The Art of 
 Business Getting 
 
 By the Experts 
 
 OF 
 
 The Business Man's Magazine 
 and The Book-Keeper 
 
 PUBLISHED BY 
 
 The Book-Keeper Publishing Co., Ltd. 
 
 DETROIT, MICH., U. S. A. 
 
. "50. It 
 
 Entered According to Act of Congress 
 in the year 1904, by 
 
 THE BOOK-KEEPER PUBLISHING CO., Lm 
 
 DETROIT, MICHIGAN 
 
 in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, 
 
 All rights reserved. 
 

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 The Art of Business Getting 
 
 An Essay on the Elements of Successsful Selling 
 
 B USINESS consists of the operations of buying and 
 selling. Sometimes the article or articles pur¬ 
 chased are sold in just the same form as that in 
 which they are received. Sometimes the form is changed 
 by manufacture. Sometimes possession is gained by pay¬ 
 ment of money, sometimes by barter, and sometimes by 
 personal effort. In any case, it is a purchase just the 
 same. 
 
 To succeed in business, we must make a profit; that is, 
 we must get for our wares more than we paid for them. 
 Very often one in business must choose between a large 
 volume of business at a small margin of profit, and a 
 small volume of business at a large margin of profit. 
 Circumstances surrounding each individual case must de¬ 
 termine the decision in regard to your course in this con¬ 
 nection. 
 
 The art of getting business may be easily divided into 
 two parts—business getting as the first part, and keeping 
 it as the second. It will be conceded that it ought—all 
 things else being equal—to be easier to sell goods to an 
 old customer than to one who has had no dealings with 
 you or your concern. When you strike a case where it 
 is not easier, you may confidently look for the reason in 
 the fact that the seller did not know how to keep his 
 trade when he had it. 
 
 118230 
 
4 
 
 BUSINESS GETTING. 
 
 Getting Business. 
 
 Success in business demands these four things first as 
 requisites: 
 
 A good buyer. 
 
 A good market 
 
 A good article to sell. 
 
 A good salesman (or saleswoman). 
 
 No matter whether the business be a large or small 
 one; no matter where its location; no matter what the 
 nature of the merchandise dealt in, these four points are 
 of the utmost importance. 
 
 A Good Buyer. 
 
 An adage, so old as to command respect for its age at 
 least, tells us that “goods well bought are half sold.” Per¬ 
 haps this is a little overdrawn, but it holds, nevertheless, 
 a great deal of truth. Competition is with us and must 
 be reckoned with. We hear much of the monopoly. Few 
 of us have any knowledge of a real monopoly. When a 
 seeming monopoly exists it will usually be found that it 
 does exist simply because the so-called monopolist has 
 placed himself in a position to furnish more or better 
 goods, in a certain line, for a given amount of money 
 than others in the same line. Usually he does this 
 through superior facilities gained by superior foresight. 
 There are “just as good fish in the sea as ever were 
 caught,” and just as great are the opportunities of today 
 as those of yesterday or yester-year. 
 
 Competition is still with us. An old warrior once said 
 that superior generalship consisted of “gittin’ thar fustest 
 with the mostest men.” The same thing is true in busi¬ 
 ness. You must get there first. The first strawberries 
 on the market bring fancy prices. The novelties of this 
 
BUSINESS GETTING. 
 
 5 
 
 year sell at a profit of 50 per cent. Next year they are 
 staples at a profit of five per cent. Next year or next 
 month (or perhaps tomorrow) they are “back numbers ,, 
 at a profit of “minus one hundred,” more or less. Who 
 wants Christmas trees on the Fourth of July? Here is 
 where the good buyer comes in. The good buyer may be 
 a man or woman, but in either case the qualities are the 
 same. We’ll call the buyer “he” for the sake of con¬ 
 venience. (Why don’t someone invent a personal pro¬ 
 noun which can be used in cases like this. We can’t 
 call our buyer “it.”) 
 
 The good buyer gets there first with seasonable goods, 
 just on time (too early is as bad as too late). When our 
 competitor gets new goods which take our trade away 
 from us, who is to blame? The buyer. Who’s to blame 
 when the season ends and finds us with an over-supply? 
 The buyer. It is hard to say who is the most important 
 man in the business, but when the final analysis of the 
 most important position is made the buyer will be “there 
 or thereabouts,” as the sailors say. Now, don’t make a 
 mistake. Don’t say that your business is too small to 
 have these facts apply. Don’t say that they do not apply 
 just because you are buyer and salesman, too. They do 
 apply just the same. The good buyer will have an in¬ 
 telligent appreciation of the possibilities of every article 
 he purchases. If he does not he is not a good buyer. 
 
