Hiring And Handling Salesmen

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Title:     Hiring And Handling Salesmen
Author: Charles N. Crewdson [More Titles by Crewdson]

To hire and handle salesmen is the most important work of the head of the house. When a man goes out on the road to represent a firm, his traveling expenses alone are from five to twenty-five dollars a day, and sometimes even fifty. His salary is usually as much as his expenses, if not more. If a salesman does not succeed, a great portion of his salary and expenses is a dead loss, and, further, the firm is making a still greater loss if he does not do the business. In fact, if a poor man, succeeding a good one, falls down, his house can very easily lose many thousands of dollars by not holding the old trade of the man whose place he took. If all the wholesale houses in Chicago, say, which have a good line of salesmen were, at the beginning of the year, to lose all of those salesmen and replace them with dummies, three-fourths of these firms would go broke in from six months to three years. This is how important the salesman is to his firm.

I put hiring and handling of salesmen before having a strong line of goods, because if the proper salesmen are hired and are handled right, they will soon compel the house to put out the right line of goods. Just as a retail merchant should consult with his clerks about what he should buy, so, likewise, should the head of the wholesale house find out from his men on the road what they think will sell best. The salesman rubs up against the consumer and knows at first hand what the customer actually wants.

When the head of a house has a man to hire, the first man he looks for is one who has an established trade in the territory to be covered--a trade in his line of business. A house I have in mind which, ten years ago, was one of the top notchers in this country, has gone almost to the foot of the class because the "old man" who hired and handled the salesmen in that house died and was succeeded by younger heads not nearly so wise.

The still hunt was the old man's method. When he needed a salesman for a territory he would go out somewhere in that territory himself and feel about for a man. He would usually make friends with the merchants and find out from them the names of the best men on the road and his chances for getting one of them. The merchants, you know, can always spot the bright salesmen. When they rub up against them a few times they know the sort of mettle they are made of. The merchant appreciates the bright salesman whether he does business with him or not and the salesman who is a man will always find welcome under the merchant's roof. Salesmen are the teachers of the merchant, and the merchant knows this. Whenever he is planning to change locations, build a new store, move to some other town, put in a new department, or make any business change whatsoever, it is with traveling men that he consults. They can tell him whether or not the new location will be a good one and they can tell him if the new department which he is figuring on starting is proving profitable over the country in general. And, on the other hand, when the traveling man is expecting to make a change of houses, he often asks the advice of the merchant.

One of the biggest clothing salesmen in the United States once told me how this very old man hired him. Said Simon, "When I started out on the road my hair was moss. I almost had to use a horse comb to currie it down so I could wear my hat. Heavens, but I was green! I had been a stock boy for a kyke house and they put me out in Colorado. Don't know whether I have made much progress or not. My forefathers carried stuff on their backs; I carry it in trunks. Although changing is often bad business, the best step I ever made was to leave the little house and go with a bigger one. I had been piking along and while I was giving my little firm entire satisfaction, I was not pleasing myself with what I was doing. I could go out in the brush with my line, riding on a wagon behind bronchos, where a first-class man wouldn't, and dig up a little business with the yocles, but I couldn't walk into a mocher (big merchant) and do business with him. Yet, when I first started out I was fool enough to try it and I made several friends among the bigger merchants of Denver. But this did me no harm.

"One day, when I went in to see one of these big men in Denver, he said to me, 'Look here, Simon, you're a mighty good fellow and I'd like to do business with you, but you know I can't handle any goods from the concern you represent. Why don't you make a change?' I said to him, 'Well, I'm really thinking about it, but I don't know just where I can get in.' He said, 'I think I can give you a good tip. Old man Strauss from Chicago is out here looking for a man for this territory. He was in to see me only yesterday and told me he was on the lookout for a bright fellow. He's stopping up at the Windsor and I'd advise you to go over and get next if you can.'

"'Thank you very much,' said I; and I went over to the Windsor--I was putting up there--and asked the head clerk, who was a good friend of mine, where Strauss was.

