HOW TO GET ON THE ROAD.
Since starting on the road many have asked me: "How can I get a job on
the road?"
Young men and old men have asked me this--clerks, stock boys,
merchants and students. Even wives have asked me how to find places
for their husbands.
Let's clear the ground of dead timber. Old men of any sort and young
men who haven't fire in their eyes and ginger in their feet need not
apply. The "Old Man," who sits in the head office sizes up the man who
wishes to go out on the road and spend a whole lot of the firm's money
for traveling expenses with a great deal more care than the dean of a
college measures the youth who comes to enter school. The dean thinks:
"Well, maybe we can make something out of this boy, dull as he is.
We'll try." But the business man says: "That fellow is no good. He
can't sell goods. What's the use of wasting money on him and covering
a valuable territory with a dummy?"
On the other hand, the heads of wholesale houses are ever on the watch
for bright young men. This is no stale preachment, but a live fact!
There are hundreds of road positions open in every city in America.
Almost any large firm would put on ten first class men to-morrow, but
they _can't find the men_.
The "stock" is the best training school for the road--the stock boy is
the drummer student. Once in a while an old merchant, tiring of the
routine of the retail business, may get a "commission job"--that is,
he may find a position to travel for some firm, usually a "snide
outfit"--if he will agree to pay his own traveling expenses and accept
for his salary a percentage of his sales shipped. Beware, my friend,
of the "commission job!" Reliable firms seldom care to put out a man
who does not "look good enough" to justify them in at least
guaranteeing him a salary he can live on. They know that if a man
feels he is going to _live_ and not lag behind, he will work better.
The commission salesman is afraid to spend his own money; yet, were he
to have the firm's money to spend, many a man who fails would succeed.
Once in a while a retail clerk may get a place on the road, but the
"Old Man" does not look on the clerk with favor. The clerk has had
things come his way too easy. His customers come to him; the man on
the road must _go after his customers_. It is the stock boy who has
the best show to get on the road.
The stock boy learns his business from the ground up or better, as the
Germans say, "from the house out." If one young man cannot become a
surgeon without going through the dissecting room, then another cannot
become a successful drummer without having worked in stock. The
merchant, who oft-times deals in many lines, wishes to buy his goods
from the man who knows his business; and unless a man knows his
business he would better never start on the road.
But, my dear boy, to merely know your business is not all. You may
know that this razor is worth $12.00 a dozen and that one $13.50; that
this handle is bone and that one celluloid; but that won't get you on
the road. _You must have a good front._ I do not mean by this that you
must have just exactly 990 hairs on each side of the "part" on your
head; that your shoes must be shined, your trousers creased, your
collar clean and your necktie just so. Neatness is a "without-which-
not;" but there must be more--a boy must work hard, be polite, honest,
full of force, bright, quick, frank, good-natured. The "Old Man" may
keep to sweep the floor a lazy, shiftless, stupid, silly, grouchy
"stiff"; but when he wants some one to go on the road he looks for a
live manly man. When you get in stock it is _up to you;_ for eyes are
on you, eyes just as anxious to see your good qualities as you are to
show them, eyes that are trying to see you make good.
[Illustration: "I braced the old man--it wasn't exactly a freeze. But
there was a lot of frost in the air."]
How can I get "in stock?" That's easy. If you are in the city you are
on the spot; if you are in the country, "hyke" for the city! See that
you haven't any cigarette stains on your fingers or tobacco in the
corners of your mouth. Go into the wholesale houses, from door to
door--until you find a job. If you are going to let a few or a hundred
turn-downs dishearten you, you'd better stay at home; _for when you
get on the road, turn-downs are what you must go up against every
day._ If you know some traveling man, or merchant, or manager, or
stock boy, maybe he can get you a "job in stock." But remember one
thing: When you get there, you must depend upon Number One. Your
recommendation is worth nothing to you from that hour on. This is the
time when the good front gets in its work.
The city is a strong current, my boy, in which there are many
whirlpools ready to suck you under; yet if you are a good swimmer you
can splash along here faster than anywhere else. A successful
traveling man once told me how he got on the road.
"I was raised in a little town in Tennessee," said he. "A traveling
man whose home was in my native town took me along with him, one day,
when he made a team trip to Bucksville, an inland country town,
fourteen miles away. That was a great trip for me--fourteen miles, and
staying over night in a hotel!--the first time I had ever done so in
my life. And for the first time I knew how it felt to have a strange
landlord call me "mister." It was on that trip that I caught the fever
for travel, and that trip put me on the road!