 You can probably find many a grocer who cannot tell 
 you whether the figs he sells you come from Italy or 
 Turkey—and you can bet he’s not much of a success, 
 either. He never got anywhere first. Where your goods 
 come from; when they first come on the market; when 
 the best time is to buy, are important points which the 
 
6 
 
 BUSINESS GETTING. 
 
 good buyer appreciates and does not overlook. The good 
 buyer always has time to listen to a man who has some¬ 
 thing to sell. If the salesman has more knowledge of 
 the goods than the good buyer has, the buyer has a 
 chance to learn something. A chance to learn something 
 should not be lightly passed by. Surplus information is 
 a valuable asset and is easy to carry around. It costs 
 nothing for storage or insurance and is easily turned 
 into money. 
 
 The good buyer cannot know it all—he won’t try. This 
 being the case, he will frequently be compelled to buy 
 something which he knows nothing about. His best plan 
 in a case of this kind is to simply confess ignorance. Let 
 him go to some source of supply in which he has confi¬ 
 dence and simply say: “I want so much—don’t know 
 anything about ruling values, but I want it at the right 
 price.” 
 
 It’s ten chances to one that he’ll get it at the right price. 
 If he don’t he’ll find it out later. Then it’s time to have 
 an accounting with the one who sold it—and incidentally 
 sold him at the same time. It don’t pay for the seller 
 to take advantage in this way, and as a consequence he 
 seldom does. It pays to be smart, but it never pays to be 
 too smart. 
 
 The good buyer will make mistakes—everybody does. 
 When he makes a mistake and buys the wrong goods let 
 him “own up”—to the management if he is responsible 
 to a manager or to himself if he is “his own boss.” Next 
 let him make arrangements to dispose of the unseason¬ 
 able, otherwise slow selling article at once. Once in a 
 while it may pay to hang on in hopes that circumstances 
 will change, but usually it will not pay. If “goods well 
 
BUSINESS GETTING. 
 
 7 
 
 bought are half sold,” then goods badly bought are better 
 sold at once—and at almost any price. 
 
 A Good Market. 
 
 In some lines of business you must go where your 
 market is. In others you must bring your market to you. 
 All we need to know is that sales are possible to a suffi¬ 
 cient amount to make the business profitable. That point 
 settled, it is “up to” the salesman or sales manager to 
 make the sales. One thing should be settled at once: 
 Is our location the correct one or not? If not, the sooner 
 we change it, the better. Many a failure has been 
 changed to success by a judicious change of location at 
 just the right time. 
 
 A Good Article to Sell. 
 
 Being in business, you must perforce sell the line of 
 goods commonly sold in that line of trade. To sell a good 
 article does not necessarily mean that you must sell the 
 best or highest priced article in any given line. On the 
 contrary, it may mean the cheapest. You would not do 
 much business trying to sell diamonds or automobiles to 
 a community of day laborers. A “good article” means 
 just what your trade wants at a price which they are 
 able and willing to pay. Do not make the mistake of 
 supposing that people in moderate circumstances will not 
 pay a fair price for a good article. They will. Some¬ 
 times you must educate them into the idea that they want 
 the good article and can afford it, but it will pay you to 
 play the part of educator in this direction if you are suc¬ 
 cessful. That part of the business lies with the salesman. 
 A Good Salesman. 
 
 All the foregoing is but a prelude to the real art of get¬ 
 ting business, but a very necessary prelude, nevertheless. 
 
8 
 
 BUSINESS GETTING. 
 
 Selling goods is simply the art of finding out what your 
 customer wants and then supplying the want. Some 
 people have the art or knack of finding out what is 
 wanted before the customer finds it out himself—such 
 people are always successful. Of course it won’t do to 
 force your goods upon a customer. Even if you can suc¬ 
 ceed in making a sale you won’t make a customer—and 
 we cannot consider any sale a success which does not 
 make it easier to sell the same thing a second time, or 
 at least, to sell to the same customer another time. 
 
 Selling goods must necessarily be done in one of two 
 ways—either by personal contact or through correspond¬ 
 ence. These two plans have many variations. Selling 
 goods by personal contact runs all the way from the 
 “pack peddler” to the big jobbing house with its scores 
 and perhaps hundreds of salesmen. The proposition is 
 much the same in either case. We will leave out of con¬ 
 sideration the staple trade so far as regular lines are con¬ 
 cerned. When the article sold is so commonly used that 
 the buyer can take his choice of a score of possible 
 sources of supply, it becomes simply a question of price,, 
 When the price is uniform in all available markets—and 
 it very frequently is nowadays—friendship often deter¬ 
 mines where the order shall go. Perhaps it would be 
 nearer right to say “usually.” We used to hear it said 
 that “there is no friendship in business.” That is a plain, 
 unvarnished lie—and a very silly one. Any old salesman 
 will deny it and can refute it in a minute. For the sake 
 of convenience we will consider the various factors in 
 selling, separately. 
 
 The House. 
 
 We will admit to begin with that we are not here “for 
 
BUSINESS GETTING. 
 
