Tales of the Road Part 9

"All during my first year I had helped the sample clerk, who had the best job in the house, get out samples for the salesmen. It was not "my business" to do this; but I did it during spare time from my regular work. When I came back from my visit home, the old gentleman found me on the floor one day while I was tagging samples. 'Billie,'

said he, 'Fritz (the sample clerk) is going out on the road for us next week. I have decided to let you take his place here in the house.

You are pretty young but we think you can do it.'

"I tried to answer back, 'I'll do my best,' but I couldn't say a word.

I only choked. The old gentleman had to turn away from me; it was too much for him, too. After he stepped on the elevator, he turned around and smiled at me. I heard him blow his nose after the elevator sunk out of sight. I knew then that he believed in me and I said to myself, 'He shall never lose his faith.'

"In a few days Fritz had gone out on his trip and I was left alone to do his work, the old gentleman handed me a sample book one afternoon near closing time. 'Billie,' says he, 'Gregory is in a hurry for his samples. Express them to Fayetteville.' He had merely written the stock numbers in the book. It was up to me to fill in on the sample book the description of the goods and the prices. This I did _that night at home_ from memory. I had learned the stock that well. I also wrote the sample tickets. It took me until after midnight. Next morning I was waiting at the front door when the early man came to unlock it. That night the samples went to Fayetteville.

"Two days afterward the old gentleman called me to the office and asked me: 'When can Gregory expect his samples? He's in a big hurry.'

"'I sent them Wednesday night, sir,' said I.

"'Wednesday night! Why it was Tuesday night when I gave you the sample book!'

"'I'm sure they went,' said I, 'because I saw the cases go into the express wagon.'

"'All right,' said the old gentleman; and he smiled at me again the same way he did the morning he made me the sample clerk, a smile which told me I had his heart, and I have it to this day.

"Next morning he sent up to me a letter from Gregory, who wrote that the samples came to him in better shape than ever before. At the end of that year I got a check for $150 back pay, and my salary was raised again. At the end of the third year the old gentleman gave me more back pay and another raise, saying to me: 'Billie, I have decided to put you on the road over Moore's old territory. He is not going to be with us any more. Be ready to start January 1st.' I was the youngest man that firm ever put out. I was with them sixteen years and it almost broke my heart to leave them."

"You bet," said I, "the stock boy has a chance if he only knows it."

"Yes," answered my friend, "sure he has. My mother put in my trunk when I left home a Sunday School card on which were the words: 'Thy G.o.d seeth thee, my son.' Without irreverence I would advise every stock boy who wants to get on the road to write these words and keep them before him every day: 'The eyes of the old man are upon me.'"

I once heard one of the very successful clothing salesmen of Chicago tell how he got on the road.

"I had been drudging along in the office making out bills for more than a year, at ten a week," said he. "My father traveled for the firm but he never would do anything to get me started on the road. He thought I would fall down. I was simply crazy to go. I had seen the salesmen get down late, sit around like gentlemen, josh the bosses, smoke good cigars and come and go when they pleased for eight months in the year. This looked better to me than slaving away making out bills from half past seven in the morning until half past six at night, going out at noon hungry as a hound and having to climb a ladder after a ham sandwich, a gla.s.s of milk and a piece of apple pie.

"I had kept myself pretty well togged up and, as my father wouldn't do anything to get me started, I made up my mind to go straight to the boss myself. He was a little fat sawed-off. He wore gold-rimmed gla.s.ses and whenever he was interested in anybody, he would look at him over his specs. He did not know much about the English language, but he had a whole lot more good common sense than I gave him credit for then. It never hurts a boy in the house, you know, who wants to go on the road to go square up and say so. He may get a turn-down, but the boss will like his s.p.u.n.k, and he stands a better show this way than if he dodges back and waits always for the boss to come to him.

Many a boy gets out by striking the 'Old Man' to go out. If the boy puts up a good talk to him the old man will say: 'He came at me pretty well. By Jove, he can approach merchants, and we will give him a chance.'

"One day, pretty soon after I had braced the old man to send me out, a merchant in Iowa wrote in that he wanted to buy a bill of clothing.

They looked him up in Dun's and found that he was in the grocery business. My father didn't wish to go out--the town was in his territory. I overheard the old man in the office say to him: 'Let's send Chim.'

