Usually the dining room adjoins the living room, and it may _Selling Home Furnishings: A Training Program

that the same style will be carried through, although not imperatively

so. Any eighteenth century style--Hepplewhite, Sheraton, or Chippendale

can be used with any eighteenth century style or with Colonial or

Duncan Phyfe furniture, providing wood, textures, and fabrics have

unity, similarity, color likenesses, or pleasing contrasts. (See fig.

40.) "Modern" in walnut living room pieces will look well with walnut

dining room in contemporary design. Maple living room furnishings look

well with Early American or French Provincial dining room furniture.

It is easier to combine single styles than several styles harmoniously.

Frequently, however, the most interesting arrangements are from several

styles put together well.

Try out, on the floor, in idle moments, a Sheraton dining table

with Chippendale or Duncan Phyfe chairs. The scale may be right or

wrong--your judgment should tell you. Naturally, the store finds it

easier to sell "sets," but should you run into difficult customers,

this knowledge of interesting combinations may "save" a sale.

[Illustration:

Courtesy American Walnut Manufacturers' Association.

Figure 41.--A living-dining room suite. Designed by Gilbert Rhode, New

York, N. Y. Folding dinette table with one drop leaf. Photograph shows

view open, table set for four, table moved away from wall.]

Tell customers that, although they may buy six chairs, it is not only

good taste from a decorative standpoint but also from a practical

point of view to have a host and hostess chair. These are upholstered

chairs with tall backs and are used at the head and the foot of the

table. The host chairs either should match the draperies or harmonize

with the color scheme of the room. Many times host and hostess chairs

upholstered in a print, matching the draperies are cheerful and

decorative. Stripes are popular as upholstered seat covers on dining

room chairs, but plain coverings in damask, leather, or tapestry are

also in good taste. Small figured patterns are also used.

COMBINATION LIVING ROOM AND DINING ROOM

Many of the new homes are being built with living room and dining room

combined into one unit or with a large living room and very small

dining room. For the single-unit rooms, a happy choice is an extension

or a gate-leg table and a low chest of drawers for linen which may be

used either in the living room or in dining room. Small dining room

tables which may be extended to seat six or eight may be arranged in

front of a bay window or along the wall at one side of the room in

keeping with the general room harmony. The dining chairs are placed

near the table, when not in use, and may be used as bridge chairs or

auxiliary seating equipment. (See fig. 41.)

[Illustration:

Photograph by Grignon.

Figure 42.--A contemporary dining room grouping made of birch and

finished in a light wheat tone. Simply carved with a modernized wheat

motif, this grouping relies upon its simplicity for smartness and

distinction. The chairs are upholstered in a rose-colored, leather-like

fabric and trimmed with small bronze nail heads. The legs of the table

and chairs taper gracefully and eliminate the box-like features usually

associated with contemporary design. The credenza-type buffet and china

have pulls of matching wood.]

Dinette furniture, especially made for the dinette, offers a variety

of selection and need not necessarily be in keeping with the living

room scheme. Light woods are popular for dinettes, maple, oak, birch,

and pine being popular for this purpose. When the dinette is replaced

by a larger dining room ensemble the dinette set may be used in the

breakfast room or in the kitchen. Small size china cabinets and buffets

accompany many of the dinette sets.

Junior dining room sets are small scale dining room ensembles and are

usually shown in fine cabinet woods in styles found in large size

dining room ensembles. The junior dining room sets differ from the

dinette sets in that they are usually not as informal as the dinette

and are designed for the small-size dining room rather than for the

dinette.

ENSEMBLE SELLING

Sales of living room merchandise fall into two classes: _Piece sales_,

involving the selection of one or more pieces for use in a room already

partially furnished; and _ensemble sales_, involving the selection of

most or all of the furnishings necessary to equip completely a room, or

even a house.

These two types of sales present different problems and require the

use of different methods. However, they are alike in two important

respects. In all of them the self-interest of the buyer is the

determining factor; and competition in one or more forms is inevitable.

THREE FORMS OF COMPETITION

The first and inescapable form of competition is a competition among

conflicting desires in the mind of the average buyer. In order to

buy one thing, she must give up something else. Furniture dealers

and salesmen habitually assume that the woman who enters a furniture

store and asks, for example, for an easy chair, has already decided

to buy one. The fact is that the customer is often merely weighing

the satisfactions likely to come to her through possession of a

chair against those offered by other articles or services also under

consideration. In this case you must lead her to desire a chair more

than she desires anything else before you can sell any chair, however

large your stock or low your prices.

Unhappily, much furniture advertising is calculated to give the reading

public a false impression of the necessary price levels of good

furniture. It may be that you can please your customer with a chair at

the price she has tentatively decided to pay. If not, you must please

her in a more costly piece. Here you run up against new competition;

for however able your demonstration of quality may be, your customer is

certain to weigh that additional item of cost against the additional

articles that she must give up in order to buy the chair. Hence

something more than a convincing demonstration of the intrinsic

worthiness of the piece will be necessary to complete the sale.