"'Why, Simon,' said he, 'he's just gone down to the depot to take the D. & R. G. for Colorado Springs, but you will have no trouble finding him if you want to see him. They're not running any sleepers on the train. It's just a local between here and Pueblo. He wears gold-rimmed spectacles, is bald, and smokes all the time.'

"I called a cab, rushed down to the depot, checked my trunks to Colorado Springs, and jumped on the train just as she was pulling out. I spotted the old man as I went into the coach. He was sitting in a double seat with his feet up on the cushions. I got a whiff of his 'Lottie Lee' ten feet away. Luckily for me, all the seats in the car except the one the old man had his feet on, were occupied, so I marched up and said, 'Excuse me, sir, I dislike tol make you uncomfortable,' and sat down in front of him.

"The old man saw that I was one of the boys and, as he wanted to pump me, he warmed up and offered me one of his Lotties. I shall never forget that cigar. Smoke 'em in Colorado,--smell 'em in Europe! I managed to drop it on the floor in a few minutes so that I could switch onto one of mine. I pulled out a pair of two-bit-straights and passed one over, lighting the other for myself.

"'Dot vas a goot seecar,' said the old man. 'You are on der roat?'

"'Yes,' said I.

"'Vat's your bees'ness?'

"'I'm selling clothing.'

"'Vat? Veil, I am in dot bees'ness myself.'

"'Who do you travel for?' said I, playing the innocent.

"'I'm not on de roat,' said the old man. 'I am just out on a leetle trip for my healt. I am a monufacturer. Who do you trafel for?'

"I told him and then tried to switch the conversation to something else. I knew the old man wouldn't let me do it.

"'V'ere do you trafel?' said he.

"'Oh, Colorado, Utah, and up into Montana and Wyoming,' I answered.

"The old man took his feet off the cushions and his arms from the back of his seat. I thought I had him right then.

"'Dot's a goot contry,' said he. 'How long haf you been in deese beezness?' 'Five years,' said I. 'Always mit de same house?' 'Yes,' said I, 'I don't believe in changing.' The old man had let his cigar go out and he lit a match and let it burn his finger. I was sure that he was after me then.

"I didn't tell him that I had been a stock boy for nearly four years and on the road a little over one. It is a good sign, you know, if a man has been with a house a long time.

"'How's beezness this season?' said he.

"'Oh, it's holding up to the usual mark,' I said like an old timer.

"'Who do you sell in Denver?' said he.

"That was a knocker. 'Denver is a hard town to do business in,' said I. 'In cities, you know, the big people are hard to handle and the little ones you must look out for.' That was another strong point; I wanted him to see that I didn't care to do business with shaky concerns.

"'Vell,' said he after a while, 'you shouldt haf a stronger line and den you could sell de beeg vons.'

"'Yes, but it is a bad thing for a man to change,' said I. I knew that I was already hired and I was striking him for as big a guaranty as I could get, and my game worked all right because he asked me to take supper with him that night in the Springs and before we left the table he hired me for the next year.

"I came very near not fulfilling my contract, though, because after I had promised the old man I would come to him he said, 'Shake and haf a seecar,' and I had to smoke another Lottie Lee."

It is on the still hunt that the best men are trapped. Experienced salesmen--good ones--always have positions and are not often looking for jobs. To get them the wholesaler must go after them and the one who does this gets the best men. Hundreds of applications come in yearly to every wholesale house in America. These come so often that little attention is paid to them. When a wise house wishes salesmen, they either put out their scouts or go themselves directly after the men they want. And the shrewd head of a house is not looking for cheap men; he knows that a poor man is a great deal more expensive than a good one. Successful wholesalers do not bat their eyes at paying a first-class man a good price.

Recently I knew of one firm that had had a big salesman taken from them. What did they do to get another to take his place? The manager did not put out some cheap fellow, but he went to another man who, although he was unfamiliar with the territory, was a good shoe man, and guaranteed him that he would make four thousand dollars a year net, and gave him a good chance on a percentage basis of making six thousand. The experienced man in a line, although he has never traveled over the territory for which the wholesaler wishes a man, stands next in line for an open position. Houses know that a man who has done well on one territory in a very little while will establish a trade in another. One house that I know of has, in recent years, climbed right to the front because it would not let a thousand dollars or more stand in the way of hiring a first-class man. The head of this house went after a good salesman when he wanted one.

