Tales of the Road Part 16

"Now, my house delivers right up to sample. A great many houses do not, and so merchants go not on the samples they look at but according to the goods delivered to them. It is the house that _delivers_ good merchandise that holds its business, not the one that shows bright samples on the road and ships poor stuff.

"I went up to my man's store--this was just a few weeks ago--and asked him to come over with me.

"'My head clothing man,' said my customer, 'does not like your stuff.

I might as well be frank with you about it.' 'What objection has he to it?' said I. 'He says they don't fit. He says the tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs and everything are all right and I wish they did fit because your prices look cheap to me.' 'Well, let's go over and see about that,' said I.

'There's no one in the world more willing and anxious to make things right than I am if there is anything wrong.' I didn't know just what I had to go up against. The man on the road gets all the kicks.

"Once in a while there is a clerk who puts out his hand like the boy who waits on you at table and if pretty good coin is not dropped in it or some favor shown him, he will have it in for you.

"My customer and I walked over to where the clerk was and I came right out, and said, 'Johnny, what's the matter with this clothing you've received from me? Mr. Green (the merchant) here tells me you say it doesn't fit. Let's see about that.'

"The clerk was slim and stoop-shouldered. The tailor to his royal highness could not have made a coat hang right on him.

"'Now, you are kicking so much, Johnnie, on my clothing, you go here in this store and pick out some coats your size from other people and let's see how they fit. Let's put this thing to a fair test.'

"'That's square,' said Green. 'If a thing is so, I want to know it; if it isn't, I want to know it.'

"I slipped onto Johnnie three or four of my compet.i.tor's coats that he brought and they hung upon him about as well as they would on a scare- crow.

"'Now, Johnnie, you are a good boy,' said I, 'but you've been inside so long that the Lord, kind as He is, hasn't built you just right. You are not the man who is to wear this clothing that comes into this store. It is the other fellow. My house does not make clothing for people who are not built right. We take the perfect man as our pattern and build to suit him. There are so many more people in the world who are strong and robust and well proportioned than there are those who are not, that it is a great deal better to make clothing for the properly built man than for the invalid. Now, I just want to show you how this clothing does fit. You take any coat that you wish. Bring me half a dozen of them if you will--one from every line that you bought from me, if you wish. I wear a 38. Bring my size and let's see how they look. If they are not all right, I am the man who, most of all, wishes to know it. I can't afford to go around the country showing good samples and selling poor stuff. If my stuff isn't right, I am going to change houses but I want to tell you that you're the first man on this whole trip that has made a single complaint. Those who bought small bills from me last season are buying good bills from me this time. They have said that my goods give splendid satisfaction.

Now, you just simply go, Johnnie, and get me ten coats. I sold you ten numbers--I remember exactly--l20 suits--one from every line that you bought, and I want to show you that there isn't a bad fitter in the whole lot.'

"'Yes, do that, Johnnie,' said the merchant. 'His stuff looked all right to me when I bought it. I, myself, have not had time to pay much attention to it and I will have to take your word for these things, but, now that the question is up, we'll see about it.'

"The clerk started to dig out my size but he couldn't find a 38 in but three lots to save his life. I put these on and they fit to a 'T'. I looked in the mirror myself and could see that the fit was perfect.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Shure, that cigare is a birrd"]

"'Now, look here, Brother Green,' said I, 'what are you in business for? You are in business to buy the best stuff that you can for your money. Now, you remember you thought when you bought my goods that they were from one to two dollars a suit cheaper and just as good as anything you had seen. Now, if you can buy something from me just as good as another man can give you, and buy it cheaper, you are going to do it, aren't you?'

"'Why, to be sure, Jim,' said Green, warming up.

"'Now, look here, it isn't the opinion of your clerk or your own opinion even that you care a rap for. The opinion that is worth something is that of the man who buys his goods from you. Now, you see very plainly that my stuff is good. Thirty-eight is a size of which you bought many and you haven't that size left in but three lines out of ten. Here you see very plainly that my goods have moved faster than any other clothing you have bought this season; and, as far as the fit is concerned, you see full well, that other stuff didn't fit Johnnie because he isn't built right. You did see--and you do see--I have one of them on right now--that my clothing fits a well-built man.'

