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!
CHAPTER XVIII.
HEARTS BEHIND THE ORDER BOOK.
With all of his power of enduring disappointment and
changing a shadow to a spot of sunshine, there yet
come days of loneliness into the life of the commercial
traveler—days when he cannot and will not
break the spell. There is a sweet enchantment,
anyway, about melancholy; ’tis then that the
heart yearns for what it knows awaits it. Perhaps
the wayfarer has missed his mail; perhaps the wife
whom he has not seen for many weeks, writes him now
that she suffers because of their separation and how
she longs for his return.
I sat one day in a big red rocking chair in the Knutsford
Hotel, in Salt Lake. I had been away from home
for nearly three months. It was drawing near
the end of the season. The bell boys sat with
folded hands upon their bench; the telegraph instrument
had ceased clicking; the typewriter was still.
The only sound heard was the dripping of the water
at the drinking fount. The season’s rush
was over. Nothing moved across the floor except
the shadows chasing away the sunshine which streamed
at times through the skylight. Half a dozen other
wanderers— all disconsolate—sat
facing the big palm in the center of the room.
No one spoke a word. Perhaps we were all turning
the blue curls of smoke that floated up from our cigars
into visions of home.
