DOMINATING IN SERVICE
The sun had begun to shine once more. I had a feeling as if a little
dicky-bird were singing in my heart. There was blue again in the sky and
the wind didn't always come from the East. I had received a night letter
from Betty. She was leaving Birmingham the next week and was going with
the aunt to a place she had in Florida to stay there a month, and then
she was coming right home! I don't think I had realized how much I
missed my dear one until I found she was coming home and was feeling
herself again. I had just finished reading the telegram when the Mater
came downstairs, and in my joy I caught her around the waist and swung
her round twice until her feet left the floor.
"Mercy on us!" she exclaimed, as I set her on a chair gasping, "what has
got into the boy?"
"Just happiness, that's all! Betty is coming home in a month."
"Gracious," said Mater, with a twinkle in her eye, "I really thought it
was something important!"
When I got down to the store who did I see but Larsen, still weak and
very pale, but dear old Larsen back again. I suppose I'm sentimental,
but I had grown to like the old chap, and it sure had been mighty hard
while he was away.
The doctor had said he could come down for two or three hours each day
for a few weeks, but must not put in his full time yet.
Of course I had paid him his salary all the time he was away, and would
continue to do so, for I'd come to realize that a boss owes it to his
employees to look after them if they are in hard luck, and incidentally
it is good business to keep one's employees happy. I believe that happy,
cheerful employees keep the cash register ringing, "Welcome, little
stranger" chimes.
Just as I got in, old Peter Bender, the carpenter, came in the store. He
came very seldom, for, since I had stopped his credit, he could only
come when he was able to pay cash. Now, before I tell you what happened,
I must remind you of what had taken place some few months before when I
pulled off my stunt of buying mail-order catalogs. Well, for a time it
had looked as if the stunt had done good to every merchant in the town;
but it wasn't very long before mail-order catalogs were in town again as
thick as ever.
I had had an occasional "ad" in our local paper saying, "Buy it in town
if the price is right, but don't pay more than you can buy it for
elsewhere. If it is anything in hardware, I will guarantee to supply it
at the same price as the mail-order houses, and you can see what you are
getting before you buy it."
I don't think the "ad" had done us a great deal of good generally, but
there were a few people, who used to buy from the mail-order houses, who
had begun to buy from me.
Now, I'll tell you what happened between Peter and Larsen.
"I want an ax like this 'ere one," Peter said, displaying the picture of
an ax in a mail-order catalog which he had with him. "How much is it?"
"Seventy-five cents," said Larsen.
"A-ha!" snarled Peter, "I'll give yer sixty-three cents for it. Yer say
yer can sell it as cheap as a mail-order house--and that's their price!"
He put his finger on the catalog to verify his statement.
"All right," said Larsen. Whereupon Bender belligerently planted
sixty-three cents on the counter.
"Hold hard," continued Larsen. "Gimme three cents for the money order, a
cent for yer letter paper, and two cents for the stamp. That's another
six cents. That's fair, you know--you must pay us what it would have
cost yer."
Peter looked at me. "Guess you're right," he said, and threw the other
six cents on the counter.
"Now," said Larsen, as he picked up the money, "you come back in three
weeks. You can then have the ax."
"What do yer mean?" asked old Peter, with astonishment.
"You sent Chicago, that's how long you wait to get it."
"Well, I want it _now_."
"Yep, but not from a mail-order house," said Larsen.
"What will I have to pay to get it at once?"
"Six cents more--that's seventy-five cents. Otherwise yer can't have it
fer three weeks. But yer can look at it now, if yer want ter, so yer'll
see what yer will get!"
"Aw, cut out the funny stuff!" said Peter, putting his hand in his
pocket, from which he produced another six cents. "It's worth it to get
it right away."
Larsen wrapped up the ax and passed it over to him, and, to my surprise,
old Bender said: "I guess you're about right on this thing, after all.
You know I never sized it up like that 'til you pointed it out to me.
Here," and he tossed the catalog on the counter, "I guess I won't need
this no more."
