Dawson Black: Retail Merchant Part 41

Fellows said he would look after the printing of the circulars and supply them to me at a very low price, four dollars a thousand; and he said he wouldn't charge me anything at all for working up the idea, because he was going to try to sell some of the folders to other stores in other towns. I didn't mind what he did with it, for it let me out very cheaply. He said he would let me have some in a week, so I ordered two thousand to begin with. I was going to put one in each package, and mail one to every one of our charge customers, besides sending them to a select list of "prospects."

CHAPTER x.x.xV

A NEW THOUGHT ON RETAIL SELLING

As soon as I had time, I went to Boston and saw Alex Cantling, as Barlow had suggested, to find out how much money it would take to start an automobile accessory department.

Alex Cantling was a big-boned, clean-shaven, healthy-looking man. He was what I would call a bra.s.s-tack man. When I told him my business, he pushed his papers aside and gave me his undivided attention. Then after a little while he did some figuring on a piece of paper.

"Well," said he, "I should say you would want to spend at least five hundred dollars for such a department."

He promised to work out and send to me a list of the different items which I ought to stock, and he also gave me the name of one or two good people to buy my supplies from.

"Now, come along and have some lunch with me," and he took me to a place near Faneuil Hall Market, where I had about the finest meal I ever had in my life.

After lunch, he advised me to go to see Barker. As soon as I entered the store, and looked up at the little mezzanine floor on which he worked, he looked up and called out cheerily, "h.e.l.lo, Black, come right upstairs."

I was surprised that he should remember my name, for he had only seen me once before.

Well, he told me just about the same as Cantling, so I left him and went to see George Field, who said, "Well, if Cantling and Barker both tell you that, you may be pretty sure it's right."

When I got back to Farmdale I had a long talk with Barlow about automobile accessories. After I had told him how much money I wanted, he looked out of his office window, and leaned back in his chair a few moments, then said, "I'll lend you three hundred and fifty dollars toward your stock of those goods. I think that that should be sufficient to encourage you to work with me on this gasoline deal."

"There's one thing I'd like to ask Mr. Barlow, and that is, if I have to buy gasoline second-hand from you, shall I be able to sell it at the same price as Martin's Garage, and make a profit on it?"

"Quite as much, if not more," he replied. "You remember I told you I would supply it to you at half a cent above what it cost me. Now, by buying twenty-five thousand gallons' worth, I get a very low price, and can make four cents a gallon profit on it. You then buy what you need and make three and one-half cents profit. If you bought a small quant.i.ty yourself, you would not make more than two and one-half to three cents, so you really make more money, buying it through me, than buying it direct."

"I can't for the life of me," I said, "figure out why you are so anxious about selling gasoline."

"Can't you conceive of my wanting to make some profit on gasoline?" he said, smiling.

"Yes," I drawled, "but--"

"See here, Dawson," he said, putting his hand on my knee, "don't you worry about reasons, if you get a square deal. I've helped you before, haven't I?"

"Yes, indeed," I answered quickly.

"Well, I'm helping you this time, and I'm going to make some profit on it, as well. There'll be room enough for you and me, Black, don't worry."

Finally it was agreed that I should see these two firms which Alex Cantling mentioned to me, and try to arrange for three hundred and fifty dollars' worth of accessories, with the account guaranteed by Barlow. He said it might not be necessary for him to put in any money, but that if he did, I must give him my note for whatever he put in. I got a bit scared when he told me that, but he said all he would ask, as security, was the stock of automobile accessories, so that I didn't stand to lose anything.

I was not going to put in the supply until the beginning of April.

Barlow said he would be glad if I would not mention a word of it to any one until that time, so I agreed not to have my automobile accessories delivered until the oil tank was ready.

Just as I was picking up my hat to leave Barlow's office, he called me back and said, "Do you know why your friend Stigler isn't getting on very well? It's because he's always talking about what he is going to do."

"Yes, he is always shooting off his mouth," I said, "but--"

"But what?" he asked, smiling.

"Oh, nothing," I answered, "except that, when I hear he's going to pull off some stunt, I try to get there first!"

"Exactly; if you want to make a real success of yourself, never tell any one what you are going to do until you really do it. It's much better to have people find out what you do by showing results, than have them know beforehand what you are planning to do and see you fall down."

"I'll take the hint," I said; then I left him.

I wondered what Barlow's real reason was in encouraging me to go into automobile supplies. I didn't think it was the profit he expected to make on gasoline. I was beginning to have more respect for Barlow than I ever had in my life, and, frankly, I was beginning to have less fear of Stigler.

Stigler's five-and-ten-cent store had been very slack the last few weeks, and really it was helping, rather than hindering, me, for, while he displayed cheap kitchen goods and was selling them just because they were low-price, cheap articles, I was displaying similar kinds of goods of real merit and quality, and selling them at a good profit. Any one, looking into his window and mine, could see no compet.i.tion, for, while the goods were similar in kind, they were so different in quality as to preclude any possibility of comparison.