 9 
 
 our health.” We are in trade for what we can get out 
 of it. Of course, we are respectable and reputable. We 
 would not hit a man over the head and take his money 
 away from him before he woke up, even if we could. We 
 want to make money, however, and it simply comes to a 
 question of selling as much as we can at the best price 
 we can get. Competition will very largely dictate our 
 prices. To put up our price will cut down our sales, so 
 we must be content to get a very limited margin of profit 
 —unless we can get up a “combination.” When we can 
 “get together” with our competitors and agree upon a 
 minimum price, we usually put that price at the point 
 once described by a railroad official as “all the traffic will 
 stand.” Having done this, and being sure that no one 
 can sell at a figure below our own, it behooves us to 
 show the buyer other reasons for trading with us than 
 the price question. As a matter of fact, we must do this 
 anyway. 
 
 A good many people are willing to pay a trifle more 
 for the sake of buying goods where they like to buy. The 
 unpopular house must offer special inducements—must 
 sell goods a great deal cheaper than the popular one. The 
 first precept will always be—“treat your customer right.” 
 Of course he is unreasonable—he pays for the privilege. 
 Many a time he will write you a tart, “sassy” letter which 
 will make you yearn to get back at him and tell him just 
 what sort of an animal you think he is. Don’t do it. It 
 won’t do any good. Write the letter, if you must. It will 
 relieve your feelings. Don’t mail it at once. Leave it 
 over until next day—and then tear it up. If his com¬ 
 plaint is just, own up and make what reparation you can. 
 Very likely it is unjust. In this case you can very prob- 
 
10 
 
 BUSINESS GETTING. 
 
 ably write him a nice letter which will make him ashamed 
 of himself. Quite often he will tell you so. Always be 
 conciliatory, but never be servile. You might better lose 
 him as a customer than to let him get the idea that he has 
 only to make a claim to get it allowed. He would become 
 such a nuisance that he would bother you and your sales¬ 
 men beyond endurance. Besides this, such a customer 
 demoralizes both your trade and your salesmen. 
 
 Prompt Riling of orders goes a long way toward making 
 and keeping friends. When you cannot fill your orders 
 promptly you should tell the truth about it. It is utterly 
 useless to lie. What good do you expect to accomplish 
 by telling your customer that you will have a certain line 
 on the first when you know very well that you cannot 
 possibly have the goods until the fifteenth? It simply 
 makes it necessary to lie once more the next time youf 
 customer writes you about it. 
 
 When a shipment is to be delayed, always write or tell 
 your customer about it. Get in your explanation first. 
 It comes with much better grace than to wait until the 
 customer kicks. If you promised a shipment on the first, 
 and could not ship until the fifth, you should have sent a 
 prompt advice just as soon as you found that you were 
 not going to be able to keep your word. 
 
 Of course, you expected to do as you promised. Of 
 course, you thought the goods would be along “tomor¬ 
 row.” Presently the customer writes in asking about the 
 shipment. You or your correspondent writes a very nice 
 letter expressing much surprise that the goods were not 
 received. “Didn’t you get ’em? We’ll see about it right 
 away.” When you do this you are putting down a lying 
 foundation for a structure of lies. Sooner or later you’ll 
 
BUSINESS GETTING. 
 
 11 
 
 get caught. That will be very embarrassing. Worse 
 than the embarrassment will be the consequent loss of 
 irade. When your customer once “catches you at it” you 
 can never again get his entire confidence. 
 
 All this applies just the same, no matter what line of 
 trade you are in or how large your establishment. The 
 jobber should use the same rules of conduct in handling 
 his trade as the man who keeps a little corner grocery. 
 
 When your customer gives you an order and wants 
 absolutely impossible conditions as to delivery, it is a 
 great deal better to lose that particular order by frankly 
 admitting that you cannot meet the conditions than to 
 make promises. When you “fall down” (as you surely 
 will) the chances are that you lose the customer alto¬ 
 gether. It is a great deal of trouble to train your clerks 
 to be entirely truthful, but it can be done. Don’t let any¬ 
 one tell you that it is impossible, for that is not true. To 
 use your customer right first, last and all the time is one 
 of the secrets of a permanent and abiding success. Tell 
 your clerks that a “square deal” goes, and let them see 
 that it is so and that you mean it by giving them a taste 
 of square dealing. This does not mean that you must 
 raise their wages every fifteen minutes, or, as “Josiah 
 Bounderby” was wont to say: “Feed them turtle soup 
 and venison out of a gold spoon.” It simply means a 
 little consideration on your part for their unquestioned 
 rights. Do it, and you will gain an asset of real value. 
 You will be surprised at the increase in value in a really 
 satisfied and contented set of employes, be it two or two 
 thousand. 
 
 Advertising. 
 