"When, the next morning after reaching Bucksville, my drummer friend
had finished business and packed his trunks, he said to me: 'Billie, I
guess you may go and get the team ready.' I answered him, saying, 'The
team _is_ ready and backed up, sir, for the trunks.' In three minutes
the trunks were loaded in and we were off.
"'Billie,' said my friend--I shall never forget it for it was the dawn
of hope for me, as I had never had any idea what I was going to do in
after life!--'I'll tell you, Billie, you would make a good drummer,
suh. When we drove down yesterday you counted how many more horseflies
lit on the bay mare than on the white horse. You reasoned out that the
flies lit on the bay because the fly and the mare were about the same
color and that the fly was not so liable to be seen and killed as if
it had lit on the white. That showed me you notice things and reason
about them. To be a good traveling man you must make a business of
noticing things and thinking about them. Real good hoss sense is a
rare thing. Then, this mo'nin', when I said "Get the team ready," you
said "It is ready, suh," and showed me that you look ahead, see what
ought to be done and do it without being told. Generally any fool can
do what he is told to; but it takes a man of sense to find things to
do, and if he has the grit to do them he will get along. I'm just
going to see if I can't get a place in our house for you, Billie.
You've got the stuff in you to make a successful drummer, suh. Yes,
suh! Hoss sense and grit, suh--hoss sense and grit!'
"Sure enough the next Christmas night--I wasn't then sixteen--I struck
out for the city in company with my older traveling man friend. He had
got me a place in his house. The night I left, my mother said to me:
'Son, I've tried to raise you right. I'll soon find out if I have. I
believe I have and that you will get along.' My father then gave me
the only word of advice he ever gave me in his life: 'Son, be polite,'
said he; 'this will cost you nothing and be worth lots.'
"Well, sir, with those words ringing in my ears: 'Use hoss sense; have
grit;' 'Be polite;' 'Son, I've tried to raise you right,' I struck out
for the city. As I think it over now, the thing that did me the most
good was my father's advice: 'Son, be polite, this will cost you
nothing and be worth lots.' The boy can never hope to be much if he
does not know that he should tip his hat to a lady, give his seat to a
gray-haired man, or carry a bundle for an old woman.
"How strange it was for me that night, to sleep with my friend in a
bed on wheels! How strange, the next morning, to wash in a bowl on
wheels! and to look out of the Pullman windows as I wiped my face! I
was _living_ then! And when I reached the city! Such a bustle I've
never seen since. As I walked up a narrow street from the depot,
I fell on the slippery sidewalk. 'Better get some ashes on your feet'
said my friend. And, indeed, I did need to keep ashes on my feet for a
long time. I had before me a longer and more slippery sidewalk than I
then dreamed of. Every boy has who goes to the city. But, when he gets
his sled to the top, he's in for a long, smooth slide!
"I started in to work for twenty dollars a month--not five dollars a
week! I found there was a whole lot of difference, especially when I
had to pay $4.50 a week for board and forty cents for laundry. I was
too proud to send home for money and too poor to spend it out of my
own purse. Good training this! One winter's day a friend told me there
was skating in the park. I asked a gentleman where the park was. 'Go
three blocks and take the car going south,' said he. I went three
blocks and when the car came along I _followed_ it, for I could not
afford a single nickel for car fare. What a fortune I had when, during
busy season, I could work nights and get fifty cents extra for supper
money! None of this did I spend, as my boarding house wasn't far away.
The only money that I spent in a whole year was one dollar for a
library ticket--the best dollar I ever spent in my life! Good books,
and there are plenty of them free in all cities, are the best things
in the world, anyway, to keep a boy out of devilment. The boy who will
put into his head what he will get out of good books will win out over
the one who gets his clothes full of chalk from billiard cues. One day
the "Old Gentleman" saw me at the noon hour as I was going to the
library with a book under my arm. 'So you read nights, do you,
Billie,' said he. 'Well, you keep it up and you will get ahead of
the boys who don't.'
"Work? I worked like a beaver. I was due at seven in the morning. I
was always there several minutes before seven. One morning the old
gentleman came in real early and found me at work, while a couple of
the other boys were reading the papers and waiting for the seventh
strike, and before most of the stock boys had shown up. At noon I
would wrap bundles, take a blacking pot and mark cases, run the
elevator or do anything to "keep moving." I did not know that an eye
was on me all the time; but there was. At the end of a year the old
gentleman called me into the office and said: 'Billie, you've done
more this year than we have paid you for; here's a check for sixty
dollars, five dollars a month back pay. Your salary will be $25.00 a
month next year. You may also have a week's vacation.
"How big that sixty was! Rockefeller hasn't as much to-day as I had
then. What he has doesn't make him happy; he wants more. I had enough.
