Tales of the Road Part 24

"'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.

"'G.o.d 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, Was.h.i.+ngton, to the hotel.'

'Do you remember that sunrise?' 'Well, _do_ I?' '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 a.s.syrian 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 s.p.a.ce 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 friends.h.i.+p built upon confidence, and the business friend may afterward become the personal friend. A personal friends.h.i.+p will often follow a business friends.h.i.+p but business friends.h.i.+p 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 a.s.sure 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 friends.h.i.+p, 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 Sat.u.r.day 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 cla.s.s? 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 pa.s.s 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.'