 To sell goods you must let possible purchasers know 
 
12 
 
 BUSINESS GETTING. 
 
 that you have the goods for sale. Any way of letting 
 this fact gain publicity is advertising. What they are 
 pleased to call the “ethics of the profession” prevents the 
 doctor and the lawyer from purchasing advertising out¬ 
 right—but they advertise just the same. Church mem¬ 
 bership—lodge membership—society—politics—philanthro¬ 
 py. All these are used to great advantage. The news 
 columns of the local press are not overlooked. All 
 these are more or less legitimate. Shall we let the “chil¬ 
 dren of Belial be wiser than the children of Light”? 
 Any way you can think of to get your name, your busi¬ 
 ness and your wares before a possible or prospective pur¬ 
 chaser is worth your careful consideration. 
 
 Any form of advertising costs money, so a careful con¬ 
 sideration of ways and means is very necessary. It is 
 not a question of actual cost—it is a question of actual 
 returns. What will it get in the way of increased busi¬ 
 ness and increased profit? That is the real question. 
 What will it cost? is a secondary question. Five dollars 
 spent in a form of advertising which does not bring re¬ 
 turns is five dollars thrown away. Five hundred dollars 
 spent in such a way that it will bring back five hundred 
 dollars in additional profit is five hundred dollars well 
 invested. All advertising has an actual value in excess 
 of the real immediate returns in dollars and cents. Just 
 how much this is worth is the question for you to con¬ 
 sider seriously. The most humble enterprise must adver¬ 
 tise in some way. The sign, 
 
 : THIS HOUS : 
 
 : FORE SAIL. 
 
 is advertising—of a sort. What might be termed the 
 
BUSINESS GETTING. 
 
 13 
 
 “stone age” of advertising is illustrated in the cut, which, 
 by the way, was “taken from life”: 
 
 The “Stone Age” of Advertising. 
 
 Advertising usually means printed matter in some 
 form. Do not make the mistake of investing your good 
 money in poor or cheap appearing printed matter of any 
 sort. Your printed matter represents you. Let it be a 
 fitting representative. The poorest economy you can 
 practice will be to save a few dollars on your printed mat¬ 
 ter by letting a cheap printer put it upon cheap paper. If 
 it is a possible thing, you should get the advice of some¬ 
 one who really understands advertising. Pay for the 
 advice. It will be well worth the outlay in increased re¬ 
 sults. 
 
 The Salesman. 
 
 Dr. Orison Swett Marden in a recent issue of Success 
 says: “There will be no chance this year for: 
 
 The idler, 
 
 The leaner, 
 
 The coward. 
 
 The wobbler, 
 
 The ignorant. 
 
 The indifferent, 
 
 The unprepared, 
 
 The impractical theorist, 
 
 The slipshod and the careless, 
 
 The one who watches the clock. 
 
 The one who is afraid of obstacles, 
 
 The one who has no iron in his blood. 
 
 The one who is always running to catch up, 
 
 The one who wants to pick all the flowers and avoid the 
 thorns. 
 
14 
 
 BUSINESS GETTING. 
 
 Here is a good series of maxims for the salesman. He 
 is a hard worked man. The more successful he is the 
 harder worked he is. Hard work brings success, and suc¬ 
 cess breeds hard work. The salesman represents some¬ 
 one—himself or another. Let him be an adequate rep¬ 
 resentative. Good appearance counts for much. This 
 must not mean that the man must try to rival “Solomon 
 in all his glory.” Slovenliness is very bad. Extremes of 
 style are worse. Let him consider his customers and 
 dress in a fitting manner at all times. A silk hat and a 
 gold-headed cane would not go far to gain and keep the 
 confidence and respect of customers to whom he expects 
 to sell stock food or farm fencing. Neatness is impera¬ 
 tive at all times, but the one absolutely indispensable fac¬ 
 tor is work—hard work—constant work—and then more 
 work. Hard work will compensate for many other lacks. 
 No other qualification can permanently take its place. 
 There is a certain sort of man who is slangily described 
 as “Johnny-on-the-Spot.” He is the one who gets the 
 plums. He is the one who gets the cream and leaves the 
 “skim milk” for the other fellow. The hard worker is 
 not necessarily a plodder. In fact, he usually is not, but 
 it does not take him two days to do a day’s work. 
 
 The man “on the road” and the one “inside” are sub¬ 
 ject to just the same conditions. How many salesmen 
 and saleswomen have you seen who took more time in 
 making up their minds to do something than in doing 
 the thing itself? This means wasted time—“lost motion” 
 mechanics call it. Don’t waste your time. Put it where 
 it will do some good. When it is time to work—work. 
 When play-time comes it is time enough to play, but 
 don’t try to mix them. They won’t mix. A very muddy 
 result is produced when the experiment is tried. 
 
BUSINESS GETTING. 
 
 15 
 
 When you have a thing to do, do it at once. Don't put 
 it oft*. If possible, do the hardest and most disagreeable 
 thing first. It comes easier that way. If you succeed in 
 vonr hardest proposition you can look forward to an 
 easier one next time. If you fail—and failure will come 
 once in a while—you can console yourself with the hope 
 of success in the next trial because it is easier. 
 