Why, I was able to buy a new rig-out. I can see that plaid suit of
clothes to this day! I could afford to go home looking slick, to visit
my mother and father; I could buy a present for my sweetheart, too.
The good Lord somehow very wisely puts 'notions' into a young man's
head about the time he begins to get on in the world, and the best
thing on earth for him when he is away from home is to have some girl
away back where he came from think a whole lot of him and send him a
crocheted four-in-hand for a Christmas present. This makes him loathe
foul lips and the painted cheek. When a boy 'grows wise' he stands,
sure's you're born, on the brink of hell. It's a pity that so many,
instead of backing away when they get their eyelashes singed a little,
jump right in.
"All during my first year I had helped the sample clerk, who had the
best job in the house, get out samples for the salesmen. It was not
"my business" to do this; but I did it during spare time from my
regular work. When I came back from my visit home, the old gentleman
found me on the floor one day while I was tagging samples. 'Billie,'
said he, 'Fritz (the sample clerk) is going out on the road for us
next week. I have decided to let you take his place here in the house.
You are pretty young but we think you can do it.'
"I tried to answer back, 'I'll do my best,' but I couldn't say a word.
I only choked. The old gentleman had to turn away from me; it was too
much for him, too. After he stepped on the elevator, he turned around
and smiled at me. I heard him blow his nose after the elevator sunk
out of sight. I knew then that he believed in me and I said to myself,
'He shall never lose his faith.'
"In a few days Fritz had gone out on his trip and I was left alone to
do his work, the old gentleman handed me a sample book one afternoon
near closing time. 'Billie,' says he, 'Gregory is in a hurry for his
samples. Express them to Fayetteville.' He had merely written the
stock numbers in the book. It was up to me to fill in on the sample
book the description of the goods and the prices. This I did _that
night at home_ from memory. I had learned the stock that well. I
also wrote the sample tickets. It took me until after midnight. Next
morning I was waiting at the front door when the early man came to
unlock it. That night the samples went to Fayetteville.
"Two days afterward the old gentleman called me to the office and
asked me: 'When can Gregory expect his samples? He's in a big hurry.'
"'I sent them Wednesday night, sir,' said I.
"'Wednesday night! Why it was Tuesday night when I gave you the sample
book!'
"'I'm sure they went,' said I, 'because I saw the cases go into the
express wagon.'
"'All right,' said the old gentleman; and he smiled at me again the
same way he did the morning he made me the sample clerk, a smile which
told me I had his heart, and I have it to this day.
"Next morning he sent up to me a letter from Gregory, who wrote that
the samples came to him in better shape than ever before. At the end
of that year I got a check for $150 back pay, and my salary was raised
again. At the end of the third year the old gentleman gave me more
back pay and another raise, saying to me: 'Billie, I have decided to
put you on the road over Moore's old territory. He is not going to be
with us any more. Be ready to start January 1st.' I was the youngest
man that firm ever put out. I was with them sixteen years and it
almost broke my heart to leave them."
"You bet," said I, "the stock boy has a chance if he only knows it."
"Yes," answered my friend, "sure he has. My mother put in my trunk
when I left home a Sunday School card on which were the words: 'Thy
God seeth thee, my son.' Without irreverence I would advise every
stock boy who wants to get on the road to write these words and keep
them before him every day: 'The eyes of the old man are upon me.'"
I once heard one of the very successful clothing salesmen of Chicago
tell how he got on the road.
"I had been drudging along in the office making out bills for more
than a year, at ten a week," said he. "My father traveled for the firm
but he never would do anything to get me started on the road. He
thought I would fall down. I was simply crazy to go. I had seen the
salesmen get down late, sit around like gentlemen, josh the bosses,
smoke good cigars and come and go when they pleased for eight months
in the year. This looked better to me than slaving away making out
bills from half past seven in the morning until half past six at
night, going out at noon hungry as a hound and having to climb a
ladder after a ham sandwich, a glass of milk and a piece of apple pie.
"I had kept myself pretty well togged up and, as my father wouldn't do
anything to get me started, I made up my mind to go straight to the
boss myself. He was a little fat sawed-off. He wore gold-rimmed
glasses and whenever he was interested in anybody, he would look at
him over his specs. He did not know much about the English language,
but he had a whole lot more good common sense than I gave him credit
for then. It never hurts a boy in the house, you know, who wants to go
on the road to go square up and say so. He may get a turn-down, but
the boss will like his spunk, and he stands a better show this way
than if he dodges back and waits always for the boss to come to him.
Many a boy gets out by striking the 'Old Man' to go out. If the boy
puts up a good talk to him the old man will say: 'He came at me pretty
well. By Jove, he can approach merchants, and we will give him a
chance.'
