Dawson Black: Retail Merchant Part 40

I don't think the "ad" had done us a great deal of good generally, but there were a few people, who used to buy from the mail-order houses, who had begun to buy from me.

Now, I'll tell you what happened between Peter and La.r.s.en.

"I want an ax like this 'ere one," Peter said, displaying the picture of an ax in a mail-order catalog which he had with him. "How much is it?"

"Seventy-five cents," said La.r.s.en.

"A-ha!" snarled Peter, "I'll give yer sixty-three cents for it. Yer say yer can sell it as cheap as a mail-order house--and that's their price!"

He put his finger on the catalog to verify his statement.

"All right," said La.r.s.en. Whereupon Bender belligerently planted sixty-three cents on the counter.

"Hold hard," continued La.r.s.en. "Gimme three cents for the money order, a cent for yer letter paper, and two cents for the stamp. That's another six cents. That's fair, you know--you must pay us what it would have cost yer."

Peter looked at me. "Guess you're right," he said, and threw the other six cents on the counter.

"Now," said La.r.s.en, as he picked up the money, "you come back in three weeks. You can then have the ax."

"What do yer mean?" asked old Peter, with astonishment.

"You sent Chicago, that's how long you wait to get it."

"Well, I want it _now_."

"Yep, but not from a mail-order house," said La.r.s.en.

"What will I have to pay to get it at once?"

"Six cents more--that's seventy-five cents. Otherwise yer can't have it fer three weeks. But yer can look at it now, if yer want ter, so yer'll see what yer will get!"

"Aw, cut out the funny stuff!" said Peter, putting his hand in his pocket, from which he produced another six cents. "It's worth it to get it right away."

La.r.s.en wrapped up the ax and pa.s.sed it over to him, and, to my surprise, old Bender said: "I guess you're about right on this thing, after all.

You know I never sized it up like that 'til you pointed it out to me.

Here," and he tossed the catalog on the counter, "I guess I won't need this no more."

La.r.s.en had handled several customers in the past in a similar way to this, and, in nearly every case, had won a friend for us and the mail-order houses had lost a customer.

You remember I had decided that I would dominate in _service_? Well, I got hold of Fellows of the Flaxon Advertising Company, and told him what I wanted and that I'd a hunch that if I had a little leaflet or something of that kind, telling people I wanted to give them service, and put the leaflet in all the packages that left the store, it would help out a lot. I gave him a few ideas I had on it and asked him to work up a little folder. When I received the layout of it I was tickled with it. It was so good that I ordered some at once. The beauty of the folder was that it didn't matter what you were selling or who you were selling to, it applied, because it was general, not specific.

Fellows told me I ought to copyright the idea and then sell it to other stores in other towns. I told him he could do that--I was in the hardware business--not the advertising business.

I give this little folder here, because I thought it was very good.

It had four pages and the size of it was about 4 7 inches.

WE ARE IN BUSINESS TO SELL GOODS THAT WON'T COME BACK TO FRIEND-CUSTOMERS WHO WILL

This one-minute sales talk tells how we try to do it

THE BLACK HARDWARE STORE 32 Hill Street, Farmdale

A well-known business man once said that salesmanship "is selling goods, that won't come back, to customers--who will."

It requires more than _sales_manship to do this--it also requires _buy_manship and _service_.

We realize this. We know that every purchase you make in our store must have _service_ with it.

Service--good service--is supplying your needs in the best, quickest, and most economical way.

So we start by buying right. When a clever salesman offers us some job goods at a long-profit price, we just can't hear him, but, when he offers us goods that will win us satisfied friend-customers, we can easily hear his faintest whisper.

We don't blindly take his word for it, either; for, while we have a lot to learn, we know how to judge values, because we know our business--we are practical.

But _service_ does not stop here. Our goods must be kept in perfect condition. Our goods must never get into a "frowsty," shop-damaged state.

Careful buying helps us to get goods that command a ready sale. They are fitted exactly to our friend-customers' needs.

This is why we have earned the confidence and good-will of so many people. They know they get what they need--and not just what a salesman wants to get rid of.

We sometimes refuse to sell to a customer because we know that he needs something different from what we have.

Sounds funny, doesn't it, to turn money away? But it pays us, because people know we consider their needs first--our welfare automatically follows.

Most stores have policies. One of ours is: "No goods must be sold, unless they will be of real service to the customer."

Another fixed policy is: "We must show our friend-customers by our conduct that we are glad to serve them."

Here's a confession. We actually make a profit on everything we sell. Doesn't matter what you buy, we make something on the deal.

We think it better to do this than to "cut" the price on some goods and add it on to others. Don't you?

Just one other thing. There's no such word as "trouble"

in our dictionary. We are glad to go out of our way to supply your unusual needs.

This little sales talk is neatly printed for you to read; we mean every word of it.

We would like to tell it to you in person if we could--

Of course! So we can. We can prove it all to you by _deeds_!

Call and look at our goods; then check up our service by this sales talk.

At the bottom of the fourth page appeared, "Yours for hardware service, Dawson Black," reproduced in my own handwriting.

"Get the idea?" said Fellows. "If you're a grocer, you could write, 'Yours for grocery service, John Brown,' or if a retail merchant wanted to specialize on one particular thing he could say, 'Yours for carpet cleaning service,' or anything he liked."

The whole thing was so worded as to fit in with any kind of goods one might be selling.