A POOR SALESMAN
The next day I called on a number of people in the town that I knew and
some that I didn't know, with the Cincinnati pencil sharpener.
I had delivered the eighteen, that Downs sold, when they arrived, and
since then I had sold only one other. I had begun to wonder whether I
had done right in buying that eighteen extra, for the Cincinnati man
evidently had sold pretty well all the people in town who wanted pencil
sharpeners--or so it seemed to me.
I plugged hard all day,--and sold one sharpener! I started off soon
after nine o'clock and made my first call on Jerry Mills, who was a
certified public accountant. We knew each other very well, so I got
right down to business when I went into his office, and said:
"Jerry, I want to sell you a pencil sharpener. It's a dandy, and I know
you'll like it," and then I brought out the Cincinnati.
"Glad to see you, old man," replied Jerry, "but I've already got a
pencil sharpener. I bought it in Chicago, when I was there some time
ago. Very similar to yours, isn't it? Well, how's business?" and we then
drifted into general talk.
I spent about half an hour with him; but, of course, as he already had a
pencil sharpener, I couldn't sell him another one.
My next call was on Dunn, who ran a clothing store. I knew Dunn by
sight, but I didn't think he knew me. I walked up the three flights and
back to the rear of the building, and stopped in front of the railing of
his office. I waited for two or three minutes, and then a boy came in
and asked me what I wanted.
"I want to see Mr. Dunn," I said.
"What about?" asked the youngster, rather impudently.
"You tell him I'm--" and then I hesitated, and I said to myself that I
wouldn't tell him I was Dawson Black. "Tell him that a salesman from
Dawson Black wants to see him."
A minute or two later the boy returned. "Mr. Dunn says whatdeyuh want
ter see him for?"
"Tell him I want to show him a new pencil sharpener that we have just
got the agency for." I was a little bit exasperated.
The young demon grinned and said, "A'right," in a funny manner, marched
into the private office and returned, it seemed without pausing, saying:
"Nuttin' doin'."
I hesitated as to what to do, when he added:
"'Tain't no use. Boss got a grouch on this mornin'."
I remembered the rude reception I had given the Cincinnati pencil
sharpener man when he called on me, and the way he had come back at me,
and I said to myself that, if I could only see Dunn then I'd give him
the same kind of medicine. While I stood there wondering what to do, my
wish was gratified, for Dunn's door flew open, and out he came
hurriedly. He was short, stout, red-faced man, almost bald, and has
bristling red whiskers.
"Oh, Mr. Dunn!" I called.
He turned around and snapped:
"What do you want?"
"I am from Dawson Black's--"
"Oh, I know all about that. We don't want any pencil sharpeners. Didn't
the boy tell you?"
"Yes, but--"
"Then what the devil are you waiting for?"
I gulped and replied, "Nothing." He turned and walked away.
Let me confess it. I was afraid of him! I hate to admit it, but I was. I
went down the stairs, feeling like a naughty boy who had been
spanked--and yet he was altogether in the wrong! That little experience
gave me a lot of sympathy for traveling salesmen, and also made me
realize that those salesmen who called on me were bigger men than I was.
And I realized that Dunn was a bigger man than I was, in spite of his
rudeness. I could no more have answered his insolence, the way Downs
answered mine, than I could have flown to the moon.
That reception knocked most of the heart out of me, and I wasn't very
cheerful when I called on Blickens, the president of the bank. I picked
him out because I figured that, at least, he would be civil to me.
When I told him what I had come for, he said:
"We have several of those around here, but--send one around." He put his
hand in his pocket and passed me a dollar bill. I thanked him and
retired, but I knew in my heart that he didn't want one, and that he had
given me the order just to get rid of me, without offending me or
hurting my feelings, because I was a depositor in the bank. I felt like
a panhandler.
And that was the result of my morning's work. It was getting along
toward twelve o'clock, so I went home for lunch.
I made only two calls in the afternoon, both on people I knew. In each
case they said they would be glad to buy one if it would help me, but
really they--dash it all, I didn't want people to buy things of me just
to help me! So I told them I didn't want them to have it, and I'm afraid
I was very bad tempered.
When I got back to the store, Larsen asked:
"Well, Boss, how did you make out?"
