Tricks Of The Trade

________________________________________________
Title:     Tricks Of The Trade
Author: Charles N. Crewdson [More Titles by Crewdson]

The man who believes that on every traveling man's head should rest a dunce cap will some fine day get badly fooled if he continues to rub up against the drummer. The road is the biggest college in the world. Its classrooms are not confined within a few gray stone buildings with red slate roofs; they are the nooks and corners of the earth. Its teachers are not a few half starved silk worms feeding upon green leaves doled out by philanthropic millionaires, but live, active men who plant their own mulberry trees. When a man gets a sheepskin from this school, he doesn't need to go scuffling around for work; he already has a job. Its museum contains, not a few small specimens of ore, but is the mine itself.

Let your son take an ante-graduate course of a few years on the road and he will know to what use to put his book learning when he gets that. I do not decry book lore; the midnight incandescent burned over the classic page is a good thing. I am merely saying that lots of good copper wire goes to waste, because too many college "grads" start their education wrong end first. They do not know for what they are working. If I were running a school my way and the object was to teach a boy method, I'd hand him a sample grip before I'd give him a volume of Euclid. Last night a few ideas struck me when I thought my day's work was done. I jumped out of bed seven times in twenty minutes and struck seven matches so I could see to jot down the points. The man on the road learns to "do it now." Too many traveling men waste their months of leisure. Like Thomas Moore, in their older days they will wail:

"Thus many, like me, who in youth should have tasted
The fountain that flows by philosophy's shrine,
Their time with the flowers on its margin have wasted
And left their light urns all as empty as mine."

Yet many improve their hours of leisure from business; if they do not, it is their own fault. I met an old acquaintance on the street yesterday. "My season is too short," said he. "I wish I could find something to do between trips." I asked him why he did not write for newspapers or do a dozen other things that I mentioned. "I'm incapable," he replied. "Well, that isn't my fault," said I. "No," he answered, "it's mine!"

I know one man on the road who found time to learn the German language. And, by the way, he told me how it once served him a good turn.

"Once," said he, "when I was up in Minnesota, a few years ago, I got a big merchant to come over and look at my goods. That, you know, was half of the battle."

And so it is! When a merchant goes into a drummer's sample room, he is on the field of Liao Yang and, if he doesn't look out, the drummer will prove himself the Jap!

"It was my first trip to the town," continued my friend. "The first thing my prospective customer picked up after he came into my room was a sample of a 'Yucatan' hat. You know how it goes--when a merchant comes into your sample room for the first time he picks up the things he knows the price of. If the prices on these are high, he soon leaves you; if they seem right to him he has confidence in the rest of your line and usually buys if the styles suit him. The way to sell goods is either to have lower prices or else make your line show up better than your competitor's. Even though your prices be the same as his, you can often win out by displaying your goods better than your competitor does. Many a time he is too lazy to spread his goods and show what he really has; and his customer thinks the line 'on the bum' when, in truth, it is not.

"The merchant, Alex Strauss was his name, couldn't have picked up a luckier thing for me than this Yucatan hat. The year previous, my house had imported them finished, but that year we had had them trimmed in our own shop. The duty was much less on the unfinished body than on the trimmed hat; therefore, the price had dropped considerably.

"'How much do you vant for dis?' said Strauss, picking up the Yucatan.

"Nine dollars a dozen," said I, without explaining why the price was so low. It would have been as foolish for me to do this, you know, as to play poker with my cards on the table face up.

"Strauss turned to his clerk Morris, who was with him. They both examined the hat, and Alex said in German to Morris: 'Den selben Hut haben wir gehabt. Letzes Jahr haben wir sechzehn und ein halb den Dutzen bezahlt. Das ist sehr billig!' (The same hat we had. Last year we paid sixteen and a half a dozen. This is very cheap.)

"Then Alex turned to me--he was a noted bluffer--and said in English: 'Hefens alife! Nine tollars! Vy, I pought 'em last year for sefen and a half!'

"I never saw such a bold stand in my life. The expression on his face would have won a jackpot on a bob-tailed flush. But I was in position to call his bluff. His cards were on the table face up.

"I merely repeated his own words in his own tongue: 'Den selben Hut haben wir gehabt. Letzes Jahr haben wir sechzehn und ein halb den Dutzen bezahlt. Das ist sehr billig.'

"'Hier, dake a seecar on me,' said Alex, offering me a smoke. He bought a good bill from me and has been a good customer ever since.

"Just to let you know what a hard proposition Strauss was, I'll tell you another incident in connection with him:

"'After I had known Alex for two years I went into his store one morning, when I was on my fall trip. He came from behind the counter to meet me, wearing upon his face a smile of triumph. He had never approached me before; I always had to hunt him down.