"I saw that I had the old man on my side and I knew that Johnnie had dropped several points in his estimation. The truth of the matter was the clerk was knocking on me in favor of one of his old friends. Of course I wouldn't come right out and say this but the old man himself grew wise on this point because that afternoon he came down by himself and bought from me a good, fat bill. The clerk simply killed himself by not being fair with me. No clerk who expects promotion can afford to play favorites."

"It's all right when you can get over the clerk's head and to the merchant himself," chimed in the Boys' & Children's Clothing man, "when there is any graft going around, but it is a hard game to play when you must deal with a buyer who is the supreme judge. I once had an experience with a buyer down in California. I went into one of the big stores down there and jollied around with the buyer in my department. He said he would come over and look at my line. He took the hook so quickly that I ought to have been on to him to start with, but I didn't. He came over to my sample room in the evening. Now that, you know, isn't a very good time to buy clothing. Nothing is as good as daylight for that. He didn't question my price or anything of that sort. He would look at a few things and then stop and talk horse with me for awhile. I don't like to do business with that kind of a fellow.

When I do business, I like to do business; when I talk horse I like to talk horse; and I want a man with me in the sample room who is interested in what he is doing. It is the busy man, anyway, that makes you a good customer--not the one with whom business is merely a side issue.

"After monkeying around a couple of hours, I managed to get laid out a pretty fair line of stuff. 'Now,' said the buyer, 'to-night I can only make up a list of what's here. These things suit me pretty well, and in the morning I can submit it to the old man for his O.K.'

"Well, that looked easy to me so we wrote down the order, and when we got through, that fellow was bold enough to come right out and say, 'Now, look here, you're making a pretty good commission on this stuff --here's a good bill, and I can throw it to you if I wish, or I can kill it if I like. I'm not getting any too much over where I am, so don't you think your house can dig up about twenty for me on this bill, and I'll see that it sticks?'"

"Did you dig?" said one of the boys.

"Dig? You bet your life not. This funny business, I won't do. It may work for one bill but it won't last long because it is only a matter of time before the buyer who will be bribed will be jumped and lose his job. I simply told the fellow that I didn't do that sort of business; that unless he wished to do business with me strictly on the square, I wouldn't do business with him at all."

"Well, what did he say to this?" said I.

"Oh, he said to me, 'I'm just joshing with you and I really wanted to see if I couldn't get you down a little and make that much more for the house. I like to do business myself with any one who is on the square.'" "The order stuck then?" asked the wall paper man.

"No, it didn't. That's the worst of it. A few days after I reached home in came a cancellation from the head of the house. At that time, I didn't understand it. I supposed that the head of the house himself had really canceled the order, so the next time I went to that town, I waltzed straight up to the office and asked to see the head of the establishment. I asked him why he had canceled my order and he told me that his buyer really had all of that in charge and that he only followed out his recommendations; that the buyer had told him to cancel that bill and he had done so.

"I saw through the whole scheme. There was just one thing for me to do. I simply came right square out and told the old man that his buyer had wanted to get $20.00 from me to make the bill stick; and I bet him a hundred that the clerk had canceled my order so that he could get a rake-off from somebody else.

"The old man sent for the buyer and told him to get his pay and leave.

He thanked me for putting him wise and from that time on, he or some other member of the firm always goes to the sample room."

Now, it must not be thought that every sale that is made must be put through by some bright turn. These stories I have told about getting the merchant's attention are the extreme cases. The general on the field of battle ofttimes must order a flank movement, or a spirited cavalry dash; but he wins his battle by following a well-thought-out plan. So with the salesman. He must rely, in the main, upon good, quiet, steady, well-planned work. Some merchants compel a man to use extraordinary means to catch them at the start. And the all-around salesman will be able to meet such an emergency right at the moment, and in an original way that will win.

CHAPTER XI.