 In any event, always do the most important thing first. 
 If anything must be neglected, let it be the comparatively 
 unimportant—but try to manage so that nothing will be 
 neglected. 
 
 Enthusiasm is another very valuable asset. Enthusiasm 
 comes from a thorough belief in yourself and your propo¬ 
 sition—whatever it may be. Enthusiasm is more con¬ 
 tagious than smallpox. To inspire your customer with 
 your own confidence in your proposition is half the battle. 
 If you do not believe in your own proposition get out of 
 it. Get another. To try to sell something you do not 
 believe in is to be nothing more or less than a confidence 
 man. Imagine yourself trying to sell life insurance while 
 your honest belief is that the world would come to an 
 end within six weeks. You could not make a sale. I met 
 a man not long ago who had a device which he was sell¬ 
 ing which looked to me like a “winner." I asked him 
 why he did not get out and sell it in large quantities. 
 “Why," said he, “Smith makes a machine which does the 
 same work which he sells for five dollars, while I ask 
 ten." "Why don't you sell for five?" I asked. “Because," 
 said he, “I cannot make it for less than five, and his is 
 just as good as mine, I guess. What would you do?" 
 “Get out of business," said I. “You have neither reason 
 nor excuse for asking anyone to buy of you. If you do, 
 
16 
 
 BUSINESS GETTING. 
 
 under these circumstances, your efforts are simply to ob¬ 
 tain charity. It is a case of 'please buy—I need the 
 money/ You are not reduced to asking charity, I take 
 it.” He quit—sold his good will to the other fellow, and 
 is now successful on another proposition. 
 
 When you ask a customer to buy your goo^s you must 
 have in your own mind a reason or a series of reasons 
 why your goods should be bought instead of others. Tell 
 your reasons. Tell them logically and clearly. When 
 you have completed your argument, stop. Many a sale 
 has been spoiled by a little inopportune talk after the 
 argument was really completed. Just when to stop is 
 one of the things you must learn—usually from expe¬ 
 rience. You must know, and know thoroughly, all the 
 weak spots in your own proposition, for of course it will 
 have some weak spots. Nothing is perfect. Know these 
 weak spots thoroughly, but keep them to yourself. Never 
 suggest them simply for the purpose of arguing them 
 away. Your customer will be very likely to point them 
 out. When he does, it will be time enough to argue them 
 away or to point out advantages which more than offset 
 them. 
 
 When your customer simply will not buy, you can usu¬ 
 ally get a reason. Ask him for it. Very possibly you 
 can combat it. Even if you cannot do so, you will at 
 least have the satisfaction of knowing why you could not 
 make a sale, and perhaps it will help you make a sale 
 elsewhere at some other time, to krtow his reasons. 
 
 Always remember that you cannot always make a sale. 
 You cannot do all the business there is to be done. If 
 you could, there would be none left for anyone else. Do 
 not let discouragement creep in. If you cannot succeed 
 
BUSINESS GETTING. 
 
 17 
 
 tliis time make up your mind that you will at the next 
 trial, and then simply keep on trying. When you cannot 
 do this you are about ready to get out of business alto¬ 
 gether. 
 
 One thing more. Never *ose sight of the fact that you 
 are working for the man who pays you your salary. It 
 is easy to fall into the error of looking at things from 
 the customer’s viewpoint, but you must not do it. A man 
 “on the road,” or a man or woman behind the counter, is 
 naturally the buffer between the “house” and the cus¬ 
 tomer. Make right all which is not right, but do not as¬ 
 sume that the “house” is always wrong. Above all, don’t 
 “wash your dirty linen” in public. Do all your talking 
 against the house while you are in conversation with the 
 management. Outside let it be, “My country—right or 
 wrong.” 
 
 Selling by Mail. 
 
 Selling goods by mail consists of getting the name and 
 address of possible purchasers and then talking to them 
 on paper instead of in person. Names and addresses are 
 easily gotten. The directory is full of them. The ques¬ 
 tion is to get the names of people who are, or at least 
 who should be, interested in your article. That is a more 
 difficult matter. Advertising in newspapers and maga¬ 
 zines is the logical way to do this. Circulars have been 
 “worked to death.” A lot of circulars sent out to a mis¬ 
 cellaneous list of names will be found to produce very 
 meager results. The average person with money to 
 spend throws unsolicited circulars in the stove or the 
 waste basket. This is not guess-work or theory, but hard- 
 bought experience. If you do not think it is so, try it for 
 yourself. You will find that it is so unless you can get 
 
18 
 
 BUSINESS GETTING. 
 
 a list of names of people who are directly interested. If 
 you can do this you may be able to approach them in such 
 a way as to gain their attention; but even then it is hard. 
 Most people resent having a thing forced upon their no¬ 
 tice. 
 
