Sam Lambert had the best clothing store in Medeena County--a corner
store on the main street of Medeena opposite the Court House Square.
Medeena had four clothing stores, not counting The Blue Front, down by
the Depot, with its collection of cheap watches in the window, a
yellow guitar, two large accordions and a fiddle with a broken E
string.
Everybody in the County knew Sam Lambert.
As a merchant and a citizen he was a whole bunch of live wires. A
big-boned, free-hearted fellow--lucky enough to just escape being run
for sheriff, as some thought he was too good natured, the "gang" was
afraid he was not pliant enough, and Sam didn't want to be away from
the store.
Sam took great pride in his clothing business and kept pace with the
most advanced ideas in the trade.
He was awake to the marvelous development of the ready-to-wear
business. He carried the best and took a positive delight in each
season's new models.
He recalled the old days of "hand-me-downs," and he had lived to see
the two best tailors in Medeena take to bushelling "ready" garments,
with less and less of that to be done--principally changing a button
or shortening a trouser's length.
Sam was broad-gauge in everything he did. He sold his goods at the
marked price, for cash only--got a decent profit and told you so.
Why shouldn't he? He had a sense of style. He was keenly alive to the
artistry of clothes and his enthusiasm was contagious.
Sam was firmly convinced that a man has to spend money to make money
in the clothing business.
He said that a part of the value you deliver to a customer consists in
giving him a better opinion of himself: making him feel like a king
for a day and that the best is none too good for him.
"A store," he would tell the boys, "cannot be run on the low gear. You
must keep her keyed up. Relax when the store is empty, but when you go
to meet a customer put on the tension--take a brace--get spring into
your step--learn to bunch your vitality and get it across. But keep
your energy inside.
"Don't bounce and don't talk too much. Keep yourself in hand. Be quiet
but alert.
"Concentrate! For the time being there is but one person in the world
and that is the customer, and the most interesting thing in life is
the thing he came in to see.
"You can size up your man while you are going forward to meet him. But
by all means take him easy. Undue interest might embarrass him.
Suppose he only wants a pair of 15c. socks; if he does, there is a
test of your ability that you may not realize.
"Many a clerk who can close a Twenty dollar transaction with tact and
dispatch never seems able to handle a Ten cent sale so that the
customer goes out feeling pleased with himself.
"Nine men out of ten who come into the store are self-conscious. The
thing to do is to make your man feel that his requirement is important
simply because it is his requirement.
"A good salesman keeps his own personality in the background: he keeps
the store and the sale in the background. He puts all the emphasis on
service to the customer, and to do this he must mentally put himself
in the customer's place.
"Try to be as interested in the customer's finding what he wants as if
the article was for yourself; but don't insist on his taking only the
thing that appeals to you.
"Quietly dominate the sale, but leave him plenty of room for the
exercise of his own taste and ideas.
"Most men, though they may not show it, are slightly on the defensive
when they come into a clothing store. That is why it is so very
important that there be no talking or laughing among the clerks.
"You may find it hard to realize the effect of a whisper or a titter
on the part of the store's help when a customer is present. In nearly
every case the man becomes sensitive or resentful and thinks he is
being ridiculed.
"Try it yourself sometime by going into a strange store in another
line of business in a distant city: when you hear a laugh or a remark
passed among the clerks, see if you don't wonder if there isn't
something wrong with your clothes or feel sure that comment is being
made on your appearance or behavior.
"There is another form of impatience or self-consciousness on the part
of a customer who is more or less acquainted with the store. He
hurries past everyone in front, headed for the part of the store where
he thinks the goods he wants are kept.
"It is bad policy to step in front of him or otherwise impede his
progress. If there is no one to wait on him follow quietly and be on
hand when he lands at his destination.
"A clerk often wonders why customers persist in doing this.
"It is because they have an idea of the location of what they want and
blindly strike out for it with a certain nervous desire to cover the
intermediate ground as quickly as possible.
"Remember that while you feel perfectly at home in the store, few
customers do. It is your business to put them at ease and certainly to
do nothing to make them uncomfortable.
"When a man comes in for a suit of clothes he usually has some sort of
a mental picture of the thing he desires. An idea, clearly defined or
hazy, is in his mind as to the general color and effect of the suit he
wants.
"It is something he has noticed worn by someone else--looked at in a
show window, or seen in an illustration.
