GETTING NEW BUSINESS
The next day, I wrote to Hersom, the salesman for Bates & Hotchkin, and
asked him to give me the names of one or two good firms from whom to buy
toys. I had just mailed the letter when he came into the store.
He was a nice fellow, was Hersom, and I had found that, whenever I left
anything to him, he gave me a square deal. Indeed, he had got so that he
was almost one of the family when he got inside the place. He gave me
the names of two New York concerns, the manager of one of which he said
he knew personally, and to him he gave me a letter of introduction.
I decided that Betty and I would go to New York the next week and pick
out a stock of toys. We would plunge on a hundred dollars'
worth--perhaps a little more--and see what happened.
After I had found out a little about selling the Cincinnati pencil
sharpener, with the aid of the selling manual which the company had
given me, I had passed it on to Larsen, and he had studied it for a week
or two, and then, one Thursday afternoon, he had gone calling on the
business men of the town, other than the store-keepers. He sold only one
sharpener the first afternoon, but he had a request for a pocketknife,
which we delivered the next day. The next Thursday he went out again. To
my surprise he didn't sell a single pencil sharpener, but he came back
with an order for a Middle's razor and a stick of shaving soap, and also
brought in eighteen safety razor blades to be sharpened, and two of the
regular kind of razors to be honed!
Of course we did not sell soap and I asked Larsen why he had taken an
order for it. His reply was:
"Look here, Boss, let's do it. He wanted it, and it'll please him. He
then give us more trade."
"But what about the razor blades? We can't sharpen those here."
"Up to Bolton is a drug store with a machine for sharpening 'em. It's
only eleven miles away. I go there and fix up for them to do it for us.
We can get lots of business for it."
Well, I let him do it, and we put a little notice in our window that
safety razor blades would be sharpened, and razors honed, in forty-eight
hours. We made only ten cents on a dozen blades, but, as Larsen said,
and I believed he was right, we were obliging the customers; and even if
we didn't make anything out of it it would pay us on account of the
good-will we would build up.
Larsen had shocked me very much the same day by saying that he thought
we ought to stock shaving soap and talcum powder, and bay rum, and such
stuff. I had told him I couldn't stand for a thing like that--we'd have
Traglio the druggist down on us.
"Traglio?" replied Larsen. "Say, Boss, you never been mad at him for
selling razors? Nor for selling mirrors?"
"Oh, well, we don't sell shaving mirrors."
"Hum. I know we don't, but we oughter. What about him selling shaving
brushes? That's a line we got. I think we oughter please customers and
not bother about old Traglio."
Finally I had allowed him to buy twenty-five dollars' worth of shaving
sundries--in fact, I had told him to look after that stock himself.
Well, since then, old Larsen had looked upon his little stock of shaving
accessories as if it were an orphan which he had adopted. I thought he
spent too much time in pushing the sale of shaving sticks, and bay rum,
and witch hazel, but his twenty-five dollars' worth of stock rose to
over sixty dollars and we built up quite a nice little sale for it.
Strange to say, very little of it was sold in the store; for every
Thursday Larsen visited his "trade," as he called it. He went around to
his different people once a month. He had about sixty people he called
on, all told--an average of fifteen each Thursday afternoon. In three
months he had brought to us over twenty charge accounts, and charge
accounts with the best people in town, too, through calling on the
husband at his place of business, and getting the wife to visit our
store.
He would come back with all kinds of strange requests and orders. Once
he brought a request that we send a man to repair a broken window sash.
We hadn't any one who could do that, so I telephoned to Peter Bender to
go down there and repair it and charge it to me. Peter seemed quite
tickled to think that I had got him some business. I told Peter that
they were charge customers of ours, and that, as they never paid cash,
I'd pay him and collect it on my regular bill, which satisfied Peter
very well, because he never kept books.
He went down and did the job and turned me in a bill of $2.25. I paid it
and charged it to Mr. Sturtevant at the same price. I made nothing out
of it, but I surely did please that customer, for Mrs. Sturtevant
dropped into the store to make some little purchase and told me about
it. She remarked she didn't know we had a carpenter department. I told
her I hadn't, but, as she had wanted the job done, I had telephoned
Bender to go and do it and charge it up to me.
"Bender charged me $2.25," I said, "and of course I charged you only
just that amount, for I don't want to make any profit on little jobs
like that. It is merely an accommodation to my customers."
"I haven't bought much from your store before," she said.
"That's my misfortune," I returned with a laugh.
"You merely did that so as to put me in the position of having to deal
with you, is that it?"
"Not at all. But your husband asked Mr. Larsen, when he called on him,
if he could see to it for him, and we were only too glad to do so.
Naturally, we are anxious for your patronage. You know, Mrs. Sturtevant,
that's what we are in business for."
She seemed satisfied with that explanation. As she was leaving the
store, she remarked:
"Mr. Black, if either of the maids or the chauffeur come here for goods,
please don't deliver anything unless they have a written order. I have
decided to stop trading with Mr. Stigler, because I think his bills are
too high. Do you think Mr. Stigler is a fair man?" still with her hand
on the doorknob.