"Well, Jim started that night. They told me to take a sleeper, but I sat up all night to save the two dollars. I didn't save much money, though, because in the middle of the night I got hungry and filled up on peanuts and train bananas. The town was up on a branch and I didn't get there until six o'clock the next day. When I reached there, I went right up to my man's store. You ought to have seen his place! The town was about seven hundred, and the store just about evened up with it-- groceries and hardware. I got a whiff from a barrel of sauer kraut as I went in the door; on the counter was a cheese case; frying pans and lanterns hung down on hooks from the ceiling; two farmers sat near the stove eating sardines and crackers. No clothing was in sight and I said to myself: 'Well, I'm up against it; this man can't buy much; he hasn't any place to put it if he does.' But I've since learned one thing: You never know who is going to buy goods and how many on the road must learn that the man who has _nothing_ in his line is the very man who can and will buy the most, sometimes, _because he hasn't any_.

And besides, the _little_ man may be just in the notion of spreading himself.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "You ought to have seen his place"]

"A young man was counting eggs back near the coal oil can. He was the only one around who seemed to have anything to do with the store. I walked up to him and told him who I was. He said, 'Yes, we are glad to see you. I'm just out of school and father wants to put me in business here. He is going to put in all his time in the bank. He wants me to take charge of the store. I've told him we could sell other things besides groceries--they are dirty, anyway, and don't pay much profit; so we have started to build on another room right next door and are going to put in other lines. I've told father we ought to put in clothing, but he hasn't fully made up his mind. I'll ask him to come down after supper and you can talk to him.'

"'Hasn't fully made up his mind, and here I am my first time out, 24 hours away, and a big expense,'--all this went through me and I couldn't eat any supper.

"The old banker that evening was just tolerably glad to see me. It wasn't exactly a freeze, but there was lots of frost in the air. He said, after we had talked the thing over, that he would look at my samples the next morning, but that he would not buy unless my line was right and the prices were right. I was sure my 'prices were right.' I had heard the bosses talk a whole year about how cheaply they sold their goods. I had heard them swear at the salesmen for cutting prices and tell them that the goods were marked at bare living profit; and I was green enough to believe this. I also knew that my line was the best one on the road. I had not stopped to figure out how my bosses could stay under their own roof all the time and know so much about other houses' goods and be absolutely sure that their own line was bound to be the best ever. I had heard the road-men many times tell the bosses to 'wake up,' but I did not believe the salesmen. You know that a young fellow, even if he is with a weak house, starts out on his first trip feeling that his house is the best one. Before he gets through with his maiden trip, even though his house is a thoroughbred, he will think it is a selling plater.

"That night I worked until two o'clock opening up. I did not know the marks so I had to squirm out what the characters meant and put the prices on the tickets in plain figures so I would know what the goods were worth. But this was a good thing. The salesman or the firm that has the honesty and the boldness to mark samples in plain figures and stick absolutely to their marked price, will do business with ease.

Merchants in the country do not wish to buy cheaper than those in other towns do; they only wish a square deal. And, say what you will, they are kind o' leery when they buy from samples marked in characters--not plain figures. They often use a blind mark to do scaly work on their own customers and they don't like to have the same game worked on themselves. Honest merchants, and I mean by this those who make only a reasonable profit, mark their goods in plain figures, cut prices to n.o.body--prefer to do business with those who do it their way. The traveling man who breaks prices soon loses out.

"That night I couldn't sleep. I was up early next morning and had a good fire in my sample room. I had sense enough to make the place where I was going to show my goods as comfortable as I could. I sold a bill of $2,500 and never cut a price.

"When I got home I put the order on the old man's desk and went to my stool to make out bills. The old man came in. He picked up the order and looked over it carefully, then he asked one of the boys: 'Vere's Chim? Tell him to com heer. I vant to see him.'

"I walked into the office. The old man was looking at me over his specs as I went in. He grabbed me by the hand and said so loud you could hear him all over the house: 'Ah, Chim, dot vas tandy orter. How dit you do id mitoud cotting prices, Chim? You vas a motel for efery men we haf in der house. I did nod know we hat a salesman in der office. By Himmel! you got a chob on der roat right avay, Chim.'"

CHAPTER VII.

FIRST EXPERIENCES IN SELLING.

I sat with a group of friends around a table one evening not long ago, in one of the dining rooms of the Brown Palace Hotel in Denver. The dining room was done in dark stained oak, the waiters whispered to each other in foreign tongues, French and German; on the walls of the room were pictures of foreign scenes painted by foreign hands; but, aside from this, everything about us was strictly American. We had before us blue points with water-cress salad, mountain trout from the Rockies, and a Porterhouse three inches thick. We had just come out of the brush and were going to "Sunday" in Denver. It was Sat.u.r.day night, A man who has never been on the road does not know what it is to get a square meal after he has been "high-gra.s.sing it" for a week or two, and when such can become the pleasure of a drummer, he quickly forgets the tough "chuck" he has been chewing for many days.

