AN UNEXPECTED VISITOR
My sales for the next two weeks fell to an average of $328.00--but,
thank goodness, less than $50.00 of the whole were charge accounts!
The plan of making people state how much credit they wanted seemed to be
working out well. The deadbeats flew up in the air and said they
wouldn't do business with any one that wanted their pedigree before
allowing them to buy goods, but the worthwhile ones saw the
reasonableness of the request and fell in line with it.
I believed that, while my sales were down 25 per cent., I would be
better off in the end, for what I had left I believed was real business.
That is, I would be better off if I could only stick it out.
Soon after the first of the month I paid off all my creditors except
Bates & Hotchkin, the Boston jobbing house with which I did the bulk of
my business. I wrote them a letter saying that I had overbought, and
told them that, as they were the largest creditor, I had paid the others
and would send them a check as soon as I could. They had always been so
decent I didn't expect any trouble at all, and what was my surprise the
next day to have a Mr. Peck call on me and tell me that he was the
credit man for Bates & Hotchkin!
"Glad to see you," I said, although mentally I was not at all glad to
see him. I had a feeling as if dicky birds were walking up and down my
spine. "What can I do for you?"
For reply he handed me a statement of their account, the amount of which
was $1,079.00.
"Oh," said I, "I wrote you about this yesterday."
"I know," said Peck calmly. "I'm the answer to your letter. I have come
for a check."
"But I told you," I replied, rather irritably, "that I couldn't give it
to you just now, and that you would have to wait a little!"
"Mr. Black," he returned, "will you tell me if there is any reason why
we should wait for our money when you pay every one else?" His voice
retained its even tone.
"Yes, I will," I replied, getting hot, "because you are getting the bulk
of my business, and, as I am doing as much as I can for you, you have
got to do as much as you can for me!"
"Suppose I should tell you, Mr. Black," he said, "that we gave you
credit, in the first place, merely because Mr. Barlow spoke so well of
you. We certainly didn't give it to you on the reputation of the store
you bought."
I winced at this.
"Remember," he continued, "that Simpson deceived us the same as he did
everybody else, so that the business, as such, doesn't justify any
credit, does it?"
I turned around sharply, and said:
"I am not asking you to give credit to the business. I am asking you to
give credit to me, and--"
"And all you can show us, by way of credit rating, is the fact that
your old employer speaks well of you!"
"Well," I returned, thoroughly vexed, "the long and short of it is that
I can't pay you just now, and you have just got to wait for your money!
But let me tell you this--it's the last red penny of my money you'll
ever get!"
Still Mr. Peck replied with his calm demeanor:
"Under those circumstances, Mr. Black, can you give me any reason why we
should wait for our money? If you were in my place, wouldn't you be
inclined to force collection?"
Before I could reply, he continued:
"I have come down here, Mr. Black, to try to help you, and perhaps I
can, but you have got to realize first of all that you haven't treated
us fairly."
I was about to protest against this, when he put up his hand and said:
"Wait a minute, Mr. Black. You can't see it in your present frame of
mind, and you probably think we are very hard to come down on you like
this, when you have been in business only such a short time. That is the
reason we take this stand. Had you been in business for some years we
should have known you inside and out, and would have known just what to
do. Now, if your credit is really good in the town, and you have
anything back of you, you can borrow the money and give me my check
before I leave town."
"Great guns, man," I cried, "to whom do you think I can go to borrow
that amount!"
"Why," said he, "haven't you got a bank account here?"
"Yes," said I, "but they won't lend me any money!"
Mr. Peck's face seemed suddenly to harden, and, putting his fingers on
the desk, he said:
"Mr. Black, we are simply wasting time. What do you think a bank's for?
A bank isn't a mere safe deposit for money! It's a bank's business to
lend money! Better go and see your bank now. I'll be back in two hours!"
Without another word he turned and left the store.
At that I completely lost my temper.
"I'll be damned if I will!" I cried to Larsen, who was standing by.
"Those people can wait for their money, and you can just bet that I'm
through doing business with them! They're not the only jobbers in the
world. Dirty, low-down trick, I call it!"
I was much surprised when Larsen replied:
"You paid all other fellers, yes? You not pay him. You get mad with your
debtors when they don't pay you? Doesn't the same sauce suit all birds?"
(Larsen got his maxim a bit twisted, but I knew what he meant, all
right.) "If I might suggest, I would go down to bank and talk with them.
You won't be worse off, perhaps better."
The more I saw of Larsen the more respect I had for his judgment, and I
believed I had done quite right when at the beginning of the month I had
frankly talked over my position with him. We had planned to talk over a
scheme of profit-sharing with the help, but there had been so many
things happening that we had had to defer it for a time.
Well, I went and had a talk with Blickens, the president of the bank. He
shook hands very cordially with me, but, when I told him what my errand
was, the jovial manner seemed to fall away from him, and he became
reserved and grave. Mighty suspicious, I thought.