This is the way in which the head of a marvelously successful manufacturing firm hired many of their salesmen: They have this man talk to four different members of the firm single-handed; these men put all sorts of blocks in the way of the man whom they may possibly hire. They wish to test the fellow's grit. One successful salesman told me that when they hired him he talked to only one man, and only a few minutes; this man took him to the head of the house and said,

"Look here; there's no use of your putting this man through the turkish bath any longer; he is a man that I would buy goods from if I were a merchant."

"Well, I'll take him, then," said the president.

If I may offer a word of advice to him who hires the salesmen I would say this: Try to be sure when you hire a man to hire one that has been a success at whatever he has done. While it is best to get a man who is acquainted with your line and with the territory over which he is to travel, do not be afraid to put on a man who knows nothing of your merchandise and is a stranger to every one in the territory you wish to cover. If he has already been a successful salesman he will quickly learn about the goods he is to sell, and after one trip he will be acquainted with the territory.

The main thing for a salesman to know when you hire him is not how the trains run, not what your stuff is--he will soon learn this--but how to approach men! and gain their confidence! And it is needless for me to say that the one way to do this is to BE SQUARE!

A house does not wish a man like a young fellow I once knew of. He had been clerking in a store and had made application to a Louisville house for a position on the road. When he talked the matter over with the head of the house--it was a small one and always will be--they would not offer him any salary except on a commission basis, but they agreed to allow him five dollars a day for traveling expenses. He was to travel down in Kentucky. Five dollars a day looked mighty big to the young man who had been working for thirty dollars a month. He figured that he could hire a team and travel with that, and by stopping with his kin folks or farmers and feeding his own horses, that he could save from his expense money at least three dollars a day.

His territory was down in the Coon Range country where he was kin to nearly everybody. He lasted just one short trip.

A young fellow who once went to St. Louis is the sort of a man that the head of a house is looking for. When this young fellow went to call he put up a strong talk, but the 'old man' said to him:

"Come in and see us again. We haven't anything for you now."

That same afternoon this fellow walked straight into the old man's office again, with a bundle under him arm.

"Well, I am here," said he, "and I've brought my old clothes along. While I wish to be a salesman for you, put me to piling nail kegs or anything you please, and don't pay me a cent until you see whether or not I can work."

The old man touched a button calling a department manager and said to him:

"Here, put this young man to work. He says he can pile nail kegs."

In a couple of days the department manager went into the office again and said to the head of the house, "That boy is piling nail kegs so well that he can do something else."

That same young fellow went from floor to floor. In less than two years he was on the road and made a brilliant record for the house. To-day he is general salesman for the state of Texas for a very large wholesale hardware house and is making several thousand dollars each year.

If a wholesaler cannot find a man who is experienced in his line in the territory that he wishes to cover, and cannot get a good experienced road man at all, the next best ones he turns to are his own stock boys. In fact, the stock is the training school for men on the road.

A bright young man, wherever he may be, if he wishes to get on the road, should form the acquaintance of traveling men, because lightning may sometime strike him and he will have a place before he knows it. A gentleman who is now manager of a large New York engraving house once told me how he hired one of his best salesmen.

"When I was on the road my business used to carry me into the colleges. Our house gets up class invitations and things of that kind. Now I got this man in this way," said he: "I especially disliked going to the Phillips-Exeter Academy at Exeter, New Hampshire, owing to the poor train service and worse hotel accommodation.

"The graduating class at this academy had a nice order to place, and I called with original designs and prices. The committee refused to decide until they had received designs and prices from our competitors, so there was nothing else to do but bide-a-wee. When I called I made it a point to make friends with the chairman, who hailed from South Dakota and was all to the good. He was bright and distinctly wise to his job. By a little scouting I found out when the last competing representative was to call and speak his little piece.