We were all old friends, had known each other in a different territory many years before; so, when we came together again, this time in Denver, not having seen each other for many years, we talked of old times and of when we met with our first experiences on the road.

When a man first begins to hustle trunks he has a whole lot to learn.

Usually he has been a stock-boy, knowing very little of the world beyond the bare walls in which he has filled orders. To his fellow travelers the young man on the road is just about as green as they make them, but the rapid way in which he catches on and becomes an old-timer, is a caution.

A great many decry the life of the traveling man, even men on the road themselves are discontented, but if you want to get one who is truly happy and satisfied with his lot, find one who, after having enjoyed the free and independent (yes, and delightful!) life of the road, and then settled down for a little while as a merchant on his own hook, insurance agent, or something of that kind, and finally has gone back to his grips, and you will find a man who will say: "Well, somebody else can do other things, but, for my part, give me the road."

After we had finished with the good things before us and had lighted cigars, we could all see in the blue curls of smoke that rose before us visions of our past lives. I asked one of my friends, "How long have you been on the road, Billy?"

"Good Lord!" he yawned, "I haven't thought of that for a long time, but I sure do remember when I first started out. I left St. Louis one Sunday night on the Missouri Pacific. It was nearly twenty years ago.

I remember it very well because that night I read in a newspaper that there was such a thing as a phonograph and, as I was traveling through Missouri, I didn't believe it. I had to wait until I could see one.

The next day noon I struck Falls City, Nebraska. It had taken me eighteen hours to make the trip. To me it seemed as if I were going into a new world and I was surprised to find, when I reached Nebraska, that men way out there wore about the same sort of clothes that they did in St. Louis. I would not have been surprised a bit if some Indian had come out of the bushes and tried to scalp me. The depot was a mile and a half from the hotel. Here I took my first ride in an omnibus.

The inside of that old bus, the red-cus.h.i.+oned seats and the advertis.e.m.e.nts of a livery stable, a hardware store, and "Little Jake's Tailor Shop" were all new to me. Mud? I never saw mud so deep in my life. It took us an hour to get up town. The little white hotel with the green shutters on it was one of the best I ever struck in my life. Many a time since then I have wished I could have carried it-- the good friend, chicken and all--along with me in all my travels. My best friend and adviser, an old road man himself, had told me this: 'When you get to a town, get up your trunks and open them and then go and see the trade. You might just as well hunt quail with your sh.e.l.ls in your pocket as to try to do business without your samples open.'

"I opened up that afternoon. It took me three hours. I put my samples in good shape so that I knew where to lay my hands on anything that a customer might ask for--and you know if you go out to sell anything you'd better know what you have to sell! My samples open, I went down the street and fell into the first store I came to. The proprietor had been an old customer of the house, but I now know that the reason he gave me the ice pitcher was that he had been slow in paying his bills and the house had drawn on him. A wise thing, this, for a house to do --when they want to lose a customer! This was a heart-breaker to me right at the start, but it was lucky, because, if I had sold him, I would have packed up and gone away without working the town. A man on the road, you know, boys, even if he doesn't do business with them, should form the acquaintance of all the men in the town who handle his line. The old customer may drop dead, sell out, or go broke, and it is always well to have somebody else in line. Of course there are justifiable exceptions to this rule, but in general I would say: 'Know as many as you can who handle your line.'

"After the old customer turned me down I went into every store in that town and told my business. I found two out of about six who said they would look at my goods. By this time everybody had closed up and I came back to the hotel and went to bed, having spent the first day without doing any business.

"Five men from my house in this same territory had fallen down in five years and I, a kid almost, was number six--but not to fall down! I said to myself, '_I am going to succeed.'_ The will to win means a whole lot in this road business, too, boys. You know, if you go at a thing half-heartedly you are sure to lose out, but if you say 'I will,' you cannot fall down.

"Next morning I was up early and, before the clerks had dusted off the counters, I went in to see the old gentleman who had said he would look at my goods.

"'Round pretty early, aren't you, son?' said the old gentleman.

"'Yes, sir; but I'm after the worm,' said I.

"'All right. Go up to your hotel and I'll be there in half an hour.'

"Instead of waiting until he was ready for me, I went to the hotel.

After the half hour was up I began to get nervous. It was an hour and a half before he came. I hadn't then learned that the best way to do is to go with your customer from his store to yours, instead of sitting around and waiting for him to come to you. This gives him a chance to get out of the notion.

"I sold the old gentleman a pretty fair bill of hats, but it was sort of a hit and miss proposition. He would jump from this thing to that thing. I hadn't learned that the real way to sell goods is to lay out one line at a time and finish with that before going to another.

Pretty soon, though, good merchants educated me how to sell a bill.

This is a thing a beginner should be taught something about before he starts out.