"I said, 'Hello, Alex, how goes it?'

"'Dis is how choes id,' said he, handing me a card. 'Dot's de way id choes mit ev'rypody dis season.'

"On the card which he handed me--and to every traveling man who, came in--were these words: 'Don't waste your time on me; I will not buy any goods until I go to market. Alex.'

"Reading the card quickly, I said to him: 'Thank you, Alex, may I have another one of these cards?'

"He handed me another one, saying, 'Vot you vant mit anudder vun?'

"'I want one to hold as a keepsake of the man, of all men, who is gladdest to see me when I get around; the other I shall pin to the order I shall take from you today and send to my firm.'

"With a sweeping bow, I said, 'Adieu, Alex; Auf wiedersehen,' and left the store.

"I knew Alex's habits. He always went to dinner when the town clock struck twelve. A deaf shoemaker in the next block regulated his watch, they say, by Alex's movements. A few minutes past twelve I went back to the store and left on the front show case a bunch of samples done up in a red cloth. On some of them were large green tags telling the quantity I had of each and the price. I also wrote on the green tags the words 'Job Lot.'

"I knew that Alex would see the bundle; and I knew that he would open it--a merchant will always look at samples if you take them to his store. I also knew that Alex, when he saw the mystic words 'Job Lot,' would be half crazy. Adam and Eve were not more tempted by the forbidden fruit than is the Yehuda (Hebrew) merchant by a metziah (bargain).

"I went back to the hotel. After luncheon I sent out my advance cards and took up a book. My mind was perfectly easy, because I knew just exactly what was going to happen.

"At a quarter to six, Abie, Alex's boy, disturbed me while I was in the middle of a chapter and said: 'Papa wants to see you right away. The store closes at six.'

"I knew that meant business, but I said to Abie: 'Tell your papa if he'll excuse me I'll not come over. Won't you please say goodbye to him for me? And won't you, Abie, like a good boy--bring me a bundle I left on the show case. It has a red cloth around it.'

"Finishing my chapter, I started slowly toward Alex's store. I met Abie. But he didn't have the red bundle--I knew he wouldn't.

"'Papa says, come over. He wants to see you,' said Abie.

"As I went into the store a minute before six, Alex was pacing up and down the floor. My samples were spread upon the show case.

"'Eff you vant your samples, dake 'em avay yourself. Do you subbose I raice poys to vait on draveling men?' said Alex. He was keeping up his bluff well.

"With this I began to stack together my samples.

"'Vait! Vait!' said Alex, 'Aind you choing to gif a man a jance to puy some choots?'

"'Sure,' said I, 'if you want to, but I thought you were going to wait until you went into market.'

"'Vell, you vas a taisy,' said Alex; and in three minutes--he was the quickest buyer I ever saw--I booked an order for six hundred dollars.

"'Now, I see,' said Alex, as he shook hands and started home, 'Vot you vanted mit dot udder cart.'"

Strategy will win out in business, but not deception. The traveling man who wishes to win in the race of commerce, if he plays sharp tricks, will get left at the quarter post. It is rather hard, sometimes, to keep from plucking apples that grow in the garden of deception, especially if they hang over the fence. I sat one night beside one of the boys who was sending out his advance cards. He was making his first trip over a new territory.

"Blast it!" said he, tearing up a card he had written.

"Don't swear, or you'll not catch any fish," said I.

"Yes, but I did such a fool thing. I addressed a card to a merchant and then turned it over and signed his name--not mine--to it. Wasn't that a fool thing to do?"

"No, not at all," I replied, laughing. "If you had sent that card to him, he would have read it. Otherwise, he will chuck the one you do send into the basket."

"Bright idea!" quoth my friend.

A few months afterward I met this same man. "Say," said he, "that was a straight tip you gave me on that advance card scheme. It worked like a charm. Half of the men I went to see had kept the cards on their desks and I had no trouble getting their ears. Some were expecting a long lost relative. When they showed me my cards with their names on them I was always amazed at such a queer mistake. There was one exception. I told one man why I did it, and he nearly threw me out of his store."

When I was told this I felt ashamed to think I had taught duplicity to an innocent. I did not know to what it might lead him.

Stolen fruits may look like they are sweet, but taste them, and they are bitter. I knew a man who sold shoes in the State of Washington. He was shrewd and sharp. He learned of an old Englishman who, although his store was in an out of the way town, did a large business. The shoeman wrote half a dozen letters to himself care of the old Englishman, addressing them as "Lord" So and So. When he reached the town the Englishman most graciously handed him the letters, and to all questions of the shoeman, who commanded a good British accent, answered, "Yes, my lord," or "No, my lord."

