which I always threw out, that I had some lots 'to close.' This was the only thing that would make him forget that he was 'a seek man.' And when I get right down to it, I believe I get more actual enjoyment out of selling Sam than from any customer I have."
"Speaking of your man Sam," said one of the hat men, "reminds me of a customer I once had with the same name. But my Sam was a bluffer. He was one of the kind that was always making kicks that he might get a few dollars rebate. I stood this sort of work for a few seasons but I finally got tired of it and, besides, I learned that the more I gave in to him the more I had to yield. A few years ago when I was traveling in Wisconsin, I went into his store and before he let go of my hand he began: 'Ah, that last bill was a holy terror. Why doesn't your house send out good goods? Why, I'll have to sell all those goods at a loss, and I need them, bad, too. They aint no use of my tryin' to do no more business with you. I like to give you the business, you know, but I can't stand the treatment that the house is giving me. They used to send out part of their goods all right, but here lately it is getting so that every item is just rotten.'
"I let Sam finish his kick and, as I started out the door I merely said, 'All right, Sam, I'll see you after awhile and fix this up all right. I want to go down and work on my samples a little.'
"As I saw him pass on the other side of the street going home to dinner, I slid up to his store and took all his last shipment from his shelves and stacked them in the middle of the floor. About the time I had finished doing this he came back.
"'Why, what are you doing?' said he.
"'Well, I'll tell you, Sam. I don't want you to have anything in the house that doesn't suit you, and I would a great deal rather than you would fire all this stuff back to the house. Look up and see the amount of freight charges you paid on them. Meantime I'll run down to the hotel and get my book and make you out a check for whatever it comes to. Come on down to the corner with me anyway, Sam. Let's have a cigar and take the world easy. I'm not going out tonight.'
"Sam went down to the corner with me. In a few minutes I returned to the store with my check book in hand. As I went into his store Sam was putting my goods back on the shelves.
"'Got your samples open?' he said.
"'Sure, Sam,' said I. 'Did you suppose I was going to let you bluff me this way?' And that was the last time he ever tried to work the rebate racket on me."
"So long as a bluffer is warm about it," said the shoe man, "it's all right; but I do hate to go up against one of those cold bloods, even if he isn't a bluffer."
"That depends," said the clothing man. "There's one man I used to call on and every time I went to see him I felt like feeling of his pulse to see if it were beating. If I had taken hold of his wrist I would not have been surprised to find that the artery was filled with fine ice. Gee! but how he froze me. Somehow I could always get him to listen to me, but I could never get him to buy.
"One day, to my surprise, the minute I struck him he said, 'Samples open?' And when I told him 'Yes' he had his man in my department turn over a customer that he was waiting on, to another one of the boys, and took him right down to the sample room. I never sold an easier bill in my life, so you see a cold blood is all right if he freezes out the other fellow."
The goose that had twirled so long before the pine log blaze was now put before us. The Spanish Senor with his violin started the program, and our tales for the evening were at an end.