 Magazine and newspaper advertising do not seem to 
 force themselves upon the possible purchaser. When a 
 man or woman answers an advertisement he or she does 
 so of their own free will, and thus imply at least a pos¬ 
 sible interest in the article advertised. A response to 
 your advertisement gives you a chance to assume the per¬ 
 sonal tone, and too much stress cannot be laid upon this 
 same matter of the personal element. Advertising space 
 costs money—much money. As a consequence, great care 
 must be taken not to waste it. As stated before, compe¬ 
 tent advice should be secured as to the best way in which 
 to advertise. A common error in advertising and advertis¬ 
 ing literature is the one spoken of above—too much talk. 
 In an advertisement you may be compelled to take a large 
 space in order to attract attention. For this purpose it 
 is sometimes wise to take much more space than you can 
 profitably fill with “talk.” To be of use an “ad” must be 
 read. Put too much in it and no one will read it. It 
 thus defeats its own purpose. Your “ad” must tell your 
 story to the public. Tell it, then, as clearly, pointedly and 
 concisely as possible. It must be attractive and catchy— 
 that goes without saying. When your story is told, stop. 
 Do not fall into the error of adding more words just be¬ 
 cause you have room to crowd them into. It is a fatal 
 mistake. 
 
 Having secured your possible purchaser, your task is 
 just the same as that of making a sale under any ordi- 
 
BUSINESS GETTING. 
 
 19 
 
 nary condition—only you must put your arguments on 
 paper. Present your arguments fully and clearly, but 
 always be as brief as possible. Your personality might 
 hold your possible purchaser if you were face to face, 
 but no such advantage is yours when selling by mail. 
 
 A good way to construct your letter is to set down on 
 paper all you would say in a personal interview. Then 
 “boil it down” to the length of a letter. Facts which 
 apply to every case may well be embodied in a circular 
 or booklet and special points or paragraphs may be re¬ 
 ferred to in your letters, bor instance: We will sup¬ 
 pose that your product is a washing machine. That will 
 do for an illustration as well as anything else. 
 
 Your circular or booklet will tell all about the device. 
 It should leave little to be said as a matter of fact. The 
 trouble will be that the reader will skip through it cas¬ 
 ually as a general thing. No particular force will be 
 felt. Your letter must supply the emphasis. In your let¬ 
 ter you can refer briefly to the various points of advan¬ 
 tage and superiority* making the references terse enough 
 to be read carefully and interesting enough to insure a 
 reference to the special paragraphs or pages mentioned. 
 
 By following this plan you can write your letters in a 
 sort of series, and thus get more than one chance to 
 argue with your possible purchaser. In writing letters 
 of this sort your own enthusiasm and conviction will be 
 just as great a factor in success as in a face-to-face argu¬ 
 ment. 
 
 Remember what has been said about your printed mat¬ 
 ter. Issue good printed matter or none at all. Remem¬ 
 ber that all your possible purchaser will know of you is 
 to be gathered from an inspection of your printed matter 
 
20 
 
 BUSINESS GETTING. 
 
 and letters. Let the impression be a good one. It may 
 very well mean the difference between a sale and no sale. 
 You cannot afford to run the risk. 
 
 Some of the things said here you have undoubtedly 
 heard before. We do not intend to lay claim to any sort 
 of a monopoly of ideas, or even to claim that these were 
 all evolved from our inner consciousness. They are sim¬ 
 ply a few deductions drawn from experience—nothing 
 more. 
 
 The Argumentative Clerk. 
 
 There is no man that I cordially dislike more than the 
 argumentative clerk, he who always knows better than 
 you what you want, who understands merchandise much 
 better than you and insists on reminding you of that fact. 
 
 I watched one the other day. “My dear man,” he was 
 saying to a customer that did not think a pair of gloves 
 fitted him; “I know more about gloves than you do.” 
 
 One of the largest shoe concerns in this country is 
 hurting its own trade considerably by the policy of always 
 selling a pair of shoes whether they fit or not, whether 
 they are the style wanted or something very different. 
 Their clerks are instructed from headquarters to make a 
 sale at all costs, to persuade and argue with customers 
 until they get the cash. They dissatisfy a great many 
 that they succeed in selling to, and offend a great many 
 who refuse to be deceived. 
 
 The clerk and the customer do not stand on equal 
 terms. The clerk is in his place to please the customer, 
 to serve him properly and to have respect for his views 
 and even his whims—to make purchasing a distinct pleas¬ 
 ure rather than a disagreeable task. 
 
BUSINESS GETTING. 
 
 21 
 
 The Windy Humbug of the Sales Force. 
 
 The following taken from an exchange is so true of a 
 type of salesman with whom many houses are inflicted, 
 and by whom many managers are fooled, that it deserves 
 careful reading by managers everywhere. 
 