CUTTING PRICES.

Is not the salesman on the road who sells goods to one customer at one price and to another at another price, a thief? Is not the house which allows its salesman to do this an accomplice to the crime of theft?

This is a hot shot, I know; but, if you are a salesman, ask yourself if it is right to get the marked price of an article from a friend who gives you his confidence, and then sell the same thing for a lower price to another man who is suspicious and beats you down. Ask yourself, if you have men on the road, whether or not it is right for you to allow your salesman to do these things, and then answer "Yes"

or "No." You will all answer "No, but we can't help ourselves."

You can. A friend of mine, who travels for a large house, way down East, that employs one hundred road salesmen, told me recently of an experience directly in point. I will let him tell the story to you:

"It is the custom in our house, you know, for all of the boys to meet together twice each year when we come in after our samples. After we get our samples marked and packed, and are ready for the road, the 'old gentleman' in the house gives us all a banquet. He sits at the head of the table and is toastmaster.

"He is wise in bringing the boys together in this way because he knows that the boys on the road know how things ought to be and that they can give him a great many pointers. He has a stenographer present who takes down every word that is said during the evening. The reports of these semi-annual meetings are the law books of this house.

"At our last meeting the 'old gentleman' when he first arose to speak, said: 'Look here, boys'--he knew how to take us all--'there is one thing about our system of business that I do not like; it is this cutting of prices. Now, what I would like to do this very season--and I have thought of it since you have all packed up your trunks--is to have all samples marked in plain figures and for no man to deviate in any way from the prices. Of course this is rather a bold thing to do in that we have done business in the old way of marking goods in characters for many years, so I wish to hear from you all and see what you think about it. I shall wish as many of you as will to state in words just what you think on this subject, one by one; but first of all, I wish that every man who favors marking samples in plain figures and not varying from the price would stand up, and that those who think the other way would keep their seats.'

"Well, sir, do you know I was the only man out of that whole hundred to stand up. The others sat there. After standing for a moment I sat down, and the 'old gentleman' arose again.

"'Well, the vote is so near unanimous,' said the 'old gentleman,'

"that it seems hardly necessary for us to discuss the matter. Yet it is possible that one man may be right and ninety-nine may be wrong, so let us hear from one of our salesmen who differs from his ninety-nine brethren.'

"With this I stood up, and I made a speech something like this: 'Mr.

President, and Fellow Salesmen: I am very glad that our worthy President has given me the right to speak. He has said that one man in a hundred _may be_ right even though ninety-nine do not believe as he does. There is no _may be_ about it. I do not think that I am right. I KNOW IT. I speak from experience. When I first started on the road one of my old friends in the house--I was just a stock boy, you know, going out for the first time, not knowing whether I would succeed or fail--this old friend gave me this advice: Said he, "Billy, it is better for you to be abused for selling goods cheaply than to be fired for not selling them at all." With this advice before me from an old salesman in the house, and knowing that all of the salesmen nearly in greater or less degree slaughtered the price of goods, I went out on the road. The first thing I began to do was to cut, cut, cut.

Letters came to me from the house to quit it, but I kept on cutting, cutting, cutting. I knew that the other boys in the house did it, and I did not see any reason why I should not. It was my habit to do this: If a man was hard to move in any way and was mean to me I came at him with prices. If he treated me gentlemanly and gave me his confidence, I robbed him--that is, I got the full marked price, while the other fellow bought goods cheaper than this man. Once I got caught up with.

Two of my customers met in market and, as merchants usually do when they meet in market, they began to discuss the lines of goods which they carried. They found that they both carried my line, and my good friend learned that the other fellow bought certain lines cheaper than he did.

"'The next time I went around to his town I wore the same old good smile and everything of that kind but I soon saw that he did not take to me as kindly as before. When I asked him to come over to my sample room, he said to me, "No, I will not go over--I shall not buy any more goods from you."

"'"Why, what is the matter?" I asked.

"'"Oh, never mind, I just don't care to handle your line," said he.

"'"Why, aren't the goods all right?" I asked.