"In most cases it will not be the thing he finally buys. It may be a
chalk-line stripe or a Shepherd's Plaid worn by a drummer who boarded
the 6.30 Lightning Express. In the glow of the lamps and the bustle
and excitement of the Station platform the thing looked possible: but
confronted in the store with the very style and pattern he backs away
from it, though 'it looked good on the other man.'
"Find out what he has in mind; meet it as nearly as you can and get it
out of the way. Otherwise he will not concentrate on other goods. He
will hold to this mental picture and measure everything you show him
by it--much to your disadvantage.
"One of the worst possible things is to ask a man about what price
suit he wants.
"Keep price in the background. Time enough to feel him out on that
subject. No man likes to have you take the measure of his pocket-book.
"You must use your judgment in gauging him as to what to show him.
"The important thing is to get at the picture he has in mind, and the
price too, if you can do so without asking him to name the figure.
"Never ask a customer how he liked the last suit you sold him. Let
by-gones be by-gones. This is a new deal. Whether he was entirely
satisfied is not the point now. Don't raise dangerous questions.
"There are a dozen reasons why his last purchase may not be remembered
with pleasure--reasons that have nothing to do with the value he
received or the actual merit of the clothes.
"If he voluntarily mentions the last suit with praise take it as a
natural occurrence and pass it over; you will try to do even better by
him this time.
"If he complains of his last purchase don't argue. Leave the subject
as soon as possible and get down to the question in hand.
"Have confidence in your goods, in your prices and in yourself as a
salesman.
"There are more sales lost for lack of firmness and decision at the
right time than for any other cause.
"Among the clerks in the best and biggest of stores there are ten good
openers of a sale to one good closer.
"Be a closer.
"It requires judgment and decision of character, but you can learn to
do it.
"When a woman goes into a cloak and suit department, she is not
satisfied to buy until she has been made to feel that she has pretty
well canvassed the assortment, seen practically everything in the
stock at the range and along the line she is seeking.
"She has merchandise imagination and thinks of the possible garments
back there in the stock that she might have liked better.
"In this regard a man is somewhat easier to handle.
"It is a fact often demonstrated that clerks can close a sale more
quickly where the stock is kept on hangers instead of piled on tables.
"The preliminaries are more quickly covered. Having walked down the
line the customer is better satisfied that the whole selection is
placed at his disposal.
"There is no secret about it. Nothing held back. No mysterious pile of
garments on a table that he cannot see.
"Note the tendency of the customer to investigate a pile of
coats--lifting up the corners and looking at the patterns.
"A coat in plain view, taken off the hanger, is more obviously a
thoughtful selection of a garment definitely suited for him and he is
the more ready to make it his own.
"The important thing in closing a sale is to narrow down the choice as
soon as you can to one or two strong possibilities, flanked by a bad
one--that is, a style or a pattern that you know the customer doesn't
want.
"When this point is reached it is well to move the customer away from
the rest of the stock, say to some distant corner where he can stand
on a rug and look in the mirror--
"Where his whole attention can be given to one suit, or at most a
choice between two.
"A sale must be opened easily. The customer should never be made to
feel that he is being restricted in his selection. But the moment you
can form an idea of what he wants you can probably think of just the
thing for him.
"If you handle him right he accepts your knowledge of the assortment,
instead of demanding a complete canvass of the stock.
"It is then you may know that you have established his confidence.
"In a comparatively short time you can narrow him down to a choice
where by a tactful show of firmness you can help him decide.
"In the handling of almost every sale there is a point beyond which
the customer begins to flounder and show indecision.
"The weak salesman leads him on and on with no stopping point--no
place to close--and the prospective sale fades to a 'just looking
today' excuse.
"This is a universal fault among retail clerks.
"The test of salesmanship is in closing a sale.
"Be a closer!
"Never guy a customer or 'kid him along' for the amusement of a
by-stander or a fellow clerk. This is a common practice in some
clothing stores. The offender is usually a self-satisfied clerk who
has had just enough success as a salesman to make him egotistical.
"He thinks he is a regular dare-devil and that by making sport of his
customer he may win a reputation as the village cut-up. His favorite
victim is some half-witted fellow--tho' a customer who is partly deaf
may do and he is always ready for a yokel or a foreigner.
"There is no doubt," said Sam Lambert, "that the medal for the longest
ears and the loudest bray in the clothing business belongs to this
Smart Aleck type of clerk known as a 'kidder'.
"To say nothing of the respect he owes the customer, it is astonishing
how he can presume to work his cheap little side-play on any human
being, when even a dog is sensitive to ridicule and knows when he is
being laughed at."