"It's no disgrace to want to borrow money, Mr. Black," said he, "if you
have your business in such shape that it will justify a loan."
I thought I read the suspicion in his voice that I was running the
business to the wall. However, I told him fully just how things stood,
showed my sales slips, amount of stock on hand, amounts owing, and all
that, which I had brought with me at Larsen's suggestion. He looked over
the figures very carefully. Then he said:
"How much do you want?"
"Fifteen hundred dollars," I replied, rather timidly.
"You owe those jobbers only $1,079.00 that is actually overdue," he
replied, "and that's really the only pressing debt you have. Let's
see--you have now $328.00 balance to your credit in the bank. A thousand
dollars is all you need. Now, I'll let you have that much. You can then
pay off those jobbers, and still have a balance of about $250.00 on your
account. You should not let it get below that figure. Your stock is far
too heavy for your turn-over, and I think the best thing you can do is
to find some way of turning your surplus stock into cash, and you must
absolutely cease giving wild credit."
"I've done that already," I said, and told him in detail what I had
done.
"That's excellent," he replied, "and I'm glad to know that you have put
that into force. You must, however, reduce your stock. Much better for
you to lose a little business for the next few months, and get yourself
on a sound financial basis, than to be skating, as you are, on thin
ice."
He looked over my list of accounts that were owing to me, and, putting a
mark against a number of them, he said:
"Those people are tricksters. You'll only waste your time trying to get
anything from them."
Great Scott! And I had thought, when I was working for Barlow, that I
could run his business as well as he could! Mr. Barlow, I then and there
went on record as saying that you were a bigger man than I was, and that
I took my hat off to you! I wonder if all employees have the same
all-fired conceit in regard to their abilities that I had had? If they
have, I advise them to try running a store for a little while! It isn't
enough just to be a business man--you have got to be an expert on
mechanics, a diplomat, a financier, a master salesman, an accountant, a
lawyer, an advertising man--whew! if I had known of the difficulties of
running a store I think I would have hesitated a long while before
assuming the burden!
Well, the loan was fixed up and I went back to the store, and in a
little while Mr. Peck came back. I gave him his check, saying rather
coldly:
"That cleans the account up to date, Mr. Peck."
"Yes," he responded. "And now your credit is as good with us as it was
before."
I still looked unresponsive, and then he took me by the arm, and brought
me to the rear of the store.
"Listen, young man," he said--his manner was very kindly. "If you ever
really need money, you will find we will be quite willing to help you in
reason; but you really didn't need it this time, you know, and I wanted
to give you a lesson in thrift and financing, and to impress it
seriously on your mind.
"Always make a point of discounting your bills, even if you have to
borrow money from the bank to do it. Let me illustrate what this will
save you. Suppose that you can take a two per cent. discount by paying a
bill in ten days. Now suppose you allow the bill to run to thirty days.
You lose that two per cent. for an accommodation of twenty days. That is
at the rate of thirty-six per cent. a year. You can borrow money from
the bank at the rate of six per cent. a year, and make so much clear
saving. You can figure it out this way, if you like. Your purchases are,
let us suppose, about $12,000.00 a year, or $1,000.00 a month. I know
they are more than that, but those figures will serve to illustrate my
point. On your monthly purchase of $1,000.00 you lose two per cent., or
$20.00, by taking a full month instead of paying it in ten days. If you
borrow that $1,000.00 from the bank for the twenty days necessary it
costs you only $3.33, so that you make $16.67 a month, which amounts
to"--he figured it out--"to $200.00 a year!"
That was surely a new light on finance to me!
"Now," he went on, "it seems to me that your business should be put in
such shape that you can take your discounts without even the necessity
of borrowing, and you can save the interest. Here you are with sales of
about $25,000.00 a year and a stock costing you around $8,000.00 or
$9,000.00. Deducting the gross profit from your sales, which amounts to
about thirty-three and one-third per cent., it leaves $16,667.00, which
means that you are turning over your stock only about twice a year. You
should work this up to three and one-half times a year."
This question of turn-over seemed to me to be a most important one,
judging from the way every one I talked with hammered on it. I realized
then that Mr. Peck had done me a good turn, and I felt grateful.
"Do you think it is possible, Mr. Peck," I said, "for me to turn my
stock over three and one-half times a year?"
"Why, yes," he said. "I know many hardware stores that turn their stock
over more times than that. Reduce your stock, eliminate the slow-selling
lines, buy carefully for the next few months, and you will have no
difficulty in taking your discounts. Besides the saving you will make,
you will be building up a reputation as a trustworthy man--and that's a
decidedly helpful thing for a retail merchant."
As he turned to leave I held out my hand and said, with the best grace I
could:
"I reckon I made a bit of a fool of myself, Mr. Peck. I want to thank
you for your help to me."
His handclasp as he said good-by was a good, hearty one, and I felt I
had a real friend in that credit manager.