Tales of the Road Part 15

TACTICS IN SELLING--III.

GETTING A MERCHANT'S ATTENTION.

"Seven and nine," said the porter, poking his head into the Pullman smoker, "are all made down."

With this, a couple of the boys bade us goodnight and turned in, but soon two more drifted in and took their places.

"Getting a merchant's attention," said the furnishing goods man, "is the main thing. You may get a man to answer your questions in a sort of a way but you really do not have his attention always when he talks to you. You would better not call on a man at all than go at him in a listless sort of a way. This is where the old timer has the bulge over the new man. I once knew a man who had been a successful clerk for many years who started on the road with a line of pants. He had worked for one of my old customers. I chanced to meet him, when I was starting on my trip, at the very time when he was making his maiden effort at selling a bill to the man for whom he had been working. Of course this was a push-over for him because his old employer gave him an order as a compliment.

"Well, sir, when that fellow learned that I was going West--this was on the Northern Pacific--he hung right on to me and said he would like to go along. Of course, I told him I should be very glad to have him do so, and that I would do for him whatever I could. But here he made a mistake. When a man starts out on the road he must paddle his own canoe. It is about as much as his friend can do to sell his own line of goods, much less to put in a boost for somebody else. And, furthermore, a man who takes a young chick under his wing will often cut off some of his own feed. Still, this fellow had always been very friendly with me and I told him, 'Why, to be sure, Henry; come right along with me.'

"In the second and third towns that we made, he picked up a couple of small bills that just about paid his expenses. He was just beginning to find that the road was not such an easy path to travel as, in his own mind, he had cracked it up to be.

"The next town we struck was Bismarck, North Dakota. We got in there about three o'clock in the morning. It was Thanksgiving Day. To be sure, I went to bed and had a good sleep. A man must always feel fresh, you know, if he expects to do any work.

"It was about eleven o'clock before I breakfasted, opened up, and started across the street. My old customer had burned out there and I, too, had to go out and rustle some man. Just as I started over toward town, I met my German friend Henry coming back. His face looked like a full moon shining through a cloud. I could see that there was trouble on his mind.

"'Well, Henry, how goes it?' said I.

"'Id don't go so goot,' said he. 'But vat can a man expect on Danksgifing? I vent to see von man and he said, "I haf an olt house dat alvays dreats me right, so vat's de use of chanching?" Vell, vat archument could I make against dot? I vent in to see anodder man and he said, "I haf an olt friend dot I buy from," and vat archument could I make against dot? I vent in to see still anodder, and he said, "I haf just bought," so, vat archument could I make against dot? The next man I vent to see said, "Mein Gott, man; don'd you suppose I am going to rest von day in de year? So I t'ought dere vas no use fooling mit him, so I t'ink I vill pack op and eat a goot dinner and take a goot nap and go vest again in de morning.'

"'All right, Henry,' said I; 'but I guess I'll go over and try my luck.'

"The first man that I went to see was the one who had said to my friend Henry that he thought he ought to have one day in the year to rest. He was the biggest merchant in the town in my line. When I reached his store he was putting the key in the door to lock up and go home for his Thanksgiving dinner.

"I couldn't talk to him out there in the cold--we were strangers--so I said to him, 'I should like to buy a couple of collars if you please.'

He sold me the collars and then, just for a bluff, I made out that mine was hurting me and took a few minutes to put on another one. I didn't say anything about what my business was and the merchant, in order to have something to say, asked, 'Are you a stranger in town?'

"'Yes, sir,' said I, 'I am. But I hope that I shall not be very much longer. I am out looking for a location.'

"'You are a physician, then?' said the merchant.

"'Yes, sir,--in a way,' said I; 'but I treat diseases in rather a peculiar way, I fancy. I believe in going down to the cause of diseases and treating the cause rather than the disease itself. My specialty is the eye. Now, you see, if the eye looks at bright, sparkling snow, it is strained; but if it looks at a green pasture, that color rests it. In fact, if the eye looks upon anything that is not pleasing to it, it does it an injury. Now, my way of getting down to the root of all this eye trouble is to place before it things that are pleasing to look upon, and in this way, make eye salves and things of that kind unnecessary. In just a word,' said I (I had his attention completely), 'I am selling the prettiest, n.o.bbiest, most up-to-date line of furnishing goods there is on the road. They are so attractive that they are good for sore eyes. Now, the only way I can back up this statement is by showing you what I have. When will it suit you to look at them? The location that I am looking for is a location for my goods right here on your shelves.'

"Well, sir; do you know, that merchant really came down to my sample room on Thanksgiving Day--he hardly took time to eat his dinner--and I sold him.

"I didn't see any more of my friend Henry until the next morning. The train was late and left about seven o'clock.

"'Vell, what luck yesterday?' said Henry.

"As he came up to me in the train where I was sitting with a friend, I said, 'Well, I sold a bill.'

"'Who bought of you?'

"'The clothing man here.'

"'Vell, dot's de feller,' said Henry, 'dot told me he vas going to haf von day in de year for his family. And you solt him? Vell, how did you do id?'

"I briefly told Henry of my experience.

"'Vell, dot vas goot,' said he.

[Ill.u.s.tration: You'd better write that down with a pencil," said Henry.]

"My advance agent friend, who had sat beside me--Henry had fallen in with us in our double seat--said to Henry, 'Now, that's a good line of argument. Why don't you use that sometime?' A twinkle came into my theatrical friend's eye when Henry did, in fact, ask my permission to use this line of talk. I told Henry, 'Why, sure, go on and use that argument anywhere you want to. I shall not use it again because in every town that I shall strike, from this time on, I have an old established customer. I have no use for that argument. Just go and use it.'