Larsen had handled several customers in the past in a similar way to
this, and, in nearly every case, had won a friend for us and the
mail-order houses had lost a customer.
You remember I had decided that I would dominate in _service_? Well, I
got hold of Fellows of the Flaxon Advertising Company, and told him what
I wanted and that I'd a hunch that if I had a little leaflet or
something of that kind, telling people I wanted to give them service,
and put the leaflet in all the packages that left the store, it would
help out a lot. I gave him a few ideas I had on it and asked him to work
up a little folder. When I received the layout of it I was tickled with
it. It was so good that I ordered some at once. The beauty of the folder
was that it didn't matter what you were selling or who you were selling
to, it applied, because it was general, not specific.
Fellows told me I ought to copyright the idea and then sell it to other
stores in other towns. I told him he could do that--I was in the
hardware business--not the advertising business.
I give this little folder here, because I thought it was very good.
It had four pages and the size of it was about 4 à 7½ inches.
WE ARE IN BUSINESS
TO SELL GOODS
THAT WON'T COME BACK
TO FRIEND-CUSTOMERS
WHO WILL
This one-minute sales talk tells how
we try to do it
THE BLACK HARDWARE STORE
32 Hill Street, Farmdale
A well-known business man once said that salesmanship
"is selling goods, that won't come back, to
customers--who will."
It requires more than _sales_manship to do this--it
also requires _buy_manship and _service_.
We realize this. We know that every purchase you make
in our store must have _service_ with it.
Service--good service--is supplying your needs in the
best, quickest, and most economical way.
So we start by buying right. When a clever salesman
offers us some job goods at a long-profit price, we
just can't hear him, but, when he offers us goods that
will win us satisfied friend-customers, we can easily
hear his faintest whisper.
We don't blindly take his word for it, either; for,
while we have a lot to learn, we know how to judge
values, because we know our business--we are practical.
But _service_ does not stop here. Our goods must be
kept in perfect condition. Our goods must never get
into a "frowsty," shop-damaged state.
Careful buying helps us to get goods that command a
ready sale. They are fitted exactly to our
friend-customers' needs.
This is why we have earned the confidence and good-will
of so many people. They know they get what they
need--and not just what a salesman wants to get rid of.
We sometimes refuse to sell to a customer because we
know that he needs something different from what we
have.
Sounds funny, doesn't it, to turn money away? But it
pays us, because people know we consider their needs
first--our welfare automatically follows.
Most stores have policies. One of ours is: "No goods
must be sold, unless they will be of real service to
the customer."
Another fixed policy is: "We must show our
friend-customers by our conduct that we are glad to
serve them."
Here's a confession. We actually make a profit on
everything we sell. Doesn't matter what you buy, we
make something on the deal.
We think it better to do this than to "cut" the price
on some goods and add it on to others. Don't you?
Just one other thing. There's no such word as "trouble"
in our dictionary. We are glad to go out of our way to
supply your unusual needs.
This little sales talk is neatly printed for you to
read; we mean every word of it.
We would like to tell it to you in person if we could--
Of course! So we can. We can prove it all to you by
_deeds_!
Call and look at our goods; then check up our service
by this sales talk.
At the bottom of the fourth page appeared, "Yours for hardware service,
Dawson Black," reproduced in my own handwriting.
"Get the idea?" said Fellows. "If you're a grocer, you could write,
'Yours for grocery service, John Brown,' or if a retail merchant wanted
to specialize on one particular thing he could say, 'Yours for carpet
cleaning service,' or anything he liked."
The whole thing was so worded as to fit in with any kind of goods one
might be selling.
Fellows said he would look after the printing of the circulars and
supply them to me at a very low price, four dollars a thousand; and he
said he wouldn't charge me anything at all for working up the idea,
because he was going to try to sell some of the folders to other stores
in other towns. I didn't mind what he did with it, for it let me out
very cheaply. He said he would let me have some in a week, so I ordered
two thousand to begin with. I was going to put one in each package, and
mail one to every one of our charge customers, besides sending them to a
select list of "prospects."