Fancy asking me that question! As though I could possibly do justice to
my feelings about Stigler in the presence of a lady. I was about to
say, in the politest manner possible, that I thought him the dirtiest,
meanest hound in the town, when I caught Larsen shaking his head, with a
warning look in his eye, and then I realized the folly of what I had
been about to do.
"I think Mr. Stigler is a pretty good man, so far as I know," I said,
"but, of course, we don't see much of each other."
"I understand you fight each other a lot?" she asked.
"Oh, no, not at all."
"Mr. Stigler seemed quite provoked about you. I was telling my husband
about it."
"What did he say?" I asked with a smile.
"He said that, when a man disparaged his competitor, he preferred to
trade with the competitor!"
With that she left the store. I think she wanted to convey to me,
without directly telling me so, that that was partly the reason she had
decided not to trade with Stigler any more! And to think of the fool I
was about to make of myself! When you come to think of it, it _is_ bad
business to speak ill of your competitor. Fortunately, I learned that
lesson without having to pay for it.
Betty and I went to New York on a Sunday, slept there Sunday night, and
the first thing Monday morning, at Betty's suggestion, we went up to the
office of _Hardware Times_. There we found Mr. Sirle. He was a wonder,
that man. He knew my name right off, for he came right up and shook
hands with me, saying: "Is this Mrs. Black?" whereupon I introduced him
to Betty. Some pleasantries followed, and he led us into his office.
"Well," said Mr. Sirle, "are you in New York on business, or is this
just a pleasure trip?"
"It's supposed to be a business trip," I replied.
"I see," he returned, "a business trip with a little pleasure on the
side."
"Yes," said I, "in spite of having brought the wife with me."
"Shall I throw him out of the window?" said Mr. Sirle, turning to Betty.
"Not this time," she said, "I think your office is too high up."
I told Mr. Sirle the object of the trip, and asked him if he could
recommend the house to which Hersom had given me a letter of
introduction, and he said yes, it was a good house to do business with.
"Are you going down there right away?" he asked.
I told him yes, whereupon he picked up the 'phone, gave a number, and
asked, "Is this Plunkett?"
Plunkett, it seemed was the manager of Fiske & Co., the toy firm to
which I was going. Mr. Sirle seemed to know everybody. It must be fine
to be known and liked by everybody as he was.
"Say, Plunkett," he said over the 'phone, "This is Sirle. There's a
bully good friend of mine, Mr. Black, going over to see your line of
Christmas toys. He doesn't know the first thing about toys, but he's all
right. I want you to do the best you can for him. . . . All right, I'll
see if Mr. Black can be there about half-past two. . . ."
I nodded assent, and the appointment was made.
Well, Mr. Sirle wouldn't hear of us doing anything until we had lunch
with him, so he took Betty and me out to one of the nicest little
lunches I ever had. Betty quite fell in love with him, especially when
she heard the way he spoke about his little boy. She said to me, coming
home on the train: "A man must be all right who loves children as he
does his boy."
Well, we went to the toy house, and we bought a selection. We spent
$160, as a matter of fact, but I was certain that we got an excellent
assortment. We bought a lot of mechanical toys and a number of games.
Mr. Sirle advised us to add air rifles, structural outfits, water
pistols, and a few things of that nature which the regular jobbing
houses carry, to make a big showing. He also advised me to make a good
display in the window and have one counter exclusively for toys.
"Fix a train in the window, and let one of your boys keep it wound up,"
he added. "The little engine running around and round on the rails will
attract a lot of interest. Nothing helps a window display so much as
something moving in it."
In the evening we went to the theater and left New York early the next
morning, getting back to Farmdale in time for me to put in a couple of
hours at the store. I sent off a little order to Bates & Hotchkin for
the extra toys which Mr. Sirle had advised me to buy.
Mr. Sirle sold me a book on show-card writing which he said would give
me some good ideas also on advertising generally.
I felt a bit worried on seeing four great cases delivered to Stigler's
5- and 10-cent store, especially when I found that they were Christmas
novelties and cheap toys. All the stuff I had bought was of the better
quality. I hoped we wouldn't get stung with the venture, for it looked
as if the toy business was going to be overdone in the town. The
department store was already advertising that they'd have a children's
fairyland for the whole of December. Traglio was running a lot of games,
jigsaw puzzles and things of that kind. Funny thing, the year before the
department store had been about the only one that did anything in toys,
and they hadn't done very much. Now this year there were seven of us
pushing toys and it looked as if some one was going to get left.
One day, Miriam Rooney, one of Mrs. Sturtevant's maids, came into the
store and said she wanted to get some kitchen goods for her mistress. I
asked her for a written order for the goods, in accordance with
instructions from Mrs. Sturtevant, and she drew out a little book,
printed especially for the purpose, in which the blanks were numbered.