"'You'd better write that down with a pencil, Henry,' said the advance agent--Stanley was his name.

"'No, dere's no use ov writing dot down,' said Henry. 'Dot archurnent vas so clear dot I haf it in my headt!'

"But, sure enough, Henry took out his lead pencil and jotted down the points in the back of his order book. In the next town we struck, one of the merchants was a gruff old Tartar. He was the first man that Henry lit onto.

"Now, an old merchant can size up a traveling man very soon after he enters the door. The shoeman will go over to where the shoes are kept; the hat man will turn his face toward the hat case; the furnishing goods man will size up the display of neckwear; in fact, a merchant once told me that he could even tell the difference between a clothing man and a pants man. A clothing man will walk up to a table and run his hands over the coats while a pants man will always finger the trousers to a suit.

"Well, sir, when Henry walked into this gruff old merchant's store, he found him busy waiting on a customer so up he marched to a clothing table and began to feel of a pile of pants. After the customer went out he went up to the old man and said to him, 'Gootmorning, sir. I am a physician, sir, and I am looking for a logation--'

"'You are no such a ---- thing,' said the old man. 'You are selling pants.'

"Henry told me of this experience when he came back to the hotel and he was so broken hearted that he almost felt like going back home. In fact, he didn't last more than about three weeks. He had started too late in life to learn the arts of the traveling man."

"You bet," said the wall paper man who had heard this story.

"Attention is the whole cheese. I know I once tried my hardest to get hold of an old Irishman down in Texas. He was a jolly old chap but I couldn't get next. There wasn't any sample room in the town and if I showed my goods to any one, I would have to get his consent to let me bring my stuff into his store. When I struck old Murphy to let me bring my goods in, he gave me a stand-off so hard that another one of the boys who was in the store gave me the laugh. This riled me a little and I said to my friend who thought he had the joke on me, 'I am going to sell that old duck just the same.' 'I'll bet a new hat you don't,' said he. Something flashed across me somehow or other. I got bold and I said, I'll just take that bet.'

"I had to wait in town anyway for several hours so that I couldn't get out until after supper. So I went up to the hotel for dinner. That afternoon I went back to Murphy's store, pulled out a cigar case and, pa.s.sing it over to the old gentleman, said, 'Take one, neighbor. These are out of my private box.' It was really a good cigar and the old man, giving me a little blarney, said, 'Surre, that cigare is a birrd.' 'I'm glad you like it,' said I. 'I have those sent me from Chicago, a fresh box every week. If you like it so well, here, take a couple more. I have lots of them in my grip.' I laid a couple on the old man's desk and he didn't object.

"'Now, Mr. Murphy,' said I, 'I know you don't wish to look at any of my goods whatsoever, and I'm not the man to ask you the second time.

In fact, I am really glad you don't wish to buy some goods from me because it gives me a chance to run through my samples. I've been aiming to do some work on them for several days but really haven't had the time--I've been so busy. But, as there's n.o.body else here in the town that I care to see (a mild dose of "smoosh," given at the right time and in the right way, never does any harm, you know) and as there's no sample room here I'm sure you'll allow me to have my trunk thrown in your store where I shall not be in your way. I wish to rid myself of "outs."

"'Surre, me b'y; surre me b'y,' said the old man. 'Toike all the room you will but ye know Oime not for lookin' at your goods. Oime waitin'

fer a friend, ye know.'

"'Very well, thank you; I promise you faithfully, Mr. Murphy, that I'll not show you any goods. I merely wish to get rid of my "tear- outs" and straighten up my line.'

"When the drayman dumped my trunk into the back end of the store, I opened up on the counter and tore off several 'outs.' I let my samples lie there and went up the street, but came back several times and peeped into the front window to see what the old man was doing. I did this three or four times and finally I saw him and one of the clerks back where my samples were, fingering them over.

"Then I went around to the back door, which was near where my samples were, marched right in and caught the old man in the act."

"Sell him?" spoke up one of the boys.

"Sure," said the wall paper man, "and I made the man who had lost the hat come down and buy one for me from the old Irishman."

"Well, that was a clever sale," said the hat man, "but you have, you know, as much trouble sometimes holding an old customer in line as you do in selling a new one. For my own part, whenever a customer gets clear off the hook, I let him swim. You have a great deal better luck casting your fly for new fish than you do in throwing your bait for one that has got away from you. My rule is, when a man is gone--let him go. But, as long as I have him on the hook, I am going to play him.

"When I was down in New Orleans a few seasons ago, one of my old customers said, 'Look here, I don't see any use of buying goods from you. I can buy them right home just as cheaply as you sell them to me, and save the freight. This freight item amounts to a good deal in the course of a year. See, here is a stiff hat that I buy for twenty-four dollars a dozen that is just as good as the one that you are selling me for the same money. Look at it.' He pa.s.sed it over to me. I rubbed my hand over the crown and quickly I rapped the derby over my fist knocking the crown clean off it. I threw the rim onto the floor and didn't say a word. This play cost me a new hat but it was the best way I could answer my customer's argument. After that, my customer was as gentle as a dove. He afterwards admitted that he liked my goods better but that he was trying to work me for the difference in freight."

"The clerk can always give you a good many straight tips," spoke up one of the boys.

"Yes, and you bet your life he does his best to queer you once in a while, too!" said the clothing man. "I know I had a tough tussle with one not a great while ago down in Pittsburgh. Last season I placed a small bunch of stuff in a big store there. I had been late in getting around but the merchant liked my samples and told me that if the goods delivered turned out all right he would give me good business this season.