"The next day I took a 'flyer,' that is, called without making an appointment. I arranged to arrive at my man's room in the afternoon when his recitations were over. His greeting was characteristic of the westerner,--as if we had known one another all our lives. He was a runner and did the one hundred yards dash in ten seconds flat and was the school's champion. I talked athletics to beat the band and got him interested. He was unable to get the committee together until seven o'clock that evening, which meant that I would have to stay in the town over night, as the last train went to Boston around 6:30 o'clock. There was nothing else to do but stay, as you naturally know what bad business it would be to leave a committee about to decide.

"I saw a platinum photograph of myself sleeping in that third-class hotel. I kept on talking athletics, however, and the chairman was good enough to ask me to dine with him. After dinner we played billiards and he beat me. At 6:45 we adjourned to his room. He and his committee excused themselves to hold their meeting in a room on the floor below. I was smoking one of the chairman's cigars, and was congratulating myself that things looked encouraging. The cigar was a good one, too. In half an hour the committee returned. The fellows lined up on the sofa, side by side, while the chairman straddled his chair and addressed me as follows:

"'Well, Mr. Rogers, we have discussed the matter thoroughly and as impartially I think as any committee of fellows could do, who had the interest of their class seriously at heart. In a way we regret that you took the trouble to call, because, to speak frankly, we would rather write what we have to say, than to be placed in the somewhat embarrassing position of telling you orally.'

"My cigar, somehow or other, no longer tasted good, and I was holding it in an apathetic sort of a way, not caring whether it went out or not. The bum hotel loomed up in front of me also. Continuing, the chairman said:

"'We have received something like six other estimates from different firms, and I must say some of their designs are "peaches." There are two firms whose prices are lower than yours, too. We like your designs very much, but I think if you place yourself in our position you will see we have no other alternative but to place the order with another house.

"He shifted his position uneasily and added with that final air we know so well, 'I want to thank you for your interest and trouble and we certainly appreciate the opportunity of seeing what you had to offer.'

"This was a nice sugar coat on a bitter pill, but I didn't want to take my medicine. I stood up, prepared to make a strong and expiring effort and to explain what an easy thing it was for a firm to quote a low price, etc., when the chairman came over quickly with extended hand and said, 'Now, we understand how you feel, old man, but there is no use prolonging this matter, which I assure you we regret more than we express. However,' turning to the other fellows, 'I think we are all agreed on one thing, and that is we are willing to make an exception in this case, and,'--here the corners of his mouth twitched and his eyes brightened up, 'we will give you the order on one condition.' I quickly asked what the condition was. 'And that is,' all the other fellows were standing up, smiling, 'we will give you the order if you'll take us to the show to-night!'

"It was well done and a clever piece of acting.

"The show, by the way, held in the town opera house, was a thrilling melodrama, and positively, it was so rotten it was good. The heroine was a girl who sold peanuts in one of the Exeter stores, and the villain was the village barber; I have forgotten who the hero was, but he was a 'bird.' The best part of the play was near the end. The villain was supposed to have murdered the hero by smashing him on the head with an iron bar and then pushing him into the river. At a critical stage, the hero walked serenely on the scene and confronted the villain. The villain assumed the good old stereotyped posture and shouted out with a horrified expression, 'Stand back, stand back, your hands is cold and slimy!' That busted up the show, as the audience, composed largely of the Academy boys, stood up as one and yelled. They finally started a cheer, 'Stand back, stand back, your hands is cold and slimy!' They repeated this cheer vigorously three times, and then crowded out of the house. That cheer can be heard at the Academy to- day.

"My chairman friend insisted upon putting me up for the night in a spare room in the dormitory; this saved my life.

"The next morning I joined the boys in chapel, and was very much surprised to find the entire student body and faculty clapping their hands when I became seated. This was certainly a new one on me. I turned to my chairman friend; he was grinning broadly as if he enjoyed the situation. What was I expected to do, for Heaven's sake--get up and make a speech? My mind was relieved by the President addressing the boys about alien topics. I learned afterwards that it was an old custom with Phillips-Exeter to applaud when a stranger entered the chapel. This is especially appropriate in the case of an old 'grad' returning, but certainly disturbing to an outsider.