 “The windy, half-truth teller is another disreputable mem¬ 
 ber of his profession. The probability is that he really thinks 
 himself a wonderful salesman, most likely refers to himself 
 as a cracker-jack, a world-beater, with years of experience, 
 and he does put up a bold front and he makes a good appear¬ 
 ance. To hear and believe his talk one would think he was 
 the most wonderful sales-artist who ever came up the pike: 
 he is full of his past great achievements and performances. 
 But if you analyze him and his deeds you discover under the 
 guise of an expert, a rank four-flusher. He has always, ac¬ 
 cording to his own story, never received less than $5,000 a 
 year and every concern between both oceans v/ants him now 
 —he is receiving the most flattering offers by every mail, and 
 it is the most difficult task in the world for him to avoid 
 taking a situation at $8,000 or $10,000 with unlimited expense 
 accounts thrown in. 
 
 “The subscription book selling field offers the best oppor¬ 
 tunity for this class, and they cast much undeserved discredit 
 upon the gentlemen in that line, who to' be permanently suc¬ 
 cessful, must have sterling character in their make-ups. Mr. 
 Fourflush has a certain ability, he is able to assume a virtue 
 if he has it not, and if he had a foundation of character, would, 
 in spite of his other disqualifications, answer the purpose. He 
 sees people once or twice, rarely as many as three times, and 
 he leaves many of his people with the impression that he has 
 merit, for the simple reason that the acquaintance had not 
 endured long enough to expose the four-flush. This humbug 
 has his counterpart in medicine, law and in the ministry, and 
 ordinary business callings. As a salesman he is full of theories 
 of salesmanship, but they never bear fruit. The house that 
 employs him at a salary of $900 to $1,200 instead of the $5,000 
 he talks so glibly about, will find that although he makes two 
 or three good plays, his year's work has little profit for the 
 
22 
 
 BUSINESS GETTING. 
 
 house, and that he would be less and less useful over the 
 same territory, for the better he is known the worse for his 
 employer. His ability is all on the surface and consists prin¬ 
 cipally of what he learns from others, for he will generally be 
 found to have the ability to adapt a portion of the ideas of 
 others to complete his own front; there is nothing back of the 
 front but arrant egotism and insufferable vanity, and these 
 are likely to be mingled with even worse qualities. He soon 
 receives and deserves the contempt of his acquaintances, and 
 his four-flush is surely called in time. Only those who do not 
 know him well labor under the mistaken impression that he 
 is an expert salesman. 
 
 “His manner of work is by partial truths, detached from 
 their actual associations and made to do duty in misrepre¬ 
 sentation by which he hopes to close the sale. If he is called 
 to account, there is the fragment of truth for him to hold up, 
 and he has some skill in side-stepping, and trusts to this to 
 avoid being cornered. His object is to get a signed order, 
 not to make a legitimate sale on business principles. He is 
 everlastingly butting in to the sales manager with schemes 
 which he figures out beautifully on paper. He is a great chap 
 to talk about hustling and action, and he is frantic to have a 
 lot of expense incurred for printing and other things, but the 
 schemes never work out, and the sales manager has had his 
 experience. 
 
 “Strange as it may seem, this humbug is rarely discharged. 
 His nature leads him to try something else, and he often con¬ 
 trives to get a good letter from his manager, for the reason 
 that the latter is so pleased with the outcome that he will do 
 almost anything. It is the same way at the next place, and 
 so on until the end of the chapter. While he is drawing money 
 from one employer he is willfully spending his time negotiat¬ 
 ing with the next.” 
 
 Protecting Home Trade. 
 
 There are various reasons why people go away from the 
 home town to trade. Let us look at some of them: 
 
 They wish a change. 
 
 They think ihey can buy more cheaply. 
 
BUSINESS GETTING. 
 
 23 
 
 They think they will find a greater assortment of goods. 
 
 There are ways to combat each and all of these ideas. 
 The first way is to make them wrong ideas. Sell at reason¬ 
 able prices. Keep up a good assortment of stock. Keep your 
 places in such shape that your customers will not want a 
 change. 
 
 The disease afflicting the stores in many small towns seems 
 to be “dry rot.” There is no reason why a store in a town of 
 five thousand inhabitants should not be as attractive, neat and 
 up-to-date as a store of the same size in the city of five hun¬ 
 dred thousand. Small stores are plentiful in large cities. This 
 proves conclusively that they can make money there—else 
 they would not exist. 
 
 It is easily seen that the expenses of a small store are 
 larger in the big city than in a small town. Rent is high, 
 cost of delivery is great, living expenses and incidentals are 
 much increased. It follows, then, that the same amount of 
 gross profit will leave a much greater margin of net income 
 to the merchant in the town than to the man in the big city. 
 This is cited merely to show that the man in the small town 
 can just as well afford to modernize his establishment as can 
 the city man. Because he has not done so is one reason why 
 his trade goes to the larger place. It may not be true that 
 the city store is a better place to trade, but it looks so and 
 the customer, therefore, thinks it is so. 
 