Finally, there is a third form of competition--that among different

furniture stores for the same sale. However well the customer may like

your chair at the price asked, it is natural for her to try to find

something just as good at a lower price, or more pleasing at the same

price, since that is her habit in buying other commodities.

She knows that there are other good stores nearby, with scores of

easy chairs to show her, and that they are advertising bargains and

holding out inducements to get her trade. You cannot prove to her in

advance that she will only waste her time by looking further, and any

arguments, pleadings, or high-pressure methods designed to keep her

from doing so are quite likely to have precisely the opposite effect.

WHAT SHOPPERS REALLY WANT

At this point a surprisingly large percentage of salesmen weaken.

Knowing that it is impossible to oppose successfully the self-interest

of the buyer, they can think of nothing else to do. In point of fact

there is nothing else to do in a great many cases, _except to make

every possible effort to create an impression sufficiently powerful to

bring the buyer back after her shopping tour is over_. In many other

cases, however, there is a way to meet competition, if you can develop

the ability to use it.

The woman who wants an easy chair, a sofa, a rug, or a desk, also wants

something else which is far more important to her, namely, a more

satisfying room. She doesn't tell you about it, but she really hopes

that the new piece under consideration will add more beauty, comfort,

distinction, or impressiveness to her room.

Get her to thinking of her room as a whole, with the new article a part

of that whole. Lead her to believe that the desirable qualities which

she seeks will appear in it as a result of your help in selection and

arrangement. In other words, appeal to her self-interest by offering

her something highly important which she knows in advance cannot be

found elsewhere.

THE "ROOM PICTURE" METHOD

To overcome the inevitable competition of opposing desires, and to

reduce or eliminate shopping for variety of selection or price, make

your customer see the piece under consideration not as an individual

unit, but as an integral part of her room. As long as she is permitted

to think that she is buying a chair and nothing but a chair, she will

be concerned with a multitude of details, most of which are of no real

importance,[27] and will be strongly disposed to keep on looking until

she has exhausted every possibility of finding something completely

satisfactory in all of these details.

Transfer her interest to her room as a whole, with your chair as a

part of it, and you immediately rob most of these details of their

earlier importance in her mind. Paint a sufficiently attractive mental

picture of her room as it will become with your chair in it, and she

may buy the picture, and the chair as an essential element of it. She

will not care to shop further for a better looking or cheaper chair, in

the fear that even if one could be found the picture would be spoiled.

THE SHIFT FROM UNIT TO ENTIRE ROOM

Possibly you have had the experience of losing important sales to men

working in stores far smaller than your own or to decorators with no

more physical equipment than could be condensed into a small office

or studio. Why should you have lost such sales when you enjoy the

great advantages of ample stocks, lower prices, better terms, and

the prestige of a well-known and financially solid house? Obviously,

because the other man had the skill and the power to _shift your

customer's interest and desire from merchandise, as such to what

merchandise will do_.

In order to make a normal sale by means of this "room-picture" method,

you will require:

1. Full knowledge of your own merchandise from the technical and

artistic aspects.

2. Considerable knowledge of the customer's room and its important

elements.

3. Adequate knowledge of decorative principles, including the

emotional values of light, color, texture, line, and proportion.

4. A little knowledge of the decorative accessories--pictures,

potteries, glass, embroideries, and the many small things

necessary to save a room from bareness, and to give it color,

snap, and intimacy.

It is desirable but by no means necessary that you have these

accessories for sale; however, you must know how to talk about them,

because it is impossible to make a living room genuinely attractive and

satisfying without them.

WHY CUSTOMERS ARE DISAPPOINTED

Few furniture men appreciate the extent to which sales volume is

restricted by insistence upon selling parts instead of finished

products. Not only is furniture displayed as a pharmacist displays

drugs in the rows of bottles on his shelves; but also customers are

asked to do their own compounding and to accept full responsibility for

the results.

Many salesmen habitually assure the buyer that her room will be

comfortable and beautiful after they have placed in it a sofa, two

chairs, an end table, one floor lamp, and a radio. Of course it isn't,

and disappointment results. She sees her room as bare, thin, spotty,

unhomelike, and unlovely. She knows something is wrong, but she is

without knowledge to correct it.

Ensemble selling and complete room settings are the home-furnishings

industry's modern answer. Unless she is able to arrange the major

pieces of her furniture in a manner that will show them to the best

advantage, unless she has at least the requisites in the smaller

pieces, lamps, and other accessories, she may never get the full

satisfaction that she should for the money she has spent in the

furniture store. It is the salesperson's duty to fit his customer's

purchases into a complete room or home.

NATURALNESS ESSENTIAL IN ENSEMBLE SELLING

In ensemble selling, don't lecture, talk about yourself, or appear in

any way to be airing your knowledge. Simply talk in an off-hand manner,

as if you were dealing in commonplaces as familiar to your customer as

to yourself. The important matter is to learn promptly enough about

her room to enable you to link some of its characteristics with the

characteristics of your merchandise, so that as you point out the many

desirable features of her room, and the perfect way in which your

furniture harmonizes with and emphasizes these features, she is brought

to the conviction that she should have the room just as you have

pictured it, and therefore must have your furniture, without regard to

what other stores may have to offer.