The shoe man explained that, like the merchant, he had hated to leave the old country, but that America--sad to state--was a more thrifty country and he had invested in a large shoe factory in Boston. He said he was merely out traveling for his health and to look over the country with a view to placing a traveling salesman on the territory. The Englishman gave him a large open order, supposing, of course, that a lord would carry no samples. The old merchant was so tickled at having a chance to buy from a lord that, notwithstanding his reserve, he one day told his dry goods man about it. This was shortly before the goods arrived.

"Why, that fellow," said the dry goods man, "is no more of a lord than I am. He is not even an Englishman." He did not know that he was "queering" a bill, for this is one thing that one traveling man will never deliberately do to another. He knows too well what a battle it is to win a bill, and he will not knowingly snatch from the victor the spoils of war.

The old Englishman returned the "lord's" goods without opening the cases.

Although the lord did not steal a base on his sharp run, I know of one instance where a shrewd traveling man sold a bill by a smart trick.

In Ohio there was a merchant notoriously hard to approach. He was one of the kind who, when you told him your business, would whistle and walk away and who would always have something to do in another part of the store when you drew near him the second time. What an amount of trouble a man of that kind makes for himself! The traveling man is always ready to "make it short." When he goes into a store the thing he wishes to know, and how quickly, is: "Can I do any business here?" The merchant will have no trouble getting rid of the drummer if he will only be frank. All he must do is to give a fair reason why he does not wish to do business. He can say: "I have bought"--that is the best one, if it is true; it is the index finger pointing out a short route for the salesman straight to the front door. Or, he can say: "I have all in that line I can use for some time." "I have an old personal friend to whom I give my trade for these goods--he treats me squarely" is a good answer. So, too, is the statement, "I have an established trade on this brand, my customers ask for it, and it gives them entire satisfaction--what's the use of changing?" Any one of these statements will either rid the merchant of the traveling man or else raise an issue soon settled.

I will let my friend himself tell how he got the ear of the whistling merchant.

"The boys had told me old Jenkins was hard to get next to, but I made up my mind to reach him. It's lots more fun anyway to land a trout in swift water than to pull a carp out of a muddy pond; besides the game fish is better to eat. When I went into his store, Jenkins fled from me, and going into his private office, slammed the door behind him. I made for the office. I had not come within ten feet from the window before the old man said gruffly: 'I don't want to buy any goods; I don't want even to listen to a traveling man this morning.'

"This did not stop me. I walked to the window, took a pad of paper out of my pocket and wrote on a slip: 'I have some samples I would like to show you. I will bring them over.' I handed the slip to old Jenkins and left him. The man who can do the odd, unexpected thing, is the one who gets the ear.

"When I brought my samples in--I sell a specialty line of baby shoes-- I spread them on the counter. The old man was curious to see what a 'deaf and dumb man' was selling, I suppose, for up he marched and looked at my line. He picked up a shoe and wrote on a piece of paper: 'How much?' I wrote the price and passed the slip back to him. 'What are your terms?' he wrote back. 'Bill dated November 1st, 5% off, ten days,' I replied on paper. 'Price your line right through,' he scribbled.

"With this I wrote the price of each shoe on a slip and put it under the sample. Old Jenkins called his shoe man. They both agreed that the line was exceptional--just what they wanted--and that the prices were low. But the old man wrote: 'Can't use any of your goods; the line I am buying is cheaper.'

"I made no answer to this but began packing my grip. The old man tried to write me so fast that he broke the points off his pencil and the clerk's. While he sharpened his pencil I kept on packing. He took hold of my hand and made a curious sign, saying, 'Wait.' But I went right on until the old man had written: 'Don't pack up. I will buy some goods from you because I feel sorry for you.'

"'Thank you, sir,' I wrote, 'but I am no charity bird; I want to sell goods only to those who appreciate my values. Charity orders are always small ones and a small one will not be sufficient for me to give you the exclusive sale.' That was a clincher, for when a merchant sees a good thing he will overbuy, you know, just to keep his competitor from having a chance at it. I started again packing.

"'I really like your goods and will buy a nice bill if you will sell no one else in town,' wrote the old man nervously. 'I was only joking with you.'

"Just as I had finished writing down my order, never having spoken a word to old Jenkins, a traveling man friend came in and said, in his presence: 'Hello, Billy! How are you?'

"'Pretty well, thank you,' said I.

"'What! Can you hear and talk?' half yelled the old man.

"'To be sure,' I wrote back, 'but it would have been impolite to talk to you; because you said, as I drew near the window, you didn't wish to listen to a traveling man this morning. Thank you for your order. Good-bye.'

"The old man never forgot that day. The last time I was around, he said, 'Confound you, Billy! What makes you ask me if I want any baby shoes? You know I do and that I want yours. I believe, though, if you were to die I'd have to quit handling the line; it would seem so strange to buy them from any but a deaf and dumb man.'"

