The goose that had twirled so long before the pine
log blaze was now put before us. The Spanish
Senor with his violin started the program, and our
tales for the evening were at an end.
HIRING AND HANDLING SALESMEN.
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,