This method is not too easy when one first begins to employ it, nor

should it be used with every customer. It will interest a surprisingly

large percentage of customers, and it often will result in a sale in

situations where all other methods fail. It is planned selling, which,

based on the enlightened self-interest of the buyer, helps her to buy,

and so smoothes the path before her that she may purchase her needs

room by room.

SELLING THE COMPLETE ROOM OR COMPLETE HOUSE ENSEMBLE

Many important sales will involve the complete room ensemble or the

complete house ensemble both of which are used to the great advantage

of the store and of the public. Usually such sales are in sight long

enough in advance to permit you to study and measure the rooms. In

important sales of this kind, try to get the head of the house in

for the first showing. You will probably be unable to close the sale

without him, and he will be likely to save your time as well as to

increase the amount of the sale. Do not overlook the fact that it

is important to see the house after the sale is made, preferably

when the goods are being installed. In this way you guard against

possible disappointment, ensure good will, and often find room for more

merchandise.

There are three general methods for dealing with these room sales. The

choice between them will depend upon your judgment as to the probable

reactions of the customer.

Setting Up a Complete Room in Advance.

Measure the room accurately, locating doors and windows; study the

room, and so far as possible the disposition, tastes, and means of the

buyers; select harmonious furnishings for the entire room, usually with

one or more substitutes for the most important pieces; lay out the room

with chalk, or with a chalk line or string tacked to the floor, with

recesses for the windows and openings for the doors in their exact

locations; set up the room with the merchandise selected, keeping

the substitutes at one side for emergency use; arrange to have the

customers call by appointment; and show the whole setting, making your

talk while they examine it.

If you know the people, and feel sure that the total cost of the room

is not far above what they expect to spend, this is a good method.

Otherwise there is some danger that they will dislike one or more

single elements of the room, and without giving you the opportunity to

correct them, reject the whole setting; and also that they may ask for

the total price before a real desire for the setting has been aroused,

find it unexpectedly high, and refuse to pay it.

Building Up Room With Customers.

Proceed as above to the point where the room is laid out; but instead

of actually placing the furniture keep it at one side; explain to the

buyers the lay-out of the room, locating the doors and windows; have

the furnishings brought in and placed by porters one piece at a time,

starting with the floor covering. This will give you the chance to

prepare their minds for each piece, and to sell your picture as they

see it grow before their eyes; to make immediate substitutions in case

one of your selections fails to please; and to reduce the price hazard.

For example, they may ask the price of some important piece such as the

rug or sofa, or you may quote it in the course of your talk. If there

is a quick objection, you will be able to reassure them by a statement

that something of similar appearance but lower price can be substituted

later without marring the total effect.

Laying Out Room to Scale.

Proceed at the outset as in above; but instead of laying out the actual

room, prepare a scale drawing on a regular floor plan, to the scale

of a ¼ inch to 1 foot, or a large drawing to the scale of 1 inch, to

1 foot. Make drawings or symbols of the furniture to be used to the

same scale, cut them out, and fix them to the floor plan by means of

thumb tacks. This will permit shifting them about in case of question

as to the arrangement of the room. Have the furnishings assembled, and

brought in by porters as needed and arranged in small intimate groups,

if space permits. Otherwise carry the drawing board with you as you

take your customers through the stock from one of the proposed pieces

to the next.

This method is necessary in small stores where it is practically

impossible to spare floor space for a display lasting several hours.

It can be made somewhat more effective by drawing in the four-wall

elevations and indicating the space relationships of furniture and

walls.

In the ordinary ensemble sale where no advance preparation is possible,

quick thinking and smooth action are essential. Such a sale may start

anywhere, but ordinarily you will start it where your stock is most

complete, or where for any other reason you expect to encounter minimum

resistance. Many stores have a series of model rooms, or several series

furnished completely at different price levels. A visit to these rooms

will give the salesman a fair idea, of what his customers consider

necessary, what they are prepared to pay, and where to start the sale.

QUESTIONS

_1. What methods do you follow in reducing to a minimum the kinds of

competition a salesman must meet in selling furniture for the living

room? dining room?_

_2. A salesman asks his customer: "Just what kind of studio couch do

you have in mind?" Why is this bad practice?_

_3. Why do you use a floor-plan idea for getting a picture of the

background which has brought a customer to your store?_

_4. Suppose a customer seems determined to purchase a piece of

furniture which you know is not suited for her use. Do you discourage

her at the risk of losing the sale?_

_5. Suggest three or four good ways to interest your customer in rugs

for the living room._

_6. Few customers are able to afford use of the most costly

furnishings. How do you proceed to convince the average woman that

certain essential harmonies actually cost nothing whatever in money?_

_7. Suppose you are consulted by a young couple soon to be married.

They ask you for suggestions for furnishing their five-room apartment.

How do you proceed?_

_8. How does customer age present a problem in selling house

furnishings?_

_9. Why is it not good practice to ask your customer the style of her

living room?_

_10. Work out a plan for furnishing an unattractive hall in the home

of a well-to-do couple, and outline steps you would take to call your

ideas to their attention?_

Usually the dining room adjoins the living room, and it may be assumed