It is all right for the traveling man to put his wit against the peculiarities of a wise, crusty old buyer, but it is wrong to play smart with a confiding merchant who knows comparatively little of the world. The innocent will learn.

A clothing man once told me of a sharp scheme he once worked on a Minnesota merchant.

"When I was up in Saint Paul on my last trip," said he, "a country merchant--what a 'yokel' he was!--came in to meet me. He had written my house he wanted to see their line. But when he reached the hotel another clothing man grabbed him and got him to say he would look at his line after he had seen mine. When he came into my room, I could see something was wrong. I could not get him to lay out a single garment. When a merchant begins to put samples aside, you've got him sure. After a while, he said: 'Well, I want to knock around a little; I'll be in to see you after dinner.'

"'I am expecting you to dine with me,' said I. 'It's after eleven now; you won't have time to go around any. You'd better wait until this afternoon.' I smelt a mouse, as there were other clothing men in town; so I knew I must hold him. But he was hard to entertain. He wouldn't smoke and wouldn't drink anything but lemonade. Deliver me from the merchant who is on the water wagon or won't even take a cigar! He's hard to get next to. After we finished our lemonade, I brought out my family photographs and kept him listening to me tell how bright my children were--until noon.

"When we finished luncheon I suggested that we go up and do our business as I wanted to leave town as soon as I could. Then he told me he felt he ought to look at another line before buying and that he had promised another man he would look at his line.

"Had I 'bucked' on that proposition it would have knocked me out, so I said: 'To be sure you should. I certainly do not wish you to buy my goods unless they please you better than any you will see. We claim we are doing business on a more economical scale than any concern in the country. We know this, and I shall be only too glad to have you look at other goods; then you will be better satisfied with ours. I'll take pleasure even in introducing you to several clothing men right here in the house.'

"This line of talk struck ten. My yokel friend said: 'Well, you talk square and I want to buy of you. I like a man who thinks lots of his family, anyway; I've got a big family myself--seven children--baby's just a month old and a fine boy. But I promised my partner I'd look around if I had a chance, and I think I ought to keep my word with him.'

"Luckily there was another salesman from my firm in town and opened up that same day in the hotel. I sent for him, never letting my yokel friend get away from me a foot. I saw the other man, at whose line my friend wished to look, sitting in the office; but I knew he would obey the rule of the road and not come up to the merchant until I had let him go.

"My partner was a deuce of a long time coming. I listened to episodes in the lives of all of those seven children. I took down notes on good remedies for whooping cough, croup, measles, and all the ills that flesh is heir to--and thanked Heaven we had struck that subject! Finally my partner, Sam, came. As he drew near I gave him the wink, and, introducing my friend to him, said: 'Now, Mr. Anderson is in town to buy clothing. I have shown him my line, but he feels he ought to look around. Maybe I haven't all the patterns he wants, and if I can get only a part of the order there is no one I'd rather see get the other than you. Whatever the result, you'll bring Mr. Anderson to my room, 112, when you get through. Show him thoroughly. I'm in no hurry.'

"Sam marched Anderson up to his room. He caught onto my game all right. I knew he would hold him four hours, if necessary, and tell him all about his family history for seven generations.

"When Sam left, I went over to the cigar stand, pulled out my order book and figured about long enough to add up a bill. I filled my cigar case and going over to my competitor, at whose line Anderson had promised to look, offered him one. He had made a sort of 'body snatch' from me anyway and was ashamed to say anything about Anderson, but he asked: 'How's business?'

"'Coming in carriages today,' said I. 'My city customer was over early this morning and, no sooner had he gone than a man from the country came in. Two clothing bills in one day is all right, isn't it? I just turned my country customer over to Sam, as he has a few new patterns in his line I want him to show. Guess I'll go pack up shortly.'

"I hadn't told a point blank lie, and my competitor had no right to ask about my affairs, anyway. He also went to pack up.

"I let Sam entertain Anderson until I knew my competitor was out of the way. Then I sent a note up to him. In due time he brought the merchant down and soon excused himself.

"'That's a mighty nice fellow,' said Anderson, 'but my! his goods are dear. Why, his suits are two to three dollars higher than yours. You'll certainly get my bill. I told my partner I believed your house would be all right to buy from.'

"I took the order from Anderson, but I was half glad when I heard that he had died a few months afterward; for if he had lived he would have been sure to catch up with me when Sam and I were both in market. And then my goose would have been cooked for all time with him, sure."

And so it would.

[The end]
Charles N. Crewdson's short story: Tricks Of The Trade

________________________________________________



GO TO TOP OF SCREEN