She slipped in a sheet of carbon for the copy, and was about to fill out
the order, when she said, with a peculiar look on her face:
"I--I suppose you'll charge it up the same way as Mr. Stigler used to?"
The moment she said it, I felt there was something wrong. I suppose I
was prejudiced against that man, and every time I heard his name I saw
red. Stigler had been trying in every way he could to hurt me. He was
all the time cutting prices, and I had lost quite a lot of business
because of my refusal to reduce my prices when customers came and told
me they could buy cheaper at Stigler's. I used to do so at first, until
Old Barlow advised me not to.
"Don't you think it is quite possible," he had said, "that your friend
Stigler is sending some one into your store to see how much they can
beat you down?"
I asked what good that would do him.
"Suppose a woman came in for a fifty-cent article and, by telling you
she could get it from Stigler for forty cents, you were induced to let
down the price, and not only sell it to her for that price, but make
that the regular price on the article?"
Well, I had never done that, although I had occasionally let down the
price on some individual article, but since then I had adopted the
strictly one-price policy.
When Miriam Rooney asked me if I would charge it up the same way as
Stigler, I was on my guard at once. "I don't know what Stigler does at
all," I said, with a smile.
"Well," said Miriam hesitatingly, "you see, Mr. Black, we use a lot of
things up to the big house"--Mrs. Sturtevant was the wife of a very
wealthy manufacturer in the neighborhood and kept up a large
establishment--"and you might want to make it worth our while for us to
buy from you. Mrs. Sturtevant said she'd as soon we'd buy from you as
anywhere else."
"In other words, you want a rake-off--is that it?"
"Well," she said, evidently not liking the brutally frank way I put it,
"it ought to be worth something to you to get all the business of the
big house, hadn't it?"
"No," I said, desiring to get rid of the subject in the easiest way, "I
can't afford to do so at the price I sell my goods, and there would be
no benefit to me in doing business without a profit, would there?"
"Oh, you're soft," she said. "It needn't cost you anything."
I knew well enough what she meant. "But that would be making Mrs.
Sturtevant pay more for the goods than they are worth."
"What d' you care, so long as she pays it?"
"I want Mrs. Sturtevant's business, young woman, but I'm hanged if I'm
going to do any grafting to get it!"
"Keep your old things, then! If you're a fool, Stigler isn't!" And with
that she bounced out of the store.
Larsen wanted to telephone Mrs. Sturtevant and tell her all about it,
but I said we'd never had much business from her and I'd hate, just
before Christmas, to cause a girl to lose her job. "Besides," I said,
"she'd deny it, of course."
I told Betty about it when I got home. All she did was to come over and
give me a kiss and say, "I'm glad, boy dear, you are strong enough to do
business honestly."
A few days later, Mrs. Sturtevant came into the store and bought quite a
number of things. When she was through, she said to me:
"Didn't one of my maids come in here yesterday?"
"Yes, Mrs. Sturtevant."
"Why didn't she buy?"
"I couldn't satisfy her," I said with a smile.
"How do you mean, you couldn't satisfy her?" persisted Mrs. Sturtevant.
"Why, we--we couldn't agree on prices!"
"You are a very foolish young man!" I looked at her blankly--I didn't
know what she meant. "If you hadn't a mother to look after you, I don't
know what you would do!"
"What do you--I don't quite follow you," I smiled.
"I'll tell you, Mr. Black. Your mother and I, of course, know each
other, and she paid me a call a few days ago; and, while talking, she
mentioned that you refused to sell me some goods because you would have
to add a premium to the price."--Betty must have told mother!--"I have
suspected that I have been paying too much for my goods, and, when your
mother told me that, I was certain of it. Besides, I suspected something
when Miriam said she couldn't find the things we wanted here, and she
had to go to Stigler's, when I asked her why she didn't buy them of
you."
"Don't worry. I haven't dismissed the girl; but I have given her a good
talking to."
If you knew Mrs. Sturtevant, you would know that she could give anybody
a good talking-to. "But I do know I have paid prices that were too
high," she continued, "because I asked a friend to go into Mr. Stigler's
store and buy some things, and I checked those with the prices which had
been charged me."
"And they were--?"
"Yes, about fifteen per cent. more."
"Hum!"
"Yes, exactly. I said something more vigorous than that, though, for
your competitor first of all added ten per cent. for the maid and then
apparently another five per cent. for himself! I have been over there
and told him that I have instructed my help never to buy anything from
him again, and that, if they do, I shall positively refuse to pay for
it."
I wondered if other retail merchants had just these same little problems
to solve that I had. I wondered if, in a case like this one, they would
have ever thought of suggesting to their customers that they get some
friends to buy an article or two occasionally, and compare the prices
with those they were charged. . . . I knew the episode wouldn't make
Stigler love me any more, for the Sturtevant business amounted to quite
a lot. That one order that Miriam Rooney had bought of Stigler had been
eighteen dollars' worth.