"Oh," I replied, "I haven't been very busy. I only sold one. But I
haven't really worked very much. I've been kind of doing some visiting."
And I felt all the time that Larsen knew I was lying to him, for I
certainly did work hard, and I felt more nervously tired that night than
I had been for a long while.
I told Betty about my experiences. "Poor boy! Never mind, boy dear," she
said, "forget it now. Take off your shoes and I'll bring your slippers
for you." She brought me my slippers and my old meerschaum pipe, which
she had filled, and placed it between my teeth, and lit a match for me,
and then sat on the floor beside me. It was fine to have a wife like
Betty to buck me up! She certainly gave me back my self-respect.
Never again would I be rude to the fellow who called on me at my store.
I wish every store owner would try the work I did that day. I think
there'd be more kindliness and courtesy in the relationship between
buyer and salesman. Barlow was a kind-hearted man, but even he wasn't
always courteous when he was busy or didn't want to talk to a salesman.
As I was leaving the house the next morning Betty asked me:
"Boy dear, did you read this little booklet?" It was the booklet which
Downs had left me. I had forgotten all about it. Going down to the
store, I glanced at it, and realized then, that my methods had all been
wrong, and that probably I had been to blame for my failure the day
before.
For instance, it said: "The name of the firm and of yourself are of
secondary importance in selling the Cincinnati pencil sharpener. It is
what it will do that counts. When calling on a prospect, don't say, 'Can
I sell you a pencil sharpener?' but ask him to lend you a pencil and
tell him you will show him how he can keep it pointed easily and make it
last longer." And then it went on to explain how to demonstrate the
device. "In brief," it said, "show the prospect how the sharpener
works--for preference get him to sharpen a pencil for himself; and then,
when he once sees how easily it operates, he is more than half sold.
Then talk about the price."
And I had done just the opposite! I first of all had told where I was
from, then that I wanted to sell them a pencil sharpener, and I hadn't
demonstrated it at all! I realized when I read the book that the trouble
was that they had made up their minds not to buy before I had a chance
of telling them what it was. I decided to try again, following the
suggestions in the book and see if it worked any better.
One good point I learned from the book, which I put on the schedule for
the next Monday's meeting, was that a salesman should always get the
customer to see for himself how a thing works--that, when you get him
to handle it, it helps to make the sale. Thinking of this reminded me of
the time when Betty's kid sister had visited us. I had asked her if she
would like to have a doll, and she had said yes, but she hadn't seemed
particularly keen over it. Then I had pointed one out to her when we
were passing Riley's store--he ran a stationery store, and sold dolls,
school supplies, and toys as well--and she had thought it was a nice
doll, but I had had no difficulty in getting her to come to the office
with me first. But later on, when I took her into Riley's and she had
got a big doll in her arms, I couldn't take it away from her to get it
wrapped up! No, sir-ree, she had just hung tight to her doll, and
nothing could induce her to part with it, and she had carried it away
without having it wrapped.
Now, that was interesting, wasn't it? When I had just spoken to her
about the doll, her interest was only mild. When she had seen it her
interest was a little stronger. But when she actually had got it into
her hands her desire was uncontrollable. I could see how the same idea
would work out in selling goods to customers. If we simply told them
about the goods, there would be only a passive interest. If we pointed
the article out to them in the case, it might be stronger, but still not
strong enough to make a sale. But if we put the article right into the
customer's hands and told him to see for himself how it worked I could
readily see how it was going to make the desire to buy much greater than
anything else could.
I remembered, too, how Weissman, one of our neighbors, had been talking
for a long, long time about buying an automobile, but had never reached
the point of actually paying out the money for it. Well, a friend took
him out in a car one day and showed him how to drive it, and Weissman
came back so keen about having a car that he ordered one the same day,
with instructions to have it shipped rush!
We'll adopt that idea as a rule at our next Monday night's meeting.
A day or two later, I again tried my hand at selling pencil
sharpeners--and I sold five! The fellow that wrote that little book on
how to sell Cincinnati pencil sharpeners had known what he was talking
about, all right.
The first man I struck was Blenkhorn, who ran the meat market. He was
considered the meanest man in town. I had make up my mind to start with
a good, tough customer, because I wanted to give the new plan a thorough
test, and I felt that if I could sell to a tough one I could sell to
anybody. Well, the toughest customer I could think of was Blenkhorn, so
I started on him. You see, I had my courage back.