 A full and complete explanation of the reason why your 
 town trade goes to the city can be seen clearly when you go 
 to the city yourself and look at your city competitor’s store. 
 Can you meet his prices? Do so. Do your customers know 
 you can meet his prices? Let them know it. Tell them about 
 it. Do as he does. Use the same means that he uses—Ad¬ 
 vertise. Two to one none of you give proper weight to the 
 value of local advertising, or proper support to your local 
 paper or papers. Do your customers read the local paper? 
 Let them see your “ad” there and in the ad, tell them some¬ 
 thing. 
 
 Does your city competitor attract trade with an occasional 
 offering of novelties at low prices? Do you the same. That’s 
 one of the things your customer goes to your competitor after. 
 
24 
 
 BUSINESS GETTING. 
 
 It’s your own fault. Give your customers what they want 
 and find out what they want before they find it out themselves. 
 That way lies success. You should wake up. You evidently 
 are in the habit of standing behind your showcase and hand¬ 
 ing out to your trade just what they call for. That’s all right, 
 so far as it goes, but the same sort of service is rendered by 
 a slot machine. 
 
 What you want to do is to change their minds for them. 
 They like it. It’s what they go to the city for. Your asso¬ 
 ciation is all right. It has a broad field of usefulness. But 
 it cannot work out the salvation of your individual members. 
 The man who cannot wake up will pass gently from sleep to 
 oblivion and you will have to let him pass. 
 
 In conclusion: Buy often, but not too much at a time. 
 Buy your own goods. Go to the trading centers at least three 
 times a year to do it. When you do this you get goods at 
 reasonable prices and you get ideas for nothing. Last of all— 
 stay awake. 
 
 Close Buying and Close Selling. 
 
 A hardware manufacturer, writing in a recent issue 
 of The Iron Age, makes some rather caustic and 
 pithy comments on the average hardware deal¬ 
 er’s style of buying goods. In part he has this to say: “I 
 know, from 15 years’ experience selling the retail hardware 
 dealers, that not one in twenty is a good all-round buyer. 
 The majority are mighty poor advertisers; do not keep 
 their stores attractive or up-to-date; many with dirty 
 windows and mixed up stock; do not know the merits of 
 their wares, and if a catalog house customer comes into 
 their store, throw rocks at him, until he gets his neighbors 
 to club with him and send away for goods.” 
 
 The present writer confesses to a certain lack of sym¬ 
 pathy for the retailer who complains about catalog house 
 competition. The retailer who says he cannot meet the 
 prices of the catalog house shows that he is a poor buyer, 
 
BUSINESS GETTING. 
 
 25 
 
 and what is more, a worse seller. The average retailer 
 gets in the habit of dealing with one house, because that 
 house will carry him on long credits, with the natural con¬ 
 sequence that the jobber charges a proportionate increase 
 of profits to insure the extraordinary risk in the credit 
 line; and the retailer, in order to make even a living, has 
 to charge an additional profit over this cost, and therefore 
 he is placed entirely out of the possibility of competing 
 with the catalog house, which in the majority of cases 
 buys for cash, or at least discounts its bills—buys close, 
 sells quickly, for cash, and obtains a turn-over many times 
 quicker than the retailer. It seems to the writer, there¬ 
 fore, that one of the great difficulties with the retailer in 
 meeting catalog competition, lies in the fact that he is 
 endeavoring to make trade follow him, instead of follow¬ 
 ing the trade. 
 
 Keep Stock Moving. 
 
 We believe as a matter of convenience that our 
 merchant has placed on his desk every day a state¬ 
 ment of the day’s sales. He is very much pleased to 
 note that the amount of sales increase each day. At 
 the end of six months or a year, if he be the ordinary 
 manager, when his inventory period comes he is absolutely 
 dumbfounded to find that he has some stock on hand this 
 year that he had last year, and he cannot account for it. 
 The whole trouble has been that he did not keep his stock 
 moving. Last year some slick salesman got him to take a 
 manicure set that cost him $6 or $7. It was displayed 
 through the Christmas season, but nobody seems to care 
 for it. The department had priced it down to cost, and 
 still nobody took it, and with a sigh he put it away under 
 the counter or in the stock room to bring it out again this 
 Christmas. The inventory shows that the beautiful giddy 
 
26 
 
 BUSINESS GETTING. 
 
 petticoat creation that cost $11 nobody wanted at $5, be¬ 
 cause they belong to the vintage of 36 months ago. The 
 first requisite for free cure for this state of affairs is to 
 have perpetual inventory that will give the size of the 
 stock each month. Keep the stock in sight, for when you 
 have it before your eyes constantly you will not be tempted 
 to forget it and don’t be induced to buy luxuries that you 
 know your people have not money to purchase. 
 
H ERE are short cuts in figures, calculations, ac¬ 
 counting, advertising, correspondence, book¬ 
 keeping, filing, credits, collections, selling meth¬ 
 ods, and more—all of them new and all of them good. 
 These methods are practical in daily use by experts 
 who charge $25 to $100 a day for their services. 
 
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