"I did further business with my friend, also, when he was at Harvard. He did such a smooth job on me that when I became manager of my house I sent for him when we had the first opening on the road. I asked him how he would like to come with us. He came. He has been with our company now for two years and is getting on fine."

College boys as a rule are not looking for positions on the road, but if more of them would do so there would be more college graduates scoring a business success and more traveling men with the right sort of educational equipment. But they should begin young. While traveling on the road they would find many opportunities for self-advancement. The traveling man who will try can make almost anything he wishes of himself.

The head of the house must be on the lookout for the floater. In every city there are many professional job finders. About the only time they ever put up a good, strong line of conversation is when they talk for a job. After they get a good guaranteed salary they go to sleep until their contract is at an end, and then they hunt for another job. These are the chaps that the "old man" must look out for with a sharp eye.

When it is known that a good position in a house is open, scores of applications, by mail and in person, come in for the place from all kinds of men. I knew of one instance where a most capable head of a house thought well of one salesman who applied by letter. Before fully making up his mind about him, however, he sent a trusted man to look him up. He found that the man who made the application, while a capable salesman and a gentleman, was unfortunately a drunkard and a gambler.

Of this kind of man there are not so many. A man on the road who "lushes" and fingers chips does not last long. To be sure, most men on the road are cosmopolitan in their habits and they nearly all know, perhaps better than any other class of men, when to say, "no."

No less important than hiring salesmen is the handling of them. The house spoils for itself many a good man after it gets him. The easiest way is by writing kicking letters. The man on the road is a human being. Generally he has a home and a family and friends. He is working for them, straining every nerve that he may do something for the ones he cherishes. He takes a deep and constant interest in his business. He feels that he is a part of the firm he works for and knows full well that their interest is his interest and that he can only succeed for himself by making a success for the firm. When, feeling all of this within himself, he gets a kicking letter because he has been bold enough to break some little business rule when he knows it should have been done, he grows discouraged.

And, alas, for the comfort of the traveling man! there are too few houses that have due respect for his feelings. The traveling man is on the spot. He knows at first hand what should be done. His orders should be supreme. His work for a year should be considered as a whole. If, at the end of his contract, what he has done is not satisfactory, let him be told so in a lump. Continual petty hammering at him drives him to despair.

For example: I know of one firm in the wholesale hat business, that raised hob in a letter with their best man because he would, in selling dozen lots to customers, specify sizes on the goods that his customer wished,--a most absurd thing for the house to do. The merchant must, of course, keep his own stock clean and not become over-stocked on certain sizes. If he has been handling a certain "number" and has sold out all of the small sizes, only the large ones remaining, it would be foolish for him to buy regular sizes and get in his lot the usual proportion of large ones. All he needs and will need for several months, perhaps, will be the smaller run of sizes. Now, the salesman on the spot and the merchant know just what should be ordered, and if the house kicks on the salesman on this point, as did this house, they act absurdly.

Not only do too many houses write kicking letters to their men on the road, but fail to show the proper appreciation for their salesmen's efforts to get good results. When a salesman has done good work and knows it, he loves to be told so, craves in the midst of his hard work a little word of good cheer. And the man handling salesmen who is wise enough to write a few words of encouragement and appreciation to his salesmen on the road, knows not how much these few words help them to succeed in greater measure. It is a mistake for the "Old Man" to feel that if he writes or says too many kind words to his salesmen, he will puff them up. This is the reason many refrain from giving words of encouragement. The man on the road, least of all men, is liable to get the swelled head. No one learns quicker than he that one pebble does not make a whole beach.

Another way in which a house can handle its salesmen badly is by not treating his trade right. Many firms that carry good strong lines persistently dog the customer after the goods have been shipped. Whenever a house abuses its customers it also does a wrong to its salesmen. I know of one firm, I will not say just where, that has had several men quit--and good salesmen, too--in the last two or three years, because this firm did not treat its salesmen's customers right. For this reason, and this reason only, the salesmen went to other firms, that knew how to handle them and their customers as men. With their new houses they are succeeding.