Well, I went into his store. Blenkhorn nodded to me. "Hello, Black," he
said.
"Hello, Mr. Blenkhorn," I returned. "How many pencils do you use in a
year here?"
"Pencils? I don't know, I'm sure, but I think my people eat 'em. I'm
everlastingly buying 'em."
"Suppose I could tell you a way to make them last about twice as long."
"H'm! If you can tell me how to make these people more careful with
pencils, I'll be mighty glad to know it."
"Well, I'll show you," and here I put my sharpener on the counter. "You
know," I said, "when a man sharpens a pencil what a lot of wood and
lead he cuts away?"
"Cuts away? Why, here they hack 'em all to pieces! But what's that
contraption?"
"I'll show you. Just lend me a pencil." He passed over a pencil that
looked as if the wood at the end had been bitten off, instead of cut
off.
Blenkhorn was watching my actions rather curiously. I put the pencil in
the sharpener, gave it two or three turns, and out it came with the
point nicely rounded and sharpened.
"You notice," I said, "that it didn't cut away any of the lead at all,
only the wood."
"H'm," he returned, and then he walked away and came back with a half a
dozen more pencils. "Let's see it sharpen some more."
"Go ahead, try it yourself, Mr. Blenkhorn."
I held the outfit firmly and he sharpened one after the other.
"H'm," he said again. "How much is that thing?"
"Only a dollar."
"You can buy a lot of pencils for a dollar," he mused.
"That's true," I replied, "but you'll save a lot of dollars by the use
of this." I had got that from the chapter in the booklet headed:
"Answers to objections."
"Send me one of those, Black," said Blenkhorn. "I'll try it."
"Thank you, Mr. Blenkhorn," I said. "By the way, do you want any
butcher's supplies now. I have some mighty good knives."
"No, I have all of those I want. Oh, the missis did tell me to go down
to Stigler's to buy a good short-handled ax for splitting kindling."
"I'll save you the trouble and send it down for you, right away."
"How much are they worth?"
"Dollar and a half."
"The last one I got cost me only a dollar."
"How long did it last?"
"Not long. The blamed head kept coming off."
"Well, I'll sell you one for $1.50, and guarantee the head won't come
off, and if it does I'll replace it for you free of charge."
Without further words, he went to the cash register, took out $2.50 and
handed it to me, saying with a grin:
"You're right after business, aren't you, Black? Good luck to you."
Well, I found that this method worked well, and I sold five sharpeners
during the day--six in fact, for when I got back to the store I found
that they had sold two more, and one of them had been to Blakely, the
lawyer, on whom I had called earlier in the day, and who had said he
might get one later on. Evidently he had changed his mind, and dropped
into the store when he was passing by. In addition to the sale of the
sharpeners, I had sold $11.00 worth of other things. That was going
some, wasn't it?
And to think, if it hadn't been for that little book, I would never have
started the plan!
Well, we all seemed to have the pencil sharpener craze, and I was glad
of it, and determined to push pencil sharpeners all I could, if only as
a kind of thank-you for their putting me onto a new channel of getting
business.
I met Barlow as I was coming home. I told him what I had done, and how I
had got the order for the ax which Stigler would have had. He laughed
heartily at that, and said he was very glad to hear it.
"I think you're going to make a real big man yet, Dawson," he said. "Is
Stigler still hurting you with his mark-down prices?"
"Yes, he is," I confessed. "But I think I've got a plan that's going to
put it all over him."
"What's that?"
"I'm going to start using trading stamps."
"What-at!" he said, in a surprised tone.
"Yes," I continued. "The man was to have come last Thursday; but he had
to leave town Wednesday night, and he wired me that he was coming up
to-morrow, and I'm going to take them up."
Barlow stopped short in the street, swung me around until I was facing
him, and said in a stern tone:
"Young man, do you know what a fool thing you are trying to do?"
"Fool thing nothing!" I returned. "And I don't see how you are able to
judge that." I rather felt that he was butting in where he had no
concern.
"You're right," he said, "it's no concern of mine at all. But for
heaven's sake, lad, think twice before you tangle yourself up with
anything like that."