"One day, pretty soon after I had braced the old man to send me out, a
merchant in Iowa wrote in that he wanted to buy a bill of clothing.
They looked him up in Dun's and found that he was in the grocery
business. My father didn't wish to go out--the town was in his
territory. I overheard the old man in the office say to him: 'Let's
send Chim.'
"Well, Jim started that night. They told me to take a sleeper, but I
sat up all night to save the two dollars. I didn't save much money,
though, because in the middle of the night I got hungry and filled up
on peanuts and train bananas. The town was up on a branch and I didn't
get there until six o'clock the next day. When I reached there, I went
right up to my man's store. You ought to have seen his place! The town
was about seven hundred, and the store just about evened up with it--
groceries and hardware. I got a whiff from a barrel of sauer kraut as
I went in the door; on the counter was a cheese case; frying pans and
lanterns hung down on hooks from the ceiling; two farmers sat near the
stove eating sardines and crackers. No clothing was in sight and I
said to myself: 'Well, I'm up against it; this man can't buy much; he
hasn't any place to put it if he does.' But I've since learned one
thing: You never know who is going to buy goods and how many on the
road must learn that the man who has _nothing_ in his line is the very
man who can and will buy the most, sometimes, _because he hasn't any_.
And besides, the _little_ man may be just in the notion of spreading
himself.
[Illustration: "You ought to have seen his place"]
"A young man was counting eggs back near the coal oil can. He was the
only one around who seemed to have anything to do with the store. I
walked up to him and told him who I was. He said, 'Yes, we are glad to
see you. I'm just out of school and father wants to put me in business
here. He is going to put in all his time in the bank. He wants me to
take charge of the store. I've told him we could sell other things
besides groceries--they are dirty, anyway, and don't pay much profit;
so we have started to build on another room right next door and are
going to put in other lines. I've told father we ought to put in
clothing, but he hasn't fully made up his mind. I'll ask him to come
down after supper and you can talk to him.'
"'Hasn't fully made up his mind, and here I am my first time out, 24
hours away, and a big expense,'--all this went through me and I
couldn't eat any supper.
"The old banker that evening was just tolerably glad to see me. It
wasn't exactly a freeze, but there was lots of frost in the air. He
said, after we had talked the thing over, that he would look at my
samples the next morning, but that he would not buy unless my line was
right and the prices were right. I was sure my 'prices were right.' I
had heard the bosses talk a whole year about how cheaply they sold
their goods. I had heard them swear at the salesmen for cutting prices
and tell them that the goods were marked at bare living profit; and I
was green enough to believe this. I also knew that my line was the
best one on the road. I had not stopped to figure out how my bosses
could stay under their own roof all the time and know so much about
other houses' goods and be absolutely sure that their own line was
bound to be the best ever. I had heard the road-men many times tell
the bosses to 'wake up,' but I did not believe the salesmen. You know
that a young fellow, even if he is with a weak house, starts out on
his first trip feeling that his house is the best one. Before he gets
through with his maiden trip, even though his house is a thoroughbred,
he will think it is a selling plater.
"That night I worked until two o'clock opening up. I did not know the
marks so I had to squirm out what the characters meant and put the
prices on the tickets in plain figures so I would know what the goods
were worth. But this was a good thing. The salesman or the firm that
has the honesty and the boldness to mark samples in plain figures and
stick absolutely to their marked price, will do business with ease.
Merchants in the country do not wish to buy cheaper than those in
other towns do; they only wish a square deal. And, say what you will,
they are kind o' leery when they buy from samples marked in
characters--not plain figures. They often use a blind mark to do scaly
work on their own customers and they don't like to have the same game
worked on themselves. Honest merchants, and I mean by this those who
make only a reasonable profit, mark their goods in plain figures, cut
prices to nobody--prefer to do business with those who do it their
way. The traveling man who breaks prices soon loses out.
"That night I couldn't sleep. I was up early next morning and had a
good fire in my sample room. I had sense enough to make the place
where I was going to show my goods as comfortable as I could. I sold a
bill of $2,500 and never cut a price.
"When I got home I put the order on the old man's desk and went to my
stool to make out bills. The old man came in. He picked up the order
and looked over it carefully, then he asked one of the boys: 'Vere's
Chim? Tell him to com heer. I vant to see him.'
"I walked into the office. The old man was looking at me over his
specs as I went in. He grabbed me by the hand and said so loud you
could hear him all over the house: 'Ah, Chim, dot vas tandy orter. How
dit you do id mitoud cotting prices, Chim? You vas a motel for efery
men we haf in der house. I did nod know we hat a salesman in der
office. By Himmel! you got a chob on der roat right avay, Chim.'"