Too many heads of wholesale firms get "stuck on themselves" when they see orders rolling in to them. They fail to realize the hard work their salesmen do in getting these orders. I know of one firm that almost drove one of the best salesmen in the United States away from it for the reasons that I have given. They dogged him, they didn't write him a kind word, they badgered his trade, they thought they had him, hard and fast. Finally, however, he wrote to them that, contract or no contract, he was positively going to quit. Ah, and then you should have seen them bend the knee! This man traveled for a Saint Louis firm. His home was in Chicago, and when he came in home from his trip his house wrote him to come down immediately. He did not reply, but his wife wrote them--and don't you worry about the wives of traveling men not being up to snuff--that he had gone to New York. Next morning a member of the firm was in Chicago. He went at once to call upon their salesman's wife. He tried to jolly her along, but she was wise. He asked for her husband's address and she told him that the only address he had left was care of another wholesale firm in their line in New York,--she supposed he could reach her husband there. Then the Saint Louis man was wild. He put the wires to working at once and telegraphed: "By no means make any contract anywhere until you see us. Won't you promise this? Letter coming care of Imperial."

Then he was sweet as pie to the salesman's wife, took her and her daughter to the matinee, a nice luncheon, and all that. In a few days the salesman I speak of went down to Saint Louis. The members of his firm took off their hats to him and raised his salary a jump of $2,400 a year.

How much trouble they would have saved themselves, and how much better feeling there would have been if they had only handled this man right in the beginning!

There are some heads of firms, however, who do know how to handle their salesmen. One of the very best men in the United States is head of a wholesale hardware firm. He has on the road more than a hundred men and they all fairly worship him. I remember many years ago seeing a letter that he had written to the boys on the road for him. He had been fishing and made a good catch. He sent them all photographs of himself and his big fish and told the boys that they mustn't work too hard, that they were all doing first rate, and that if they ever got where there was a chance to skin him at fishing, to take a day off and that he would give prizes to the men who would out-catch him. This is just a sample of the way in which he handles his men. Occasionally he writes a general letter to his men, cheering them along. He never loses a good man and has one of the best forces of salesmen in America. They have made his success and he knows it and appreciates it.

Another head of a firm who handles his salesmen well is in the wholesale shoe business. Twice each year he calls all of his salesmen together when he is marking samples. He asks them their opinion about this thing or that thing and listens to what his men have to say. He has built up the largest shoe business in the United States. After the marking of samples is all over, he gives a banquet to his men and has each one of them make a little speech. He himself addresses them, and when they leave the table there is a cordial feeling between the head of the house and his traveling men.

He also puts wonderful enthusiasm into his men. Here are some of his mottoes: "Enthusiasm is our great staple," "Get results," "No slow steppers wanted around this house," "If this business is not your business, send in your trunks," "All at it, always at it, brings success." He has taught his salesmen a college yell which runs like this: "Keep-the-qual-ity-up." Only a few years ago the watchword of this house was: "Watch us--Five millions" (a year). Now it is: "A million a month," and by their methods they will soon be there.

This same man has the keenest appreciation of the value of a road experience. Some time ago he was in need of an advertising manager. If he had followed the usual practice he would have gone outside the house and hired a professional "ad manager." But he had a notion that the man who knew enough about salesmanship and about his special goods to sell them on the road could "make sentiment" for those same goods by the use of printers' ink. Therefore he put one of his crack salesmen into the position and now pays him $6,000 a year. And the man has made good in great shape.

Nor does he stop with promoting men from the ranks of his organization. If a salesman in his house makes a good showing, he fastens him to the firm still tighter by selling to him shares of good dividend-paying stock.

He knows one thing that too few men in business do know: That a man can best help himself by helping others!

[The end]
Charles N. Crewdson's short story: Hiring And Handling Salesmen

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