At the last meeting of our Merchants' a.s.sociation, we had had a speaker who was the advertising manager for a chain drug-store organization. He had interested me very much in the need for increasing the amount of sales per customer. He said:

"I wonder if you people here know how much each customer spends on an average. For instance, our chain of drug stores must average thirty-five cents a customer; that is, excluding the soda counter. Have you ever added up the number of customers and divided them into the day's cash total, and found how much each customer averages in expenditure?

"Suppose you have an average of one hundred customers a day, and that, through good salesmanship, you increase the sale to each customer ten cents only. That means that, at the end of the week, by good salesmanship you have increased your sales sixty dollars without any increase in your expenses at all, with the possible exception of the supplies or delivery. Now, suppose your average gross profit on sales is twenty-five per cent.; your increase of ten cents per customer means that you make fifteen dollars a week of additional profit, or a profit of seven hundred and eighty dollars a year. All this profit is yours, if you will only increase the sale of each customer by ten cents!

"That is what it means every time you increase a sale: You increase total sales; you increase gross profits; you lower cost of doing business; you lower percentage of controllable expense; you lower percentage of advertising expense; you help cut down surplus stocks; you increase your turnover; you improve your service.

"All these things happen every time you increase a sale by as little as a dime."

I remembered particularly the way in which he had said, "Isn't it worth while, gentlemen, to encourage your sales people to sell every customer an extra dime's worth, over and above what they had intended to buy?"

Seven hundred and eighty dollars a year extra profit, by increasing the sale to every customer by ten cents. That certainly had got me going, and I intended to devise some ways and means of increasing the sale to each customer.

I thought this a good point for discussion at our next Monday's meeting.

We had dropped them while La.r.s.en was ill; but, as the dear old fellow was better again, though not quite well, we were to start them again on the next Monday.

When La.r.s.en was first taken sick I had hired a young fellow, named Charlie Martin, to help out. Charlie was a college graduate, with a father who was quite well-to-do. After he graduated from a college of business administration, he had spent a year with a big chain cigar store organization, after which he had been six months in a department store in Detroit.

He and Fred Barlow had gone through college together and they were good pals. He happened to be visiting the old man Barlow when La.r.s.en was taken sick, and it was through Barlow that he had come to me. Martin told me that he would be glad to get some small store experience, so I had hired him and he had been working like a Trojan at $8.00 a week. His father was a banker in New York, and I had heard that he had been a little bit disappointed in Charlie because he didn't take to banking; but Charlie said that what he liked best was retail merchandising, and he had spent a great deal of time and money preparing himself for such a career.

When La.r.s.en came back I told Martin I didn't see how I could keep him, but he pointed out to me that our sales had been increasing, and that, as La.r.s.en was not yet well, it would be putting too much of a burden on him, especially as we would really be short-handed. So I had kept him on and I was rather glad I had, for his college training certainly helped us at our Monday night meeting.

It surely had seemed good to get my small staff around me again at a Monday night meeting. Mater had taken over Betty's usual task, and sent in coffee and doughnuts, which quickly went the way that all good coffee and doughnuts should. It was really a treat to see Jimmie eat doughnuts.

I didn't believe he did eat them; he just inhaled them.

Of course, Jimmie was there with all the importance of a young boy who had been taken into the confidence of his grown-ups. Jones and La.r.s.en were there, as well as Martin. What a contrast there was between Martin and La.r.s.en--La.r.s.en sadly in need of a shave, in rough home-spun clothes, sitting in his shirt sleeves with the wristlets of a red woolen sweater showing underneath them; and Martin, who always looked like the last word off Fifth Avenue, in spotless linen, narrow sharp features, with the air of a regular debonair young man about town. These two people, the exact opposites of each other, had quickly grown to be good friends.

The one had gained his knowledge through more than two-score years of rather bitter experience; the other had gained his through five years of specialized training. Martin, the trained man, had the keen a.n.a.lytical sense which only comes from training. La.r.s.en, through intuition, backed by practical experience, blundered more or less after the more quick-thinking Martin. Yet theory and practice thought pretty much alike. It certainly showed to me the advantage of training, for Martin had mastered in five years all that La.r.s.en had learned in forty.

The matter for discussion at our meeting had been, "How to increase the amount of sales to each customer?" Frankly, it was Martin who solved our problem for us, and six ways were developed whereby we could increase the sales of each customer.

The first was by applying the law of a.s.sociation. It was a simple thing to do, and yet it astonished me to find that, while we all knew about it, we had not been applying that law. For instance, only that morning Mrs. Wetherall had come in for a clothes line. Jones had got the line for her and had said, "Nothing else?" and she had said, "No, thank you,"

and walked out.

Martin asked Jones if he would allow him to make a suggestion relative to that sale. Jones was a pretty